Image Source : AP Manchester City’s head coach Pep Guardiola reacts throughout the English Premier League soccer match between Arsenal and Manchester City on the Emirates stadium in London, England, Sunday, Feb. 21
It’s a decade since Pep Guardiola received the Champions League.
If that already feels an absurdly very long time for somebody broadly feted as the best lively soccer supervisor, contemplate that Guardiola hasn’t even reached the ultimate throughout these 10 years regardless of main the highest groups in Spain, Germany and England in that interval.
So, can his newest iteration at Manchester City — a relentless, record-shattering workforce closing in on one other English Premier League title — finish the wait?
Guardiola, at the very least in public, is making an attempt to not get caught up within the hype.
“It’s nothing special, nothing different,” Guardiola stated of the Champions League on Tuesday, a day earlier than City performs Borussia Moenchengladbach within the first leg of the spherical of 16.
Pushed repeatedly in regards to the significance of the Champions League — certainly, for instance, it’s greater than the English League Cup? — Guardiola used the identical outdated mantra, in a transparent try to take the stress off each him and City.
“We’re going to play the game tomorrow like we played the last games, and I would say the whole season in all competitions,” he stated. “Nothing particular. It’s a soccer recreation. Ninety minutes.
“We’re going to do a good game, to try to continue and get a good result, and afterward think about West Ham (in the Premier League), Saturday, 12:30. That’s the target. The same process mentally.”
It’s comprehensible why Guardiola is making an attempt to maintain a lid on expectations, contemplating the ache City has gone by means of trying to change into European champion for the primary time after years of heavy spending below its Abu Dhabi possession. Since the Spaniard arrived in 2016, City has been eradicated by Monaco within the final 16, Liverpool then Tottenham within the quarterfinals after which — maybe most disappointingly — Lyon in a one-legged quarterfinal final season.
Guardiola has been accused of overthinking his techniques for knockout video games, like when he modified formation to match Lyon’s in August — serving solely to undermine the strengths of his personal workforce as a result of he was preoccupied by a extra restricted opponent, at the very least on paper.
On Tuesday, Guardiola hinted that such overthinking is perhaps a factor of the previous.
“We are going to prepare the game like a normal game,” he stated. “We are going to deal with Moenchengladbach as a workforce like we now have executed in opposition to Arsenal, like in opposition to Liverpool, like Everton, like in opposition to Tottenham (in latest Premier League matches).
“We’re not going to change absolutely anything — little details to adapt a little what they are, but it’s not different to what we do most of the time in the Premier League.”
Giving additional hope that this lastly is perhaps Guardiola’s — and certainly City’s — season is a protection that was the tightest of all of the groups within the group stage, conceding only one aim in six video games, and proving virtually impenetrable domestically.
During a 13-match profitable run within the Premier League which has earned the workforce a 10-point lead with 13 video games remaining, City has let in simply three targets. It’s solely seven targets conceded in 25 video games in all competitions since City was final defeated on Nov. 21 — at Tottenham 2-0.
The offseason signing of Portugal middle again Ruben Dias from Benfica has been large, his influence being in comparison with that of Virgil van Dijk at Liverpool. Like Van Dijk, Dias — regardless of being simply 23 — is a pure chief and a relaxing affect to these round him.
Fellow middle again John Stones has clearly benefitted from the presence of Dias and is in the perfect type of his profession. Attacking full again Joao Cancelo has additionally been providing a brand new dimension to the workforce along with his place sense and creativity.
“It’s full credit to our manager,” City midfielder Ilkay Gundogan stated on Tuesday. “He adjusted the best issues on the proper time. He noticed that one thing was flawed, one thing was a bit lacking and adjusted a few issues when it comes to how we defend and the way we play with the ball.
“That’s why he is the best manager in the world. It’s incredible. I never thought, to be honest, in December about where we are now in February.”
Guardiola’s disappointing latest document within the Champions League stretches again to earlier than his time at City, when he was eradicated within the semifinals in all three seasons he coached Bayern Munich (2014-16).
Both of his Champions League titles got here with Barcelona, in 2009 and ’11.
