Pep Guardiola has built an impressive team through adaptation, but his city does not have the decisive influence of its three-time champions Barca
Real Madrid are European champions, but in that first half at the Etihad on Wednesday they were outplayed to an almost incomprehensible degree. All of Manchester City’s outfielder Rúben Dias had a chance; Madrid controlled one in total. The ferocity of City’s press was so disconcerting that Madrid made just thirteen passes in the first 15 minutes. The 2-0 in part-time and may have been only five. City played with such speed and precision, as opposed to a wonderful European champion, that the only proper reaction is fear.
However, in mid-January, when City lost to Manchester United at Old Trafford, he moderated to recommend that they were not one of Pep Guardiola’s most productive teams, that with United’s promotion, City can no longer take supremacy in Manchester for granted. Four months later, with only United and Internazionale between City and the treble moment in English football history, the tenth in all of Europe, such predictions seem a bit silly.
But they were valid at the time. City had just lost problems at home to Frank Lampard’s Everton. They had come off the Carabao Cup for a Southampton team controlled by Nathan Jones, Quadruple Denier. The following Thursday, City found themselves winning 2-0 at Tottenham at half-time. before coming back to win 4-2. Despite all their firepower, there was a defensive vulnerability unknown to them. That second-half comeback meant that at the halfway point of the season, City had 42 problems, having scored 50 and conceded 20, on track for their third-best goals scored under Guardiola, but their second-worst problems overall and worst goals run counter to the record.
The explanation of why was not difficult to identify. Guardiola, determined to counterattack, has privileged control, but Erling Haaland feeds on balls played temporarily forward. By going more directly to make the most of their pace, City have become more open. Finding the right balance proved tricky. Back in the Community Shield, when he only touched the ball 16 times, it was clear that Haaland was making damaging runs that weren’t being used.
At Old Trafford, Haaland touched the ball only 19 times; In City’s 2-0 win in last season’s match, Ilkay Gündogan recorded the fewest touches through any of his players with 66. It seemed like a significant incompatibility.
But you don’t have to be Harry Lime in The Third Man to believe that friction can be creative. Lionel Messi never fully adapted Guardiola’s formula at Barcelona, he was angry at the demands he insisted on and yet he was the ultimate vital player in one of the greatest. Groups of all times.
Haaland, likewise, is sand in the oyster. It’s the kind of fatal finalist City lacked: if necessary, they can now win games with a partial chance, whereas in the past they felt they had to dominate to succeed. More than anything, their length means groups can’t just sit deeply opposite to City, as, for example, Paris Saint-Germain did at the Parc des Princes last season, satisfied enough to allow City to throw deep crosses at Phil Foden; no one would threaten to do that opposite to Haaland.
Once balance was reached, City’s dominance was extraordinary. Since losing to Tottenham on February 5, City have played 23 games, leading for a total of 10 minutes. In, the truth is that a team that wins 11 games in a row is very difficult to stop.
Barring something totally unforeseen next week, City will win their fifth Premier League in six seasons. and Guardiola are tried. It wouldn’t be City’s most productive league season with Guardiola for things won, goals scored or goals conceded yet, even taking into account the understandable wrinkles while handling Haaland’s integration, none of those issues apart from the chance for a treble. For City, the Champions League remains the Holy Grail. Win that and, whatever happens in the FA Cup final against United, it would be Guardiola’s best season in England, the best season in Manchester City’s history.
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It’s harder to say how this compares to other big teams (even before the mandatory warnings about the source of City’s wealth and the 115 allegations of currency wrongdoing they face). When United won the treble in 1998-99, only fourth-place things did. and the first time an English team had been European champions in 14 years; It’s harder to win. Drama and novelty are elements in the structure of greatness, at least in terms of gaining more than respect; the same goes for the feeling of defying the odds, but it’s an elusive picture when, at least according to Deloitte’s most recent report on football funding, you’re the richest club in the world. about to win a treble in the opposite direction to United, with an ideal authority but almost without drama.
Would this town surpass Guardiola’s wonderful Barcelona?It is debatable, but that Barça arrived with the surprise of novelty, sweeping away the era of attrition, the years of José Mourinho, Rafa Benítez and Greece. City would be a progression of that, but despite all the changes, like John Stones coming into midfield, they are not as radical as Barca. Possibly they would do better, but they don’t make it new. And while City are still Guardiola’s team, they are not as natural an example of Guardiolism as, say, City 2017-18, let alone Barca 2010-11. The evolution meant a compromise, none greater than the incorporation of Haaland.
It would be this jump to the mainstream that finally brings City the European luck they have dreamed of, the one that finally provides Guardiola, one of the few truly revolutionary coaches, with their 3rd Champions League.
He’s an all-time marvel and arguably his most productive team. But City are still not loved.