Champions League 2021/22 - Another Magic night in Madrid from the Kings of Europe

[Julio_Geordio]

Pep could have done with one of them old fashioned strikers at the end there

[Cheasty]

https://c.tenor.com/QEemaONu2ikAAAAd/mad-broke.gif(image larger than 3.91 MB)

[TheUlteriorMotive]

A spoofer. A charlatan Bill.

[myboyblue]

@Julio_Geordio

Pep could have done with one of them old fashioned strikers at the end there

He should have considered this like Stuey did back in the day

[Iggy]

Hazard there the worlds most expensive mascot.

[tazdedub]

@TheUlteriorMotive

A spoofer. A charlatan Bill.

I remember a time Folks on here would say that about Klopp.

[myboyblue]

Jack Grealish

[Julio_Geordio]

@Iggy

Hazard there the worlds most expensive mascot.

Second most expensive after Bale surely?

[Julio_Geordio]

Ancellotti has some record lads

[Juhniallio]

@Julio_Geordio

Pep could have done with one of them old fashioned strikers at the end there

Or indeed any striker. It’s insane. How often does he need to see his teams bottle it in europe?

[FlakeAway]

football that didn’t go according to plan

[PasqualePaoli]

Do you think he was cheering them on?

[Arthur]

Falling perfectly for the quadruple chasers. City will be bolloxed physically and mentally, walker out, kdb not fit, Chelsea going bust before cup final and Madrid have surely used up their nine lives.

[artfoley]

@Arthur

Falling perfectly for the quadruple chasers. City will be bolloxed physically and mentally, walker out, kdb not fit, Chelsea going bust before cup final and Madrid have surely used up their nine lives.

Lord dour of Ferg will surely expire if we do it

[Julio_Geordio]

Konate will have Benzema on toast.

The Liverpool front three will rinse them lads.

[PasqualePaoli]

Dismiss Madrid at your peril, they have the league won and a similar focus from here in out

[Iggy]

Forgot all about Bale!

[Cheasty]

I maintain that this has largely been proved correct.

Klopp encourages personality. Guardiola does not. Once the second Madrid goal went in, Manchester City were beaten. In truth they did well to take it to extra time.

The last Guardiola team that lost to a genuinely superior opponent in the Champions League knockout rounds was 2015 against Barcelona. Each of the seven teams that has knocked out a Guardiola team since then would have finished way behind the Guardiola team in a league.

@Sidney

Looking at that City team, it’s very light on what one would call “leaders”.

Vincent Kompany remains the real leader of the team, but he’s not playing an awful lot these days. De Bruyne is obviously the other big player they look to for on field leadership.

After that, in terms of leadership you’re talking about Delph, and he’s shit. On the face of it, Liverpool look to have a much more traditional dressing room eco-system, as it were, with several really big characters and leaders there - van Dijk, Milner, Henderson, Alisson etc, but Lovren, Robertson, Alexander-Arnold, Firmino, Wijnaldum and even Lallana seem much better characters with their own distinct personalities than most of the City players. The Ox is injured but he’s another one. The Liverpool dressing room just seems a much happier place with a much better mix where players are allowed to express their individual personalities in a way that City don’t appear to be able to do.

It seems to be a thing with Guardiola teams that despite being able to win the majority of their games pretty easily, when an opponent really puts it up to them, they can often fold.

Is it that the focus on system he plays is so all consuming that when things start going against them, they’re so enslaved to the system that they can’t think on their feet?

Comebacks by Guardiola teams have been few and far between. Now, you may say that’s because they rarely go behind, but there’s undeniably a pattern there, especially in big European games.

I can think of four off the top of my head - Bayern Munich coming from 2-0 down to beat Juventus 4-2 in extra-time in the Champions League in 2016, Barcelona coming from 1-0 down to beat Real Madrid 3-1 in Madrid in 2011, the Chelsea game in 2009 when Iniesta scored at the end, and City recovering from trailing Monaco 2-0 and 3-1 to win 5-3 in the first leg of Champions League last 16 tie in 2017.

Against Monaco, they lost the second leg and went out of the competition, and they were very lucky against Chelsea in 2009 in a match they should have lost.

But I think of a lot more collapses and/or failures to turn things round when Guardiola teams went behind.

Inter 2010, at home against Madrid in the key Clasico in 2012, Bayern’s collapses against Madrid and Barcelona in 2014 and 2015, the loss to Atletico Madrid in 2016, City failing to Monaco in that second leg in 2017, the Liverpool collapse in the Champions League last April.

With City he has had a number of embarrassing collapses where teams scored at least three in quick succession against them - Chelsea and Leicester two seasons ago, Liverpool last January in the league, Manchester United in the league last April. There was a 4-0 defeat to Everton. Even in Barcelona’s games away to Arsenal in 2010 and 2011, they capitulated twice and let in two second half goals in each.

Guardiola teams are fantastic when they get control of a game, but they’re not great to dig results out.

[Julio_Geordio]

@Iggy

Forgot all about Bale!

They must have €700k a week minimum going out on lads who won’t kick a ball for them

[Little_Lord_Fauntleroy]

Mcmenamin is such a cunt