Pep Guardiola He delivered 50 percent and left the 2021-22 league in England almost sentenced. Its reliable and aesthetic Manchester City beat granite Chelsea 1-0 with a sensational goal from Kevin DeBruyne.
It was first against second. By winning the first, the citizen team took a 13-point advantage and almost lowered the blind to the championship. It is usually the problem with Guardiola: with almost four and a half months to go in the championship, he already takes all the excitement out of the fight for the title. It ruins the tournaments. Guardiola has something of Ayrton Senna: as long as he can breathe, he goes first. Forever.
It may interest you: (Miguel Borja, goal hope for the National Team for the tie)
Chelsea can go dedicating itself to something else. The one who could get a little closer is Liverpool, which is 14 units down, although with two games less. The same, without trying to do journalism in advance, we will risk: this Premier does not escape Pep.
Although 16 games are missing (42 percent development). It is impossible to think that he will lose five or six games between now and the checkered flag. Or that it falls two or three times in a row. It seems unusual to imagine that a Guardiola team loses three or four in a row. Once it happened: in the 2014-2015 Bundesliga, directing Bayern Munich, he fell successively to Bayer Leverkusen, Augsburg and Freiburg, but he had already been champion by one field. The boys played with a mug of beer in hand.
It was a game of chess: the two teams know each other too well, Guardiola and Thomas Tuchel the same. The German coach had beaten the Spaniard in the European final (1-0) and the English Cup semi-final in mid-2021. Pep took a small revenge by defeating him twice in this league.
But they could meet again in the Champions League semifinals. Chelsea thinks they are inferior to City and always comes out to defend with five in the background plus two tanks in the middle (Kanté and Kovacic). And expect a counterattack, a stopped ball, a filtered pass. City never varies its scheme: always have the ball, dominate, search, touch and touch until the happy hole appears where to put the knife.
That gap appeared in the 69th minute: João Cancelo, perhaps the best full-back in the world today, because he also plays both flanks with equal efficiency, put in a beautiful pass to De Bruyne, the Belgian started in his style, devastating, Kanté sniffed the danger and tried to fell it, but Kevin held on like a Viking, followed and, from the edge of the area, nailed it next to a stick. Smart goal. If he had wanted to avoid Rudiger, he would not have succeeded. Going to brown is like climbing the Himalayas. It is a wall, a cyclopean defender. Of the same football dimension as Kanté.
Chelsea, no options
Chelsea did not finish off the goal in the 95 minutes and in that data their performance is summarized. It is difficult to play against Guardiola: his teams never leave you the ball. How to elaborate a play if one does not have the tool…? We are talking about the European champion, a formation that came with a defeat in fifteen games. He couldn’t kick the goal. And therein lies a huge portion of merit of the Catalan teams: not only do they show pleasant and offensive football, they also know how to take care of the house. City only conceded 13 goals in 22 games. He has twelve consecutive victories. It’s a Mercedes. One knows that, in addition to comfort and elegance, it will arrive. And facing the defining stretch of the season, the engine sounds like a violin.
It may interest you: (David Ospina: Naples does not give good news, the National Team is in suspense)
Guardiola crushes with numbers and with the game. His detractors are like they’ve already lowered their guard. Before they would have flooded Twitter shouting: “Of course, if he has all the stars…” But in his squad there are neither Messi nor Cristiano Ronaldo nor Mbappé nor Haaland nor Benzema nor Salah nor… “But he signed for hundreds of millions…” Yes, the same millions spent by Liverpool, Chelsea, Manchester United, Real Madrid, Barcelona… Only he makes them play better. “And why doesn’t he win the Champions League…?” He has won it, twice, and will surely do it again. And if he didn’t, what…? Is it less extraordinary for that…? If the only thing that matters is the World Cup and the Champions League, why are these championships played…?
Until 2008, City was a club with a tradition, although halfway down the table, even with a long list of relegations. He had only won two leagues. His glory was being Manchester United’s backyard rival, who had him under his soles. After the arrival of the Abu Dhabi Group, sovereign wealth fund of the United Arab Emirates, it became a world giant. He managed to cut the brutal hegemony of Alex Ferguson’s United. Now he beats him often and, if he takes this Olympic lap, there will be six Premier League out of eleven disputed. Plus two England Cups, 6 League Cups, a Champions League final. Lots of laurel. And if he doesn’t crown, at least he flirts with the girl to the door of his house.
But City is looking for more than a league, it wants to mark an era. The Swiss consulting firm KPMG has just released a report according to which, for the first time in history, Manchester City generated more revenue than Manchester United: 644 million euros against 557 for the Red Devils. It corresponds to the 2020-2021 cycle. Very commendable because United has been the club with the highest turnover for decades, or the second. And it is possible that in this 2021-2022 academic year the event will be repeated, even though City has fewer fans in England and far fewer in the rest of the world.
And when its stadium has 19,782 seats less than Old Trafford. However, in football management, from the sports management, City thrashed him twelve to zero. They can make a mistake (like paying 117 million euros for an average midfielder like Jack Grealish), but then they remedy it with other sales and more success. They have also been champions with Roberto Mancini and Manuel Pellegrini, which ponders the management of the club at the same level as Pep’s genius.
For those who like the statistics more than the game: Guardiola is going for his tenth league title in the thirteen he has played for since his debut in Barcelona. An animal. He has won 567 of the 777 games he has played, with 1,909 goals scored and only 599 conceded. Accumulate a goal difference of + 1,310… Amazing. No one in history has reached these figures. Nor did Ferguson exercise such tyrannical rule.
It has a contract until June 2023 with the citizens. In this sense, nothing can be ventured with him because he is capable of the most unexpected decisions, although he has confessed to feeling fully comfortable in Manchester and wanting to continue there for a long time. If he renews, it will be the worst news for all the other clubs. Keep rowing…
It may interest you: (Reinaldo Rueda and the game Colombia vs. Honduras)
Jorge Barraza
For the time
@JorgeBarrazaOK
.
#Guardiola #leaves #league #sentenced #Último #tango #Opinion