Manchester City – Real Madrid: The world surrenders to Pep Guardiola’s new work of art

2023-05-18 13:11:47

BarcelonaThe praise for Pep Guardiola is unanimous after the football festival that Manchester City offered against Real Madrid. The end, the qualification for the final of the Champions League, is decisive. But the way to achieve it, with a game that recalled that of the best Barça in history, has brought the world of football to its feet. The Santpedor manager was the conductor of some excellent football, especially during the first half at the Etihad Stadium, which revolved around three superlative tenors: Gündogan, De Bruyne and Bernardo Silva. Carlo Ancelotti’s team became a sparring team unable to respond to the brilliance of the opposition, as happened to them just over a decade ago in several matches against Guardiola’s Barça, with 2-6 at the Santiago Bernabéu and the 5-0 at Camp Nou as highlights.

“Like all talented professionals, Pep practices continuous improvement and Manchester has found his ideal habitat. He feels loved and valued there. He is grateful and corresponds to this love, but he is an integral player,” he explains to the NOW Evarist Murtra, ex-director of Barça with Josep Lluís Núñez and Joan Laporta who opted for Guardiola as coach. Today they maintain a great friendship. “He is smart and hardworking and grew up in a supportive environment. He is an undisputed leader who loves football and is a sponge to integrate during his career everything that his predecessors have brought to him of value. In addition, it is of a coach consistent with what he experienced as a young man”, he continues to analyze, convinced that one day, who knows when, Guardiola will return to Barça. “I don’t know in what capacity he will come, but I know he will be back.”

Fully controlled elimination

Jofre Mateu, ex-Barça player and current football analyst and commentator, is very clear about what was most outstanding about Guardiola in the tie against Real Madrid: “He had all aspects under control in the semi-finals of the Champions League. avoid transitions and their players knew how to occupy the spaces properly. Madrid is a team that can compete with anyone and at the Etihad their footballers did not know where to stand,” he explains. “Guardiola’s main evolution compared to last year’s tie is that he has thought about the 180 minutes and not attacking and playing what he wants to play. He wanted to return to Manchester with the tie under control and at the Santiago Bernabéu he didn’t take any chances. In fact, he didn’t make any changes,” continues Alpicat’s analysis.

As for whether he considers him the best coach of the moment, Mateu replies that “this is only discussed by the old Guardiola players or those who have suffered a thirst against him”. According to the ex-Blaugrana, “Guardiola changed football and continues to change it”. In addition, he values ​​that “it is very difficult to manage so much talent and egos and get everyone to do what is best for the team.” And he considers his tactical reading ability “gifted”.

Another person who has been closely following the figure of Guardiola for years is the journalist Guillem Balagué, who specializes in English football. In fact, in 2012 he already wrote a biography: Pep Guardiola, another way to win. “Guardiola has been the best manager of his generation, without a doubt, and for me he is one of the best managers in history. There are only three or four managers who have changed football and he is one of them. Also, he has done it in a complicated time, when everyone seems to know everything”, says Balagué. Why is it the best? “It has taught a new way of thinking about football, it innovates and shows the game of the future, in which the positions are always flexible within an order and the players must reduce intuition and always have solutions ready,” he replies.

Guardiola has changed the culture of Manchester City

Traditionally, English football has been characterized by direct football. In other words, to go straight to the barracks. In the British Isles they were not lucky enough to be nurtured by a figure like Johan Cruyff, who revolutionized the way Barça played at the beginning of the 90s and who became Pep’s great teacher Guardiola, who had him as a coach in the Dream Team. “In Manchester it was a little difficult to understand what Pep wanted to do. There, this style of play enters more from the head than from the heart in a culture where chaos is idealized. In the chaos, he has brought order and now the people he enjoys it a lot. Yesterday, for example, there was a brutal communion between the fans and the team,” explains Balagué about the process that the citizens.

Praise in the English and international press

Yesterday’s work of art has been reflected in today’s international press. “Manchester City’s destruction of Madrid feels like an era-defending triumph“(The destruction of Madrid by Manchester City is experienced as a change of cycle), it is titled The Guardianthe quintessential generalist newspaper in England. “Four-midable. Pep masterclass continues Treble march as Champions League giants exit with a whimper ” (The road to the treble continues with a masterclass from Pep, which makes the giants of the Champions League leave crying), aim The Sun, the English tabloid. Guardiola is already in the Champions League final, but also in the FA Cup final, which he will play against Manchester United. What’s more, they are just three points away from securing their fifth Premier League title in six years. The treble is a very real possibility.

There are fewer and fewer critical voices with Guardiola and most of them come from Madrid, where they have had to suffer him many times. One of the main arguments they use to take credit for his work is that he has not been able to win any Champions League since he left Barça in 2012. Neither with Bayern Munich nor with Manchester City. On June 10, Catalan will also have the great opportunity to tell this story.