Birdy
Senior Member
Part Three: Manchester City
After seven full seasons in management when Guardiola reached at least the semi-finals of the Champions League, he somehow managed to not reach that stage in any of his first four seasons at City. Some surprising selections for big games, especially now he was working in a country not traditionally fond of tactical tinkering, became the main criticism of Guardiola.2016-17
Having been 5-3 up from the first leg, City blew it in the return game in Monaco, losing 3-1 and going out on away goals. But it wasn’t about Guardiola overthinking things. He used his default system — 4-3-3 with flying wingers and Kevin De Bruyne and David Silva as ‘free 8s’, the same approach that had won the first leg so convincingly.In the first leg, he’d used Fernandinho as a makeshift full-back, with Yaya Toure as the holding midfielder. In the second leg, Fernandinho wasn’t needed in defence, so played the holding role. In hindsight, considering City were overpowered in the centre of midfield, maybe Guardiola could have used Fernandinho and Toure together to better protect City’s first-leg lead.
“All managers make mistakes, but I don’t think it was down to a tactical mistake,” said Guardiola afterwards. “I tried to convince them in all the meetings we had to come here, try to attack and score. My mistake was being not able to convince them to do that.”
In other words, this was old-school Guardiola, who fundamentally believed in his Plan A and attributed the defeat to not carrying out Plan A effectively enough.
2017-18
City lost the quarter-final against Liverpool in the first leg, going 3-0 down inside half an hour at Anfield.Guardiola broadly stuck with his 4-3-3 but used newcomer Aymeric Laporte at left-back in both legs. This was something he only did once in the Premier League all season, just before this tie against Everton, probably as preparation for this task of stopping Mohamed Salah. Laporte struggled, but would Guardiola’s regular Premier League options, Fabian Delph and Oleksandr Zinchenko, have fared any better against Salah?
Raheem Sterling, then in great form, was surprisingly left out, with Ilkay Gundogan coming in to play from the right, so City focused almost all their attacking energy on Trent Alexander-Arnold with the speed of Leroy Sane.
Alexander-Arnold coped excellently, however, and City were blown away by the ferocious pressing of Liverpool, who were about ready to peak under Jurgen Klopp. That, as much as overthinking, cost City — but Guardiola had notably altered his side significantly more than in the previous season’s elimination.
2018-19
Dramatic late VAR drama cost Manchester City in the quarter-final stage against Tottenham, but there were some odd decisions here.For the first leg, Guardiola switched to 4-2-3-1 having generally played 4-3-3 in the league and omitted Kevin De Bruyne, seemingly because of general rotation rather than a specific fitness concern. Again, left-back was a problem — this time Delph played there and struggled badly against Son Heung-min.
In the second leg, Guardiola moved to 4-3-3 and elected to use Gundogan as his holding midfielder — not for the last time in a Champions League defeat. City were largely excellent on the ball but lacked control at times and ultimately a 4-3 win wasn’t enough. It was, though, another Guardiola defeat on away goals, like in 2017, 2016 and, in effect, 2012 (as Fernando Torres’ late goal for Chelsea at the Camp Nou to make it 3-2 on aggregate was only scored as Barca were pushing forward, knowing at 2-2 they were going on out on away goals).
2019-20
Probably Guardiola’s biggest tactical misstep in the Champions League. If Guardiola has “overthought” in the Champions League, it’s often because he’s been too attack-minded.But this was the opposite. Presumably spooked by Lyon’s counter-attacking strike duo or the unusual one-legged nature of the tie, Guardiola named a 3-5-2 system to match Lyon’s formation. It felt overwhelmingly defensive: three centre-backs, a slightly pedestrian midfield, Kyle Walker and Joao Cancelo both looking uncomfortable as wing-backs and Raheem Sterling and Gabriel Jesus up front offering speed but little else.
Guardiola left out David Silva, Bernardo Silva, Phil Foden and Riyad Mahrez and City played with no cohesion or fluidity. It felt like the starting XI Jose Mourinho or Antonio Conte would have selected.
Walker, a wing-back, dropped back behind the centre-backs and played Lyon’s forwards onside for the opener, which showed the problems with the system. When Guardiola needed to make a change to get back into the game, he sacrificed Fernandinho, who had endured a poor game at right-sided centre-back against the speed of Memphis Depay and reverted to a back four.
Things could have been different. Sterling missed an open goal at 2-1 down. City had chances, but ultimately they played far too defensively against a side that had finished seventh in the fifth-best league in Europe. Four seasons in, Guardiola was yet to progress past the quarter-final stage with City.
2020-21
Guardiola’s team selection in a 1-0 final defeat against Chelsea is generally held as the ultimate example of him overthinking things because of his decision to omit Rodri (or Fernandinho) and instead play Gundogan in the holding role, at the end of a campaign when the German midfielder was City’s top goalscorer.It was a surprise decision and City didn’t play well and lost the game. But it’s difficult to be sure of causality and be certain that this specific decision was the ultimate factor in City’s defeat. Suggestions that Rodri would definitely have been in a position to cut out Mason Mount’s through-ball to Kai Havertz for the winner, for example, are nothing more than speculative.
But so far, it’s the defining move of Guardiola’s Champions League experience with City. Sam Lee and Raphael Honigstein explained that “sources close to him say there were two main reasons why Gundogan was moved backwards: first, neither of Fernandinho and Rodri was in his best form at the time. Second, it was calculated that City would have more of the ball in the game than Chelsea and that Gundogan, who had played holding midfield so well on the title-winning 2018-19 run-in, was the best option to help them capitalise on their possession”.
City’s real problem on the night was their inability to cope with diagonal balls out to Chelsea’s left-wing-back Ben Chilwell, which was interesting because they’d had the same problem in their FA Cup semi-final defeat to Thomas Tuchel’s Chelsea, too. Guardiola presumably would have been aware of that issue but wasn’t able to solve it. That, as much as the identity of the holding midfielder, cost City.
2021-22
Last season, Guardiola’s side were victims of a typical logic-defying flurry from Real Madrid. With City 5-3 up on aggregate heading into stoppage time in the second leg at the Bernabeu, Rodrygo suddenly scored two goals in two minutes, with Karim Benzema completing the comeback in extra time.It’s difficult to find fault with Guardiola’s approach here. He used a typical 4-3-3 in the first leg and a similar shape in the second, with Gabriel Jesus through the middle as a conventional centre-forward in both games. His substitutions in Madrid largely worked well — Jack Grealish, on for Jesus late on, twice nearly won the game before Real’s unthinkable late comeback.
At a push, you could suggest Guardiola went overly defensive, taking off De Bruyne, Jesus and Mahrez in a bid to protect a two-goal advantage, which meant City couldn’t then attack when required in extra time. But that’s hindsight bias. City were the better side for the majority of the tie and if there was a late collapse, it wasn’t because of Guardiola’s tactics.
Overall, it’s a mixed bag. In several of these defeats, Guardiola’s side created more than enough chances to win the game — although that doesn’t automatically justify his selection decisions. After all, Guardiola’s side have been favourites going into pretty much each of these crucial games.
There have been a couple of erroneous decisions to use a back three, although with Bayern in 2015, it was too bold, and with City in 2020, too cautious. In 2019 and 2021, Guardiola maybe changed his side too much, but in 2010 and 2017, maybe he didn’t change it enough. His two Champions League triumphs, in 2009 and 2011, came with a largely expected approach.
This time around, Guardiola surely won’t meddle. The presence of Erling Haaland means he’s less likely to overcomplicate things in attack. The defensive solidity, at times almost using four centre-backs with Rodri just in front, means he shouldn’t feel the need to beef up that section of the side. The complexity will come from how City shift from a back four into a back three in possession, probably with John Stones stepping forward, but that’s become City’s default approach.
A semi-final against Real Madrid is never a foregone conclusion and anything can happen in a one-off final. But Guardiola’s usual approach should be enough for City to win this season’s European Cup.
