So who is number 1?
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Martin Rickett / AP / SIPA
Manchester City is on a favorable waiver before the second leg of the knockout stages of the Champions League against Mönchengladbach (2-0).
Guardiola's Citizens are back at their best after going down the hole in the Lisbon Final 8.
The Pep returned to the fundamentals to restart the machine.
A wind of freedom was blowing on the planet Covid the last time we saw Pep Guardiola.
It was at the end of the Lisbon summer, during the Final 8. A happy memory for French football but painful for Manchester City, once again struck down by OL from the inescapable Maxwel Cornet.
Pep then appeared to us defeated at a press conference, disgusted with football and even with life in all that it had to offer him.
We then had a question, whether Guardiola's time at City was over, even though a contract extension was on the table.
This match had, it seemed, broken something.
“There were misunderstandings about his tactics, says Thibaud Leplat, author of
Guardiola, in praise of the style
.
It went wrong with some.
Losing in such circumstances against Lyon was a bit annoying.
"
Six months later, we have the answer, and not necessarily the one we expected.
The Citizens have resumed trampling the Premier League as in the heyday: 71 points, or 14 more than the rival and runner-up of United, just that.
In the Champions League, it's not bad either.
Before the return against Monchengladbach, the Skyblues have not lost a match and have not conceded a single goal since the first meeting of the group stage, during which Porto had the indelicacy to plant a (nice) goal.
Pep's teacher to the rescue
Between the two, Pep Guardiola did what any man who wants to be the world benchmark in terms of coaching would have done: question himself.
Moreover, Lyon or not, he had already planned to do it by calling for help Juanma Lillo, his mentor, in June.
An anomaly, as Leplat points out.
“Guardiola went to look for his football teacher as an assistant.
It's completely new.
He's going to get it to help him look a bit against his own prejudices.
"
Let us specify before entering the theoretical one that the contribution of Lillo was not immediate.
The players left for three weeks of vacation after the failure of the Final 8 before switching back without physical preparation on a new overloaded season.
Match, recuperation, match, recuperation… Difficult to work tactically in these conditions, with borderline burn-out players.
Manchester Evening News
reference Stuart Brennan
: “Off the pitch there were a lot of meetings, video analyzes.
The players were having more and more trouble with it.
So Guardiola stopped.
Instead, he gave the players more air, more time for them, so as to release the pressure of football.
"
Finally spared from injury, Ilkay Gundogan is in the shape of a life - Jon Super / AP / SIPA
C1 aside, the process of returning Citizens to life is punctuated by many failures.
In 12 days, City lost twice, winning only five games for as many draws, including a final masterpiece of mediocrity against WBA in mid-December which, they say, derailed Pep.
But rather than confrontation, he takes advantage of his privileged relationship with Fernandinho to get his message across.
Brennan:
“Fernandinho called his teammates all at the same time in December after West Brom.
In the end, everyone agreed with him that they weren't good enough, that Manchester City were better than that.
He's a good group of guys.
There are no bad guys and they all agreed to go in the same direction.
"
With immediate effect since the Skyblues follow on from 21 victories, including 15 in the Premier League, a series only interrupted by the opportunism of Manchester United.
Rethinking the attack
The land, then.
On the tactical level, everyone agrees that the rebirth of Guardiola rhymes with "back to basics".
Leplat: “Lillo's contribution to Pep is also to have succeeded in getting City out of a mechanized game.
Against Lyon it was screaming, it was almost cartoonish football.
Little movement, the ball spinning but that's it, just side passes and players who have a slightly bureaucratic vision of the position game, who stay in their place.
The approach was therefore to reorganize to better attack.
And better to attack at Pep Guardiola is to always have one more player in a given space.
"
Who says excess means exceeding functions both in attack and defense.
An example, João Cancelo.
The Portuguese side, with his technical background and his offensive impact, is able to occupy three or four positions in the same sequence, forcing in the same case Bernardo Silva, yet an attacking midfielder, to cover his rear.
In other words, the notion of position becomes superfluous and movement, the basis of football's success according to Guardiola, becomes again the center of the game.
The insoluble equation of lack of character
Small mention, before closing the chapter, to the serenity guarantee of Manchester City.
Ironically, she comes from Lisbon and is called Rúben Dias.
The former Benfica defender is establishing himself as the long-awaited successor to Vincent Kompany and possibly more.
"A lot of people think he will be the Premier League player of the year," the English journalist tells us.
He transforms the defense like Van Dijk transformed that of Liverpool.
He's aggressive, good in the air, he's good on the ground.
He has got everything.
We feel that the players are less concerned with their fears of being counterattacked in large part thanks to Dias because he is good at these stretches too.
"
Nice 3rd row physique for Ruben Dias - Jon Super / Shutterstock / SIPA
The Portuguese may even have in him what City lacks in the background: the art of vice.
Because everyone among the Skyblues followers agrees that this team sins for lack of character when the road rises.
The good form of the team therefore offers no guarantee on the European scene, because basically, the weak point remains the same.
Score before Manchester City and you will be 90% of the way.
“Against the big guys in Europe, if you don't change that you can't get out of it”.
And Thibaud Leplat to conclude.
“Guardiola's problem is that the question of character is insoluble, it cannot be bought in stores.
The great drama of a club whose owner's fortune runs into billions.
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