Impossible. That is how Pep Guardiola had described the task to control Real Madrid's attackers for 90 minutes. As it was, it was a 92nd minute goal that managed Manchester City to beat when the European champions arrived late from behind.
If City could have held the victory over Real Madrid in the Etihad Stadium, they would have gone a long way by going to the next round of the Champions League. But at least it would have stimulated their faith. Instead it happened again.
The late equalizer of Brahim Diaz was bad enough and came after a weak pass from Niererson when, according to Guardiola, there was no danger. But the carelessness that preceded the winner of Jude Bellingham was empty. Anger and frustration as John Stones put it.
“It happened many, many times,” Guardiola said afterwards. “In many competitions we have given away goals this season. It happened many times and that's why it is difficult.” It undermined them at night because it undermined them all season.
That extraordinary evening against Feyenoord when City lost a lead of three goals. Are beaten 4-2 by Paris Saint-Germain when they lead after an hour. And now this, the most explanatory considering the talent within that Madrid -forecast line, but also the most crushing.
Why does this continue to happen? Individual decisions were part of the problem when it unraveled against Madrid. “He cost his team the game,” said Jamie Carragher of Sky Sports of Or Nomouwon when he spoke on CBS. But he was not just in his fault.
If Mateo Kovacic had been raised to clean up things, he did something different. The Croatian was beaten by Diaz to the ball for Madrid's second goal and Rico Lewis brought in trouble for the third. The young defender had to be even stronger in that situation.
But Guardiola is probably right to say that this is not about individuals. How to wish for it was that simple. There is a malaise in City, a team that has become physically and perhaps psychologically noticeably weaker if the strokes take their toll.
Madrid was the team with defensive problems on paper, Carlo Ancelotti described the situation as an emergency because of the absence of five senior players on the back, but it was the city whose vulnerability in the defense was ultimately the story of the game.
His team selection limited the risk as well as possible. Guardiola called all five of his senior defenders, all demonstrably natural centerbacks. Manuel Akanji and Josko Gvardiol names full-back tasks. Stones stepped in midfield. He was looking for control.
For a while they were there with Madrid, so that the surprising pre-match of Ancelotti almost justified that the winner of this draw would win the competition. When there was Haaland on the ball in the opposition box, it was tempting to believe it.
Big matches always define big teams and the field in Manchester was full of players who had previously shown that they enjoy such occasions. But as City recently found in Arsenal, it is not as easy as finding shape with the film of a switch.
They are in danger of becoming a moments, still able to show the fast feet that Phil Foden saw winning the penalty that restored their advantage. But just as likely to make the mistakes that the game took away from them so quickly at death.
Guardiola knows that his team must remove those mistakes, but he also knows that it is not only that. It would be naive to think that this was all a loose game. There is more going on here, a team that does not function as it did. The statistics propagate that.
City had 33 shots on the night that Madrid eliminated them last season. This time they succeeded in a third, but they gave 20 shots more carefully to their goal. That is the most of the city in a home Champions League -similar game since Guardiola took over.
Indeed, it is the second most by them in a Champions League -similar game everywhere at that time. The record? That was only three weeks ago in Paris. Now too open, too easy to continue playing. They drove their happiness for 85 minutes, but it eventually caught up with them.
Catch up with them. That is how this feels. The requirements to compete at the top for so long, important players who grow old together, unable to take the cloak of responsibility. There is only so much tactical tinkering that Guardiola can do.
“It can only be physical or mental. Physically they can't play for 90 minutes now,” said Carragher. “They don't have their legs in the team of minute one to minute 90, but it really shows when you get into the last phases of the game.”
The decline of the intensity of the city when winning the ball can be traced for years. In the 2021/22 season, they were in third place in the Premier League for the least opposition passes allowed by defensive action. The next year that ranking fell to the seventh.
Last season City fell to the ninth on a metric that they had awarded in each of their first two Premier League title profits under Guardiola. This season they are in 12th place, a Bottom half team when it comes to winning the ball back in his reign for the first time.
Of course the city was as recently champions as May. This dip did not seem that important at the time. But it is all linked. “We won a lot because we have been very disciplined in all defensive phases, but not so much this year,” said Guardiola this week.
Gradually, then suddenly, it has become a big problem.
The effort is still there. Savinho pumps his fist to the crowd when celebrating a tackle, stones are aggressive, gvardiol slides in, Nathan Ake throws himself to the ball to block the shots. “They want it,” Guardiola admitted. “But they are not stable.”
His success was built on that stability. Although Guardiola never knew that his team would win, he always knew it would look like it was his team and played his football. It is no longer clear. “I like to feel week after week that we are there. I don't know,” he admitted.
He had praised his players after he was cut by Leyton Orient in the FA Cup, but this was not Brisbane Road, these were the boys of the Bernabeu and the baby steps would probably never cut it when gigantic jumps are now forward from this group of players .
The test for Madrid, League leaders in Spain, had to play the opposition for them, instead of the memory of their sausage past. Ancelotti's template in recent years it can be understood, but there were currently open wounds that were worthwhile to poke.
City has already admitted more goals this season than in the entire latter. The most damn, 20 came after the 75 -minute marking, an indication that the team ever is famous to play games has become a side that fades.
So it proved again. A team in transition cannot control transitions. A team that tries to win a draw for 180 minutes when they cannot continue for 90. The rebuilding of Guardiola may have started, but this was immediately too much against Real Madrid. Impossible, even.
Comments