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Pep Guardiola under pressure with Manchester City in CL

Wif he brings Pep Guardiola into the house, he should also get a larger trophy cabinet. Wherever the Spanish soccer coach goes – he wins titles everywhere: He has won a number of national championships and trophies in Spain, Germany and England, plus the FIFA Club World Cup and the Uefa Supercup three times. His greatest triumphs, however, are the two Champions League victories with FC Barcelona in 2009 and 2011.

At that time Guardiola was 38 and 40 years old respectively and still new to the coaching business. It looked like he was making the Champions League his competition. But neither in the three years with FC Bayern Munich nor with Manchester City, where he has been working since summer 2016, he was able to win Europe’s best club competition.

He led Bayern to the semi-finals for three consecutive years; with City, for whose owner Sheikh Mansour the Champions League is a kind of Holy Grail, on the other hand, he has never made it further than the quarter-finals. In the fourth attempt it should now run better: This Saturday (9 p.m. in the FAZ live ticker for the Champions League, on Sky and DAZN), Manchester City and Guardiola will meet Olympique Lyon in Lisbon. City is the last remaining participant from England – and a tournament favorite. For Guardiola, it is an opportunity to refute his critics who claim he is past his prime as a coach.

In recent years, he has always been partially to blame for the departure of his team. In 2017, City confused a 5-3 home win from the first leg in the round of 16 against AS Monaco: Monaco won 3-1 against City, which was too aggressively positioned. “All coaches make mistakes,” said Guardiola afterwards.

In the following two years City failed to domestic competitors: 2018 at Liverpool FC, 2019 at Tottenham Hotspur. Against the Londoners Guardiola did without playmaker Kevin De Bruyne in the first leg. The team lacked creativity, City lost 0-1 – and retired after a 4-3 win in the second leg again because of the away goals. Among others, the “BBC” saw the problem in Guardiola’s dogged pursuit of perfection. Especially in the knockout phase of the Champions League, the coach thinks his line-ups to the point where he made tactical mistakes.

So far this season there is no question of that. In Group C, Manchester City finished first, in the round of 16 Guardiola’s side prevailed with 2-1 wins in two legs against Real Madrid. Real may no longer be the terrifying opponent of the past few years, and defensive boss Sergio Ramos’ red suspension in the second leg weakened the team even more.

Still, it was impressive how City presented itself in both games. The defense, at times a weak point of the team in the past Premier League season, was largely stable. And especially in the second leg, the attackers Raheem Sterling, Gabriel Jesus and the young Phil Foden put Real’s defense under such pressure by relentless pressure that the victory could have been higher given the number and severity of the opponent’s forced errors. Have to, some say with a view to the unused chances: “Manchester City has dominated Real Madrid”, analyzed the “Guardian” – “but this waste will worry Guardiola.”

Especially since City’s opponent in the quarter-finals, Olympique Lyon, is unlikely to allow as many scoring opportunities. In the canceled Ligue 1 season, they had to accept an average of about one goal per game. Both teams also know each other from last season in the Champions League, when Lyon won the group stage in Manchester and drew at home. Guardiola lowered expectations when he said: “Last season we played Lyon twice and we couldn’t beat them. We have to stay calm. ”Nine years after his last Champions League triumph so far, that should not be easy for him either.

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