Guardiola's Man City is out! Lyon will face Bayern Munich in the semifinals!
Guardiola is one of the best-paid coaches in the world, his club is the one with the most money (from the oil in this case) spent on new transfers for the past few years, and they weren't able to defeat the French club Olympique Lyonnais.
This defeat is totally on Guardiola. It is true that City had a lot of opportunities to score more goals and even some incredible misses like one from Sterling, but still, this is a huge failure for Guardiola. This coach hasn't won a Champions League since 2011. With Manchester City, they are always defeated by teams that are clearly inferior in resources such as Monaco, Tottenham, and Lyon.
I honestly thought City would be able not only of defeating Lyon but also to face Bayern Munich and have a competitive match against them. Lyon is a team with a lot of strong players that are always doing high pressing, which is similar to what Bayern does. City did the same to Madrid but today they weren't able to repeat the strategy.
Lyon scored first and what they did after the first goal was to adopt a defensive strategy. I thought they will end up losing such as Atletico de Madrid but as soon as City scored 1-1, Lyon started to attack again and they scored the 1-2. Taking advantage of City's desperation they managed to score 1-3 and it could have ended up 1-4.
Lyon has proved they are a really competitive team mainly thanks to their coach, they defeated Ronaldo's Juventus and they also played against PSG for the French Cup final and lost the game on the penalties but tying against PSG after playing 120 minutes is a good achievement. They will now have to face Bayern Munich and I think the Germans are the favorites, if they both apply their high pressing strategy Bayern has the advantage I believe. It will be a good match although I was expecting a Bayern vs City on the semifinals.
2 German teams and 2 French teams, who would have thought that no Spanish and English teams would arrive at the semifinals?
I am now expecting a final between Bayern Munich and PSG but since this Champions League has been full of surprises it might end up being Lyon vs Leipzig O.o
I think overthinking and subsequently losing UCL matches has become Pep's new thing much like being a genius coach. It is rather sad that what stops Pep from being the greatest of all time is himself.
1 Champions League in a decade is not enough to be considered the best. Klopp managed to reach 2 consecutive finals lost 1 due to their crappy goalkeeper and won the other one, he was also in the Champions League final of 2013 with that cool Dortmund with Gotze, Reus, and Lewandowski but wasn't able to beat Bayern Munich. Zidane won 3 in a row. So we have both Klopp and Zidane with 3 Champions League finals in this decade (Zidane coaching started in 2016) and Guardiola only 1 in 2011...
Guardiola accumulated a lot of league titles but in very favorable circumstances, for example, the German leagues are almost always won by Bayern and remember Bayern beat Barcelona 7-0 in the global score in 2013 without Guardiola and then in 2014 with Guardiola they were beaten by Real Madrid 5-0 in the global score. Klopp league titles with Dortmund are much more valuable in comparison, the same happens with the league title with Liverpool vs Man City. Then with Man City the oil money makes it easier for the entire club (the same happens with PSG of course).
I am familiar with the history you are talking about. I am referring to the fact that Pep had pretty much cost himself the losses he got when knocked out of the CL. His last season with Barca, he was dominating the match against Chelsea and was going to win if he didn't keep pushing. Pep made strange tactical changes in the most decisive matches in the CL which cost him the matches, simply I am talking about what could have been. Thus my comment about how he prevented himself.
Against Lyon he strangely switched to three in the back out of nowhere even though he doesn't even have two center and he only played 2-3 times with three in the back, the last of which was a loss against man united. Last he for some reason decided to put Gündoğan as CDM and not include De Bruyne which snowfalked into the eventual knockout against Spurs, another match he dominated and missed a lot of chance.
Many similar examples, the changes against Barcelona while he was with Bayern and so on. Klopp and Zidane pretty much succeeded where Pep failed, Zidane capitalized on a golden generation as much as possible, which Pep didn't, Klopp built a scary team but didn't flinch in big games. He is now behind those two at least. Partly due to them, and partly due to his actions.
Guardiola will need to reinvent himself or he is at risk of ending like Ancelotti and Mourinho, coaches with an excellent career but a not very exciting present. Simeone is in a similar situation I think, although Simeone's career when it comes to trophies has never been very good. Belonging to the elite for such a long time isn't easy.
I am noticing the teams who are dominating football in the last couple of years are those with very strong players that can do high pressing and have tireless legs. Examples are France in the World Cup, Liverpool and now Bayern Munich. Guardiola's style is more about controlling the ball and passing it around and around. The dominant teams of these years don't beat around the bush, they go straight to the goal. Similar to what Mourinho did with Real Madrid in 2012, or Heynckes with Bayern in 2013. Explosive moves and scoring a goal with only 3 or 4 passes, instead of doing like 20 passes.
By the way, do you see a team capable of beating Bayern Munich?
https://hive.blog/informationwar/@sweecee/dear-macron-dear-angela-we-want-to-go-the-football-matches-as-cowbay
That sterling miss cost them the game. They should have finished the created chances which they couldn't & Sevilla capitalize those chances.