Manchester City beat Athletico Madrid.

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Manchester City FC beat Athletico Madrid by 1-0 goal margin in 1st leg of UCL quarter final stage match. The match was held at Ittihad stadium, Manchester, the home ground of Manchester City. Manchester city boss Pep Guardiola is a mastermind tactician in modern football. He love to play possession based football. On the other hand Athletico Madrid boss Diego Simeone's main tactocs is defence, defence and defence. So it was a match to see how do well Guardiola's possession football against masterstroke defence.

Guardiola played his team in 4-3-3 formation. He faced some problem to select best eleven as there was some players unavailable like Ruben Dias, Kyle walker etc. So he had to select Laporte and Jones as center back, Cancelo as right back and Ake as left back. In midfield he selected Rodri, Gundogan and De Bruyne and in forward he selected stirling, Mahrez and Silva as a false nine. On the other jand Simeone used 3-5-2 formation which was converted 5-3-2 when needed. But truly to say all eleven Madrid players were defending. I think in Madrid squade, there are world class defender, midfielder and forward. But it is still surprising to see so much defending thinking from Simeone. This tactics just destroy the beauty of football.

Anyway City players were trying their best to send the ball in the net. But all shots was blocked by the players of Madrid. It is very hard to find a space in final third if there is defending all eleven players of opposite team. At 70 minute, Phil Foden, who was a sub, found De Bruyne in a free space and passed the ball. De Bruyne didn't mistake his job this time.

I was basically more optimistic about this match that it would be a very enjoyable game. But Simeone 's tactics made this match boring. It was not wanted.