There was retribution of the sweetest possible kind for Pep Guardiola during Manchester City’s 3-0 victory over Bayern Munich in the first leg of their quarter final tie the Champions League.
The Catalan deployed three at the back and defensively shut out his former club, an idea that was once his undoing.
Almost everyone remembers where they were when his seeming unstoppable Bayern Munich team were torn apart 3-0 in the Camp Nou by a Barcelona team featuring MSN; Messi, Suarez, and Neymar.
Two free scoring teams met that night and Guardiola opted for a back three to man mark MSN out of the game. Almost everyone watching was perplexed by this decision with Gary Neville evening saying: “Pep Guardiola has gone and shocked us all.”
What exactly happened? Messi turned Jérôme Boateng inside out and chipped the ball in, showing the world that this was not working.
On Tuesday evening, Guardiola adopted a similar system and justified his selection with his team conceding just four shots on target. This might seem like a lot, but it is paltry when considering Bayern had 53% of the possession.
The coach has regularly played three at the back. He famously used this during the 2020/21 Premier League season, with another defender playing in midfield alongside Rodri. He adopted this for a home game against Newcastle United on St Stephen’s Day and saw his side win 2-0. They went on to win 14 consecutive games, and they were crowned Premier League champions after Manchester United lost to Leicester City that May.
This was all done in the internalised world of English football, with the Champions League a totally separate conquest, a different pressure cooker entirely.
Guardiola’s decision making has repeatedly been called into questioning as he tries to bring the biggest trophy in club football to the Etihad, and there’s no shortage of examples. The most notable is the absence of a CDM in the 2021 Champions League final against Chelsea. This became glaringly obvious when Mason Mount put a ball through the centre for Kai Havertz and the midfielder scored the winning goal.
With his selection against Bayern, a team that has conceded just two goals in the competition this year, he went with a back three. This was done to counteract a Bayern outfit that has 21 goals in eight Champions League games, and boats a studded forward line containing Sadio Mané, Kingsley Coman, and Serge Gnabry.
Haaland ➡️ Silva ➡️ 🥅
CITY DOUBLE THEIR LEAD ⚽️⚽️#UCL pic.twitter.com/ufYcDqN2tv— Watch the UCL on LiveScore 🇮🇪 (@LiveScoreIE) April 11, 2023
Man City’s back three covered the penalty area, giving no space while two CDMs plugged any space in front of them. Bayern were forced to shoot from distance a number of times as they had no room in front of goal. They missed the target three times, and crucially, five were blocked by the sky blue wall.
Wednesday’s win is form of retribution that will be more satisfying to Guardiola than just a clean sheet. His tinkering worked, and now he Manchester City have one foot in the Champions League semi-finals.
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