As is always the case, the Champions League draw provided plenty of anticipation and mouthwatering ties to look forward to next year.
Up there among them is Manchester City vs Real Madrid, a tie that will not only see Pep Guardiola return to Spain but also come up against an old enemy.
It’s a big tie for the Spaniard and one he’ll be looking forward to, but some in Spain were hoping he’d get the other team in Madrid instead.
Javier Gómez Matallanas, a journalist for El Confidencial, was one such person, as he was busy comparing Pep Guardiola with Atlético Madrid boss Diego Simeone this week given the pair aren’t exactly having the best of seasons.
The headline reads: ‘one does not know how to attack and the other does not know how to defend’
With both teams far off the pace this year, ‘their teams today require reflection’ about what is going wrong and the journalist is not exactly kind about Guardiola.
According to him, teams that dominate both offensive and defensive ‘transitions’ are currently dominating the game and Pep’s side don’t know how to.
This is down to Guardiola, who like Simeone, has found it ‘difficult’ to ‘evolve’ his model and as such his team are ‘thinking of attacking when they are defending’.
He’s tried to fix that by hiring defensive players and spending big money to do so, but his ‘non-negotiable philosophy of attack’ which often leaves midfielder Rodrigo overrun by the opposition is the cause of the problem.
There’s no suggestion from Matallanas as to how City can fix the issue, although the implication is that Guardiola should give up on his attacking approach as that’s the issue.
That’s unlikely given that approach has brought him success at every club he’s managed, including Manchester City, and Matallanas would be best served focusing on himself that taking cheap shots at Guardiola.
