After two weeks off it began April 4 with the comprehensive defeat to Liverpool in the first leg of the Champions League quarter-finals. Three days later, Saturday, it continued with the exquisitely painful loss to Manchester United at Etihad Stadium when we could have officially wrapped up the Premier League title. As a fan of this team it was my most painful loss ever. I could not follow it after Paul Pogba tied it at two and I have not read anything about it.
It resumes today, also at home, with the second leg of the Liverpool tie. God's Righteous Team of Angels are in an 0-3 Champions League hole. They must win today 4-0 or if Liverpool score an away goal, 5-1. Otherwise, City's European campaign will end with a whimper.
It will conclude this Saturday at fourth place Tottenham.
Although I have not watched or read anything on those results it seems to me that teams and managers have figured out how to beat Pep Guardiola's tiki-taka. Attack! Attack! Attack! It was obvious to me, but I am a soccer ignoramus, when I first saw Pep's tiki-taka in England, that attacking, pressuring the ball, was the...obvious way to beat tiki-taka. One could not lay back in a shell, "park the bus," as United did in the earlier league match at Old Trafford and as Chelsea did, appallingly, at Etihad. I felt vindicated, painfully, by the write-ups on City's league match at Anfield. Jurgen Klopp had pressed, attacked, and City lost its first league match. Without really knowing, I know what happened Saturday against United. Jose Mourinho stayed in his shell in the first half. At half-time, down 2-0, he told his players, "We're gonna try what ol' Klopp did." The result: the two quick second half goals by Pogba and in the 60's the third, the match winner.
It has been so painfully commonsensical, so obvious that I am shocked it has taken so long. Painful vindication. Painful.
It resumes today, also at home, with the second leg of the Liverpool tie. God's Righteous Team of Angels are in an 0-3 Champions League hole. They must win today 4-0 or if Liverpool score an away goal, 5-1. Otherwise, City's European campaign will end with a whimper.
It will conclude this Saturday at fourth place Tottenham.
Although I have not watched or read anything on those results it seems to me that teams and managers have figured out how to beat Pep Guardiola's tiki-taka. Attack! Attack! Attack! It was obvious to me, but I am a soccer ignoramus, when I first saw Pep's tiki-taka in England, that attacking, pressuring the ball, was the...obvious way to beat tiki-taka. One could not lay back in a shell, "park the bus," as United did in the earlier league match at Old Trafford and as Chelsea did, appallingly, at Etihad. I felt vindicated, painfully, by the write-ups on City's league match at Anfield. Jurgen Klopp had pressed, attacked, and City lost its first league match. Without really knowing, I know what happened Saturday against United. Jose Mourinho stayed in his shell in the first half. At half-time, down 2-0, he told his players, "We're gonna try what ol' Klopp did." The result: the two quick second half goals by Pogba and in the 60's the third, the match winner.
It has been so painfully commonsensical, so obvious that I am shocked it has taken so long. Painful vindication. Painful.
