Euro stars
Slick City cruise into last eight
The stampede across elite football, both European and domestic, continues for Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City, who are unquestionably the great side of this edition of the Champions League – and might yet win everything this season.
This was a formidable demonstration of the latest epoch in the Guardiola masterplan, a team who never look like conceding and increasingly appear unwilling to allow their opposition even the briefest moments in possession. It has been more than 11½ hours of Champions League football since an opponent last scored against City and this victory made it 24 wins in the past 25 games in all competitions.
In the Puskas Arena in Budapest, nominally a home leg for City, it was never in question that they would find themselves in Friday’s draw for the Champions League quarterfinals and then the last four. Within the first 20 minutes, when Kevin De Bruyne and then Ilkay Gundogan scored the goals to extend the lead to four, a game against the troubled Borussia Monchengladbach took on a very familiar pattern.
Guardiola, as he would later say himself, demands a lot of passing to allow the game to develop in the way in which he wants and this occasion was no different. “We defend with the ball and we have to have it as much as possible” he said. “With the ball, a lot of [goalscoring] situations come with the process.”
What a process it is, honed down to its purest form of Guardiola football.
Along with City, Real Madrid will also be in the quarter-final draw on Friday, as well as Liverpool, Porto, Paris St-germain and Borussia Dortmund. Bayern Munich should join them and perhaps Chelsea, too. None are currently making it look quite so effortless as City have done over the past two months. Everyone is now fit, and come Sunday at Goodison Park in the FA Cup quarter-final one suspects Guardiola will pick a different team again.
The FA Cup quarter-finals, the Champions League quarter-finals, the League Cup final next month and just 14 points separating City from the third league title in four years under Guardiola. Could they really win it all?
“I want to try to win the Premier League and arrive at the other [cup] games in a good position and not making mistakes,” he said.
What this position in all four competitions signified, he was clear. “It means that over nine or 10 months, every two days you were there [ready to compete]. This is the best kind of title. But we are here to win [trophies] of course.”
Monchengladbach – Gladbach to their loyal support – found themselves watching much of the game from a distance. They were unable to prevent City moving the ball across their back four and into their midfield and back out again to the flanks. As Guardiola would later say himself, when Riyad Mahrez and Phil Foden were denied space on the flanks they simply tucked in to get on the ball and vice versa. It never felt like a knockout tie in the last 16 of the Champions League.
These are bleak times for Gladbach – their manager Marco Rose agreed in February he would be leaving for Borussia Dortmund at the end of the season, and, for their part, the players seem to have agreed that there is not much worth playing for. They have lost eight and drawn one of their past nine games. There were moments in the first half when they passed the ball a bit. This side were fourth in the Bundesliga last season but it made precious little difference for the most part.
Guardiola had made five changes from the City side that beat Fulham on Saturday night; who in turn had seen seven changes from the City side that beat Southampton last week. It feels sometimes that he could even slip a groundsman or one of the under-11s into the XI and they would immediately be possessed of the confidence to take the ball in tight spaces and hit first time passes into the feet of Mahrez.
It was Mahrez who spotted the shooting zone for De Bruyne in the 13th minute, a little pocket of space
that allowed the great Belgian maestro to let the ball run across him from his right and ping it with his weaker left foot past goalkeeper Yann Sommer. The second was a magnificent run from Foden: back perfectly straight, hips swaying and the eyes flicked left at the moment of release while the ball went right. It found the run of Gundogan who finished precisely for his 15th City goal of the season.
In the false nine position was De Bruyne, now the prophet for what the role might entail. Gladbach’s defence were confused as to who they should be marking and it can certainly feel for those teams who play more conventional formations that they have brought a cement mixer to a piano recital. With 15 minutes left Guardiola had already made five changes, each of them claiming a small rest advantage for Saturday’s FA Cup quarter-final. On City go.