Kepa got one over on Pep
FAIL to prepare, prepare to fail is an adage never associated with Pep Guardiola.
But, for once, the Spaniard has been found wanting in doing his homework — and it has cost him the chance of back-to-back Trebles.
Guardiola has been left licking his wounds after seeing Real Madrid dump his Manchester City side out of the Champions League on penalties at the Etihad.
But the pain Pep and co are now suffering is of their own making.
In 2019 when City defeated Chelsea on penalties in the Carabao Cup final, no-one would have imagined it’d come back to haunt them.
But it has.
In the Chelsea goal that day was Kepa, whose experience of losing was memorised, before being used as an act of revenge this week.
Despite being on the Real bench on Wednesday, Kepa became his side’s most potent weapon at the end of extra time to send the quarter-final, second leg tie to a shootout.
Kepa could be seen in deep conversation with Real No.1 Andriy Lunin, providing him with specific information about City’s penalty-takers.
Dossier
This included a verbal dossier on Bernardo Silva, who beat Kepa with a spot-kick straight down the middle at Wembley five years ago.
Kepa’s intuition paid off, as Lunin stood his ground to see Silva chip his effort straight into his gloves without him having to move.
Silva’s miss was the most crucial of all, because it came after Luka Modric had seen his opening effort saved.
Antonio Rudiger, who scored the winning penalty, was also on hand to tell Lunin which way to go when Mateo Kovacic stepped up and missed.
Lunin said: “We prepared it with the goalkeeping coach, and there were three players whom we had doubts about whether to stay in the middle or not. I needed to take a risk with one of the kicks. We picked one (to stay in the middle), and thank goodness it worked in our favour.
“We went though a lot of suffering, but
I’m grateful to the whole team for everything the did and fought for.”