Pep Guardiola never rests – and that’s why Manchester City keep winning

By Sam LeeIt should not come as a surprise by now but, in case there was any doubt given Manchester City’s heavily rotated line-up for their Champions Leaguelast-16 second leg at home against FC Copenhagen, Pep Guardiola still really cares about every single match.

Guardiola had been cautioning against taking this match lightly after a 3-1 first-leg win in Denmark, insisting the job of securing a quarter-finals place was not done, but on the night he kept several key men on the bench ahead of Sunday’s Premier Leaguetrip to title rivals Liverpool.

Even so, his side went 2-0 up within nine minutes. Game and tie over. Yet three minutes later, as Mateo Kovaciclay winded in the centre circle and his team-mates casually stood around him, Guardiola bellowed for Josko Gvardioland Julian Alvarezto come to him on the touchline.

He welcomed them with typically frantic instructions; when they do this, you do that, when the ball is here, go there…

Even with three minutes left on the clock, his side 3-1 up once againand 18-year-old Jacob Wrightabout to join the action, with fellow academy hopeful Micah Hamiltonalready on, Guardiola received a telling-off from the fourth official for straying way out of his technical area to pass on more instructions.

It really should be obvious by now that Guardiola takes every game seriously, although there are still people who believe City’s success in matches like these is because they are easy. Do not make the mistake of saying that around the manager, who will have spent 48 hours (more, if he gets the chance) coming up with a game plan for last night and then drilling it into his players’ heads.

That is what he did before the first leg, ensuring that a team who had beaten Manchester Unitedat home in the group stage and given Bayern Munich a tough time when they came to town a month earlier would not be given the chance to do the same to the competition’s reigning champions.

“Remember this sentence: it looks easy but it’s not,” he said, three days after that win in the first leg, presumably feeling that the same message had not been taken on board after the match itself.

And it was a theme he returned to on Wednesday night.

“Looks like aggregate 6-2, it’s easy. It’s not. Today, Real Madrid suffered to go through against Leipzig. In the past we played against Leipzig(and people said), ‘Ah, it’s easy’. It’s not. It’s difficult, it’s difficult, everything is difficult. To be still in the Premier League is difficult. FA Cupis difficult — going to Luton and winning is difficult. But the people (take) for granted now. That’s good, (it means) our standards are (high), but we know internally, me as a manager and the players, that everything is difficult.”

This is all part of the reason City have won so much over recent years; why they have won four Carabao Cups and two FA Cups (and been in four more semi-finals) in Guardiola’s eight seasons, and why he usually picks what a lot of fans deem to be overly strong line-ups for fixtures against seemingly lesser teams.

He does not see it that way and anybody who sits near his dugout at the Etihad Stadium will have seen, since he was appointed in summer 2016, that even the delirium of a City goal cannot distract him from getting a message across.

Just think back to Kevin De Bruynescoring in a key game against Arsenallast season, when he cut short his celebrations to berate goalkeeper Edersonfor giving a pass that forced John Stonesto play long. Sure, that long ball may have had a big hand in the goal, but it was the wrong thing to do.

“The best players are the ones who make the best decisions, and sometimes when we play well it’s because we did not make the proper decisions,” Guardiola said pre-match on Tuesday, apropos of not a lot, but surely with those kinds of things in mind.

Then there was the time recently when Erling Haalandscored a vital winner on a frantic, frustrating night against Brentfordand his manager ‘celebrated’ by repeatedly booting a cooler of energy drinks.

It is just how Guardiola is wired, but given he talks about his energy levels whenever the question is asked about his future at City — especially in the days after counterpart Jurgen Klopp announced his impending departure from Liverpool this summer after what will be just shy of nine years — it would be alarming for fans of his club if they ever saw him look anything less than maniacal.

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The other key thing when it comes to his future is whether his players continue to respond to his constant demands with the same fervour. Guardiola has surely had the biggest hand in elevating this club to their present position as top dogs of world football, but it has taken the total buy-in of his players.

And when you see Haaland wave his arms around and shout, “Come on, press!” at Alvarez and Oscar Bobbhalfway through the second half on Wednesday, it makes you realise that things bode pretty well for City at the moment, in terms of the run-in and quite possibly into next season, too.

“I’m going to tell you what the most difficult thing in football is,” Guardiola added afterwards. “It is before the draw saying, ‘City is going to win easily’. So you have to do it. This is the most difficult thing in football. For Copenhagen, it is easier: nothing to lose.

“Going to Luton and saying you have to do it. Yeah, but win. That is the most complicated thing. People here (think), ‘1-3 there (in Copenhagen), it’s done’. It’s not done. I know it’s not done. If they make it 0-1 with the way they play, I’m not sure what would have happened. I am pretty sure now that qualifying 6-2… it could have been different today or maybe there, you don’t know.”

And so they go to Anfield at the weekend, with Kyle Walker, Nathan Ake, Phil Foden, De Bruyne and Bernardo Silvarested up nicely after getting the night off here. Rodriwas also replaced at half-time and Ruben Diaswith over 20 minutes to go, but Guardiola absolutely insisted he was not looking ahead to Sunday.

“It is not about thinking about the next game, never,” he said, explaining that he felt Foden and Bernardo were tired and he wanted other players to convince him they should be playing more minutes. 

All things considered, we should probably believe him.

https://theathletic.com/5321917/2024/03/07/guardiola-never-rests-man-city-champions-league/