Tag Archives: Man City

Is Pep Guardiola lucky to lead strong teams in his career? (Part 2)

In the center of the defense, Pep brought John Stones and Aymeric Laporte, the excellent central midfielders. In particular, the deal with Laporte really worth “money for rice bowl”. Pep confirmed the French center-back deserves a price of 57 million pounds.


Most teams attack or counterattack based on the speed of the wingers. In Man City, Laporte plays an important role in speeding the ball forward. The reason given by Pep is that Laporte is left-footed. He always observes and pays attention to every detail to build the football of his will effectively.

“It is important that Laporte is left-footed. When he receives the ball from the right wing, he immediately turns and turns to the left, giving the ball to Leroy Sane. In this position, Laporte will deploy the ball faster than the right footed player.

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If the ball goes into the middle, he can coordinate with Riyad Mahrez. Laporte helps Man City have 2 faster deployment plans. The important thing is that City must have left-back center-left, “Pep said in October 2018.

Dark art

In addition, Pep also calculated the error. A central midfielder who receives a yellow card is safer than the defensive players. When facing Man City, you will face foul situations from the middle of the field that experts call tactical foul.

According to Opta, Man City stand 2 and 3 in the percentage of tactical errors in the 2 seasons of 2019/20, 2017/18. Currently, the team leading this stat is Arsenal, the team that just appointed Arteta as the head coach in December 2019.

Gary Neville, a former Man United player, once criticized Pep for applying tactical fouls, but Pep has his own reasons. When the team has more control and attacks, they face the risk of more counterattack. And making tactical mistakes is part of helping them win from stopping goals.

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Unlike Neville, the Telegraph appreciated the tactical error from Man City when Fernandinho gave the beautiful phrase: “The pinnacle of dark art”. The Brazilian midfielder plays an extremely important role in the squad that Pep built. He is the person with the most tactical fouls in the City team.

Is Pep Guardiola lucky to lead strong teams in his career? (Part 1)

Many people think that coach Pep Guardiola is lucky to lead strong teams in his career. However, to have that “luck”, he must be a person with real talent.


On March 1, Man City won the English League Cup after winning 3-1 against Aston Villa in the final. This is the 29th time Pep Guardiola has won the title after 11 years of participating in coaching.

Pep spent 625 official matches with 3 clubs Barcelona, ​​Bayern Munich, and Man City. The Spaniard lost an average of 21.5 matches to win a title. He is one of the coaches who need the fewest matches to win a title in football history. Pep is a true genius with the calculations in how to build the game.

Pep Guardiola - thien tai hay ke an may hinh anh 2 pep.jpeg

Absolute control

In the summer of 2016, Pep officially left Bayern Munich to take over as the head coach at Man City. At that time, Joe Hart was the captain and goalkeeper of the Etihad Stadium. He was also the main catcher in England’s goal in EURO 2016. In the Premier League, Hart is also one of the top goalkeepers.

However, Pep does not want to use Hart because the English goalkeeper does not play well. He prefers absolute ball control and short passes from the home court are the foundation. With Pep, a long ball to the top up the risk of losing the ball. When Pep was leading Barca or Bayern Munich, he had good goalkeepers like Victor Valdes, Jose Pinto and Manuel Neuer.

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He then brought in Claudio Bravo and Ederson Moraes, virtuosity goalkeepers. With Ederson, Man City can deploy the ball in a unique way. Pep directed the two central defenders deep back to attract the opponent striker. At that time, the two full-backs of Man City surged and waited for the correct pass from Ederson. The Brazilian goalkeeper can also pass a short pass to the central midfielder who has retreated. He always gives quality passes.

Ederson is always confident with the ability to handle his feet. He thinks that he can play well in midfield. He used to create assists from the home side to Sergio Aguero and Raheem Sterling to score.