ANALYSIS Pep Guardiola’s fear cost Manchester City, not Real Madrid’s UCL ‘juju’

Manchester City were not at their fluid best in the 1-1 draw against Real Madrid and it was mostly Pep Guardiola’s fault.

Real Madrid and Manchester City served up a competitive semi-final first leg at the Bernabeu as both teams lived up to the pre-game narratives.

The general trope around Real Madrid in the UEFA Champions League is that they often find a way to win games despite being second-best and while we saw glimpses of that last night, it was not exactly why they avoided defeat.

Pep Guardiola’s team lacked their usual air of dominance and as is always the case when the Spaniard does not win, it was a classic case of ‘overthinking’.

Although Manchester City had 56% possession Guardiola set up in an uncharacteristically conservative manner for a number of reasons ranging from respect for Real Madrid’s quality to downright fear based on the events of last season.

Pep Guardiola’s uncharacteristic cowardice

Manchester City created 0.55 xG against Real Madrid, their lowest xG in a game since they lost 2-0 away at Southampton in the EFL Cup on January 11 and failed to have a single shot on target.

This rather uncharacteristic bluntness in attack was a result of caution as Guardiola opted to sacrifice Manchester City’s wing threat in a bid to stifle Real Madrid and Vinicius Jr more specifically.

Kyle Walker was reintroduced to the team as he made only his second Champions League start of the season for that specific reason, to stop Vinicius which he successfully did for most of the game.

The English full-back could not offer the away team his trademark bursts down the right wing because he was too busy following Vinicius everywhere which meant the entire burden of offensive play down the City right fell on Bernardo Silva who found his own Camavinga assignment a little too tough to crack.

The Cityzens did not fair any better on the left as Manuel Akanji lacked Nathan Ake’s offensive threat which forced Jack Grealish to alternate between an auxiliary fullback role and an isolated winger role, severely limiting his effectiveness.

One of the rare occasions on the night when Grealish had the ball wide left and close to the Real Madrid box led to the equaliser with a classic draw and dish play in which he pulls the opposition defence out of shape and lays the ball off to an open teammate who in this case was Ilkay Gundogan to set up Kevin DeBruyne’s thunderbolt of a strike.

Moments before that goal, City had begun to revert to what they know, which is overloading the right wing with De Bruyne in his sweet spot and an overlapping runner offering him an outlet, the exact play that has led to many Manchester City goals under Pep and often ended with a simple tap-in.

After scoring the equaliser, they shifted from that again to the ineffective two-man attack of DeBruyne and Haaland, once again collapsing their wing play entirely into defence as if satisfied with the result.

This lack of risk-taking and tactical cowardice shown by Guardiola is further exemplified by his decision to not make any substitutions despite his team clearly needing an injection of fresh energy.

What Pep Guardiola should have done

It would be ludicrous to accuse Pep of tactical ineptitude, he knew exactly what he was doing to start the game with the exact same formation and personnel that worked a treat against Arsenal to thrash their title rivals 4-1 two weeks prior.

However, this worked against Arsenal because the Gunners were willing to keep the ball and the transitional powers of Haaland and DeBruyne were on full display.

Real Madrid on the other hand had little to no interest in dominating position which gave City no chance to counter whatsoever, rendering their transitional setup completely useless.

They were hardly going to break down Real Madrid with two attackers and no wingers, precisely why they struggled to create any meaningful chances.

The fact that City shifted back to wing play briefly in the second half without changing any players suggests that Pep indeed knew what to do but was not willing to take the risk, perhaps due to PTSD from their last visit to the Bernabeu.

On a normal day, Guardiola would have ruthlessly pinned Real Madrid back after equalising by taking off Bernardo and bringing on Riyad Mahrez to test Camavinga who was on a yellow card with his more direct brand of wing play.

Subbing off Gundogan who was not having a great game for Julian Alvarez would have allowed DeBruyne to drift wide-right even more, surely another goal would have come from this as we have seen countless times with this team.

That is not to take anything from Real Madrid though who once again understood their assignment as they always do on Champions League nights. Vinicius was well-marked throughout the game but still showed good tactical understanding to drift away from Walker to score spectacularly in the first half.

‘Juju’, ‘voodoo’, ‘aura’, ‘pure dawg’ are just some of the terms that have been used to describe Los Blancos’ ability to maximise their play and get the best possible result on every Champions League night.

In truth though they are a quality team that has mastered the art of controlling a game without the ball and being ultra-effective when they do have it.

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