The Champions League games become more and more exciting and gripping as the tournament progresses but the Man City vs Atletico Madrid tie could be a very monotonous and bland affair, as hinted by Luis Garcia as well as Jose Enrique.
City are the masters at playing attacking football whereas Diego Simeone is the wizard of the dark art of shutting teams down. The Atletico Madrid boss has a very distinctive brand of football and according to former Atelti man Garcia, Man City could be caught out while battling the inevitable.
“It is one of the teams that you don’t want to face, because of the rhythm and the players that Guardiola has developed, he knows how to use the players in every situation,” he told Stats Perform, as quoted by Fotmob.
“But Atletico is a complicated team when they have confidence and return to the basics of defending well together.
“With players in attack like Joao Felix and Angel Correa, with players like Yannick Carrasco and Marcos Llorente, they can be dangerous on counter-attacks and we have seen City suffer against teams that sit back.”
Ex-Liverpool man Jose Enrique has also hinted at the same thing, stating that Diego Simeone will only be worried about the scoreline.
“Sometimes Cholo [Simeone] gets hit, but in this type of competition he knows what he has to do and it won’t be easy,” Enrique concurred.
Diego Simeone earns nearly as much per month as Pep Guardiola and Jurgen Klopp 𝘾𝙊𝙈𝘽𝙄𝙉𝙀𝘿 🤯 pic.twitter.com/QMbi2ElnVp
— LiveScore (@livescore) March 28, 2022
“Pep knows Cholo a lot and Cholo knows Pep a lot. Manchester City is going to have possession and that doesn’t matter to Cholo, he just wants to win and across two games, Cholo is very complicated and can beat anyone.”
Will Atletico Madrid be successful in shutting down Man City?
Against Manchester United in the 2nd leg, Atletico Madrid had 40% possession but this week, we expect this number to fall down to the 20s.
The Atleti players will be more than happy to let City have the ball all throughout the 90 minutes because that is the way they play under Diego Simeone. The Spanish team are a well-oiled machine when playing without the ball so this is the last thing that their manager will be concerned about.
Guardiola could well try and come up with a new trick to be able to counter this plan but we have a feeling that Pep’s overthinking will eventually be the undoing for Manchester City.
Brace yourself: Pep Guardiola confirms he will 𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗸 his #UCL tactics vs Atletico Madrid… 😉🧠 pic.twitter.com/4KeEU0r3Si
— City Xtra (@City_Xtra) April 4, 2022
In the last few seasons, Pep Guardiola has been guilty of exaggerating things during key UCL matches and Tuesday’s game could become another example.
Playing with a false nine is already a big advantage for Man City because this will allow the City players to pull the Atletico Madrid defenders out into the midfield, thereby creating space behind the backline. The last thing Guardiola now needs to do is to tinker with this set formation because his players have been well drilled into playing with a 4-3-3 system – without a recognized centre-forward.
2015/16 Deja Vu for Pep Guardiola:
Bayern Munich’s semi-final elimination in the 2015-16 season is a classical Champions League tie where Simeone had forced Pep Guardiola to chalk out a new tactic only so that his players can beat the press and find space in the final third.
Bayern won the home tie(2nd leg) 2-1 with a possession of 73% but Atletico Madrid won the semi-final courtesy away goals. In those two matches, Guardiola used a 4-1-4-1 system with Xavi Alonso playing as the sole defensive midfielder and some experts think the Man City boss could ditch his false-nine system and use this same plan on Tuesday night.
Pep has the players who can eliminate this formation pretty well but we will have to wait and see if the manager once again tries to pull out a new trick or for once does he decide to keep it simple.
