The Champions League resists Guardiola since he left Barça. The most awarded coach in the world with 31 titles, two of them obtained this season -Premier and Carabao Cup-, continues to have problems to transfer its dominance in national leagues to the maximum continental competition. Against Chelsea, in Porto, he tasted the honeys of defeat for the first time in a final, after having won the previous two. The City will have to wait to debut in the list of winners as European champions.
What happens to Guardiola in Europe? Can you explain the reason why the one considered the best coach in the world has not won the Champions League for ten years? There is one main and outstanding one: the change of course of football. In the last decade there has been a transformation towards a more physical and direct game. The conquest of Chelsea is a new example. Prodigious players in the physical that overshadow the most technical.
Even so, Guardiola opted for pure talent in an approach to the final that has raised many blisters. Not shielding himself with a defensive midfielder against Chelsea's speed on the counter was reckless. On a defensive level, the team suffered in each transition and, what is worse, in attack did not have weapons to do damage.
The game statistics shown by BeSoccer are overwhelming. City only fired once on goal in the entire match. In the second half, when he was behind on the scoreboard, he didn't even shoot. It was again City that team that with Guardiola suffers from mordant and ends up cloying with the ball. 65% of possession was sterile for the danger they created on Mendy's goal; at 35%, in fact, Chelsea posed a greater threat.
According to UEFA statistics, City gave 617 passes of which 538 were correct. The rest, the losses, were a permanent danger from Chelsea's counterattacks. That is something that Guardiola has not corrected in all these seasons in the Champions League. The last campaign also happened against Lyon or against Tottenham, Monaco or even Real Madrid in previous years. Fast space teams have wrecked him this decade. Soccer changed. That exaggerated ball dominance that he exhibited with Barça, the one that led him to win two Champions, now has a response from the rivals. And that hurts Pep …