Champions: De Bruyne silenced Bernabu and melted Guardiola | Champions League 2019

The Belgian drag with everything that came to pass in a colossal performance. “He is the best in his position,” praised his coach

After so many hours of study and videos, after so many arrows on the board, the Champions gave revenge to Pep Guardiola thanks to a tactical variant of overwhelming simplicity. It was necessary to attack on the left side and prevent Real Madrid from percussion on the right profile. In short, Manchester City had to squeeze out the weakness of Dani Carvajal to the same extent that I must protect Benjamin Mendy. For the first premise start line a Gabriel Jess, which, in order to comply with the second assumption, must spend the entire night with constant aid to its side. When he painted the thing worse, Guardiola recruited urgently to Raheem Sterling, author of the sprint braked on penalty by Carvajal. The sixth victory in nine games at the Bernabu was set in such an elementary way for Pep.

Maybe I had not explained well, but I always look at the opposing teams as much as I can. Actually, the work was focused during the last two days, although before we already worked and trained a lot, since we had 10 days off, Guardiola revealed in that press room where each of his gestures is examined to the millimeter. Neither in Spanish, nor in English, nor in Catalan was there a way to get a statement with which to gain weight. Pep's temperate speech was as versatile as City football. And his only compliments he dedicated to the best of his artists' plyade.

There is no striker in the world who pushes like him, endorses over Gabriel Jess, author of 1-1 and numerous approaches to Thibaut Courtois. It is incredible what runs. When he starts with the diagonal is so fast, so good … I choose it for the way of defending Madrid, for the aggressiveness of its high pressure. In that context we had to make the field wider, analyzed. I saw that they do it at Camp Nou and imagine that they can repeat it today. So in this stage we must protect ourselves with the continuity of the passes and making them run, developed on how to protect themselves from the feverish activity of Fede Valverde. Not by chance, the erotic Uruguayan party contrasted yesterday with the exceptional deployment of Kevin de Bruyne.

Partnership with Mahrez

At the age of 28, in full maturity, the Belgian moved through almost always undetectable terrain to lag behind Madrid. He is a fantastic player, very creative, but he also works a lot. Yes Rio Ferdinand He said he's the best midfielder in the world right now. I'm not going to take his mind off, jokes Guardiola. With that sweeping plant, De Bruyne took away the thorn of that disastrous 2016 premiere at Chamartn. Then, his baggage was reduced to a yellow one and a sad attempt at direct free near the flag of crner. At the Bernabu, just drag everything that comes along. During the first half, something more unnoticed lying on the left. After the break, his society with Riyad Mahrez On the right, I simply let Madrid go. Forgotten the injuries of the past year, De Bruyne is devoted to one of those actions that distinguish the elect.

Of course, the lights of Chamartn maintain the usual mystique. And they allow that kind of baptisms to which Guardiola seems so accustomed. In any case, he did not want to give himself more luster or show off the best statistics in the current century. I was lucky to lead Bara here and we won a few times. It is also true that with Bayern we lost, because we do not play very well, remembrance. Today I feel happy, because after the first 15 minutes, when we fail to chain 10 passes, we have played very well. But we will see what happens in Manchester. We have to adapt quickly for the return, because Madrid has great players and this is not over, I predict.

Despite the multi-million dollar investment of his club in the last five years, Guardiola did not change his speech about his future options in the Champions League: We only have one Recopa in 1970 and some semifinals in 2016. We are very little used to this. I hope we create it in the future.