Why Erling Haaland still doesn’t solve Man City’s real Champions League weakness
As City prepare to face Bayern Munich in the Champions League quarter-finals, it is at the other end of the pitch where Pep Guardiola must find a solution if he is to conquer Europe again
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Your support makes all the difference.Pep Guardiola was talking about goals at the Etihad Stadium and, for once, he was not referring to Erling Haaland. The strikes he referenced came before the Norwegian joined. They were not ones Manchester City celebrated.
Not when Monaco, Tottenham and Real Madrid all scored three times away in Manchester. Each led to a Champions League exit for City: in the last 16 in 2017, the quarter-finals in 2019, the semi-finals in 2022.
Over two legs, Monaco scored six times, Tottenham four, Real a further six. Haaland had said, after he equalled a Champions League record by finding the net five times in the 7-0 thrashing of RB Leipzig, that he was brought to City to win the competition. And yet, Guardiola argued, it was not a lack of firepower that led to City’s frustrating exits.
“Against Monaco we scored six goals [over two legs] and were out,” he said. “Against Tottenham we scored four goals and were out. We scored four goals at Madrid and were out. I always had the feeling that we scored [whether] with a false nine, Sergio [Aguero], Gabriel [Jesus], with Erling, with David Silva, Gundo [Ilkay Gundogan], Kevin [de Bruyne], Leroy [Sane], Riyad [Mahrez], Jack [Grealish]. We have always scored goals. That was not the problem.”
So perhaps his reunion with Bayern Munich will not be determined by Haaland, despite his 44 goals, despite his return of 10 in his last three outings, despite his status as the Champions League’s top scorer. A tie could be decided at the other end of the pitch.
Frugality can come more naturally on such stages to Thomas Tuchel, whose Chelsea side only conceded two goals in seven knockout games as they won the competition in 2021. Their 1-0 win in the final is the lone time City have exited the Champions League in the Guardiola era without scoring in the decisive tie. Instead, they tend to prove too porous. History has tended to repeat itself for his City: they have also gone out 5-1 on aggregate to Liverpool and 3-1 in a one-off tie against Lyon.
He is aiming for a failsafe formula. “Attack better, defend what you have to defend,” he rationalised. “The fact that we conceded the goals doesn’t mean it will happen [on Tuesday]. The goals I think was not a big, big problem: we score goals but of course we have to defend well, here and in Germany. They have a lot of weapons and threats: the speed and quality they have, the mentality. It is a good test for us.”
That speed is particularly pronounced on the flanks with Sadio Mane, a scorer against City for Liverpool in the 2018 quarter-finals and a man who delivered a crucial brace in an FA Cup semi-final against them last year, and Sane, the sprinter who starred in City’s 100-point and treble seasons, two options on the left flank.
A few days after Guardiola said Kyle Walker cannot play in his current system, when the right-back has to double up as a holding midfielder, the are grounds to recall the roadrunner who seems a specialist for such tasks. “Well, maybe,” said a non-committal Guardiola.
It is a safer assumption that Ruben Dias will start. The Portuguese responded to the mentions of Bayern’s phalanx of gifted and speedy attackers by listing City’s defenders: Walker, Manuel Akanji, Nathan Ake, himself, Aymeric Laporte and John Stones. “We have some names as well,” he retorted. It is a curiosity that all bar Walker are centre-backs by trade, and perhaps not ideal when facing a squad packed with wingers. City loaned Joao Cancelo, perhaps their most idiosyncratic full-back, to Bayern. Dias and Bernardo Silva are particularly close to their compatriot and now they face him. “It will be strange,” he said.
Champions League knockout games have had some chastening moments for City but Dias argued they relish them. “All of us have a special feeling, a special taste when it comes to this stage,” he said. But they can come down to narrow margins as City, knocked out on away goals by both Monaco and Spurs, know better than most.
“Details will make the difference,” said Dias. Guardiola, often the master of micro-management, has got some major calls wrong amid his odder selections on such stages. “It is how we behave,” he said. “In these games we compete against ourselves.”
In contrast, Tuchel seemed to get every detail right in Chelsea’s 2021 charge to glory. The fifth of their seven clean sheets came against City. “Like a very wise man said to me, we didn’t lose the final, we just got one step closer,” Dias reflected.
He did not divulge who the wise man is. But part of the received wisdom from American sports is that “defense wins championships”. If true, it explains why City still have not won the Champions League.
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