Liverpool’s opponents in the Champions League semi-finals did not expect to get this far but their manager’s tactical nous produced a magnificent comeback to stun BarcelonaIt is 34 years since Roma reached a European Cup semi-final. And only one month less than that since Liverpool beat them on penalties in the final. Older fans still wince at the memory, hardly surprising when you consider it took place at their very own Stadio Olimpico.Times change, though, and this two-leg tie has a very different context. Roma, bluntly, did not expect to come this far. When they were drawn against Shakhtar Donetsk in the last 16, their captain, Daniele De Rossi, said there were “two or three teams in this season’s Champions...
From the 1960 final to the miracle of Istanbul, Europe’s top club competition has provided many moments to rival the drama of Real Madrid’s quarter-final against JuventusThe almost shocking conclusion to what had been a notable Juventus recovery against Real Madrid at the Bernabéu has not only divided opinion – it was a penalty all day long, one could only admire the stealth with which Medhi Benatia administered his shove in the back of Lucas Vázquez and the bravery of Michael Oliver for punishing it – but has also inspired much talk of the evening being one of the most dramatic in the history of the European Cup and Champions League. However the latter stages of the competition have frequently...
After three straight defeats, City’s manager is not ‘a fraud’ and neither has he been ‘found out’ – rather rivals have realised how to exploit his side’s weak spotsIs Pep Guardiola a bald fraud? Before Manchester City’s three consecutive defeats in the last eight days, this seemed to be one of the more urgent questions of the modern sporting age.It looked a simple enough dichotomy. Is the man who gave us the most compelling elite club team and the finished‑article Lionel Messi, a high‑class manager whose teams retain a skein of brittleness against the best opponents? Or is he, in fact, a fraud. And not just a fraud but a bald fraud. A bald foreign fraud, the worst kind of...
Liverpool were more disciplined, organised and mature than Manchester City, with Dejan Lovren shining light on the tactical input their manager had at half-time at the Etihad StadiumThe Liverpool dressing room was a predictably emotional place around 8.30pm on Tuesday, after a first half in which their passiveness and Manchester City’s excellence had threatened their hold on the Champions League quarter-final. However, while elsewhere in the Etihad Stadium Pep Guardiola was combusting and getting himself sent to a padded seat, Jürgen Klopp was silent. He had a victory against the finest team in the land to plot.Klopp the gurning, manic cheerleader is an image the Liverpool manager regrettably accepts he cannot shake but, as Virgil van Dijk said before the...
Pep Guardiola’s half-time bust-up helped bring Manchester City’s Champions League house of cards crashing downAnd fade to blue. Two billion pounds, 10 years and an entire Gulf state marketing plan in the making, in the end Manchester City’s best shot so far at becoming the champions of Europe was extinguished in half an hour of tailspin at Anfield and the reverberations from two minutes of self-immolating fury from Pep Guardiola at the Etihad.Guardiola was a little hoarse, a little overwrought at the end of this decelerating 2-1 defeat. He insisted he had not insulted the referee Antonio Mateu Lahoz in the moments before he was sent off at half-time for remonstrating in an aggressively graceless manner. Related: Liverpool go through...