Chapter 434: Guardiola is doing something again

On the court, Mandzukic put his hands on his hips and glanced at the time on the scoreboard anxiously.

The game time has come to the last few minutes, and including the injury time, there is really not much time left for them.

In this game, Mandzukic seemed to be working particularly hard, even desperately.

For others, this might just be an ordinary Champions League group match.

But for Mandzukic, this is his battle of revenge against Guardiola!

Last summer, due to a disagreement with Guardiola, the Bayern striker was sold to Atletico Madrid at a low price by Guardiola.

The feud between the two of them began!

Maybe it's fate, maybe it's God's will.

Just this summer, Mandzukic chose to leave Atletico Madrid and joined Juventus. Shortly after that, his team was drawn together with Manchester City coached by Guardiola.

After learning the match time with Manchester City, Mandzukic has been preparing carefully for the game.

He wanted to take revenge on Guardiola in front of fans all over the world, and prove with his own actions that Guardiola was blind and it was a mistake to give up on him! Mandzukic had a good idea and fought hard enough after the game started.

But in this game, Manchester City's defensive intensity was terrifyingly high.

The two central defenders of the opposing team were like two iron towers, tall and strong. He couldn't gain any advantage against them at all.

Even though he tried his best, he still couldn't get a good chance to score.

Giving that assist to Morata was already a result of great luck.

As for him stepping forward and scoring against Manchester City to become the savior, this scenario seems to be hopeless at the moment.

However, Mandzukic was obviously very unwilling to return empty-handed.

Therefore, even when the game time reached the injury time, he still gritted his teeth and once again rushed into Manchester City's penalty area, engaging in hand-to-hand combat with Manchester City's two iron tower-like defenders.

Dybala is very smart. After seeing Mandzukic attracting firepower in front, he used his cover to ambush at the front of the penalty area. As long as his teammates could pass the ball to his feet, he could break through or shoot, and he had a lot of space to deal with.

However, Manchester City is not only strong in their defense, but also in their midfield.

Juventus did not gain any advantage in the midfield stalemate, and several attempts to pass the ball to the players in the frontcourt ended in failure.

As time passed by, the game was about to end.

Dybala had to retreat to receive the ball, and at this time, Cuadrado finally brought the ball out and passed it to his feet.

Fernandinho rushed towards him at the first moment, and Kante also came in front of him, blocking his breakthrough route.

Dybala clearly saw his teammates being constantly intercepted and robbed by Kante on the bench, and he didn't dare to fight hard with the opponent.

So before two people surrounded him, Dybala immediately passed the ball.

Morata relied on his excellent awareness to get to the ball before the defender and passed it to the penalty area.

Seeing the ball flying towards the penalty area, Mandzukic immediately realized that this might be his last chance of the game.

So he shook off Van Dijk's interference, kicked the ground hard, and rushed towards where the football landed.

“Stop him!”

Seeing Mandzukic was about to grab the ball, Navas in front of the goal immediately shouted to his teammates.

Mandzukic is very good at heading the ball. When he was at Bayern, he often used headers to help Bayern score goals.

Facing such an aerial master, we must never give him the opportunity to comfortably score with a header.

Van Dijk plays football with his brain. He knows that he cannot commit fouls in the penalty area, but at this time only physical contact can affect the opponent's balance and then disrupt the opponent's shot.

So, he quickly rushed towards Mandzukic and jumped close to Mandzukic's body.

If Mandzukic was going for the ball, then Van Dijk was going for the person.

Of course, on the surface he still looked like he was heading for the ball, at least his eyes were always on the ball, and he just glanced at Mandzukic a few times out of the corner of his eye.

Under the influence of Van Dijk, Mandzukic's body balance was greatly affected, and his heading movement was somewhat deformed.

But even so, the football still flew straight towards the goal.

However, with Van Dijk's interference, the quality of his header dropped a lot. Navas was fully prepared and easily saved the ball, defusing Juventus' attack.

Mandzukic was very angry when he saw that his shot failed to break Manchester City's goal.

He raised his right hand to signal to the referee that Van Dijk had committed a foul, but Van Dijk looked innocent and indicated that he was just defending normally.

The referee looked at the two of them and said nothing.

He was standing very close to the opponent just now, so he could see clearly that during the fight for the header, Van Dijk did not make any movements with his hands, did not push or pull Mandzukic, and had no intention of committing a malicious foul.

Not only that, after Mandzukic completed his header, Van Dijk even helped him up to prevent him from accidentally falling when he landed.

How could such a good player with such a dignified character commit a foul? The referee thought that Mandzukic must have missed the chance to score, so he was angry? But no matter how angry he was, he couldn't vent his anger on others, right? Besides, victory and defeat are common in the military, and losing to the strongest team in Europe at the Etihad Stadium is not a shameful thing.

With such a preconceived idea, and the fact that Van Dijk's action was indeed very clean, the referee ignored Mandzukic's protest.

After the injury time was over, he quickly blew the whistle to end the game.

In the end, after a hard battle, Manchester City defeated the visiting Juventus 2:1 at their home ground.

In this game, both teams demonstrated extremely high tactical qualities and combat capabilities, and the game process was exciting enough to allow the fans who came to the scene and watched the game on TV to enjoy a wonderful game.

After this battle, Manchester City got off to a good start as they wished.

For Juventus, losing to Manchester City in the first group match is certainly a disadvantage.

But after ending the battle with the defending champions early, their next schedule will be much easier.

Moreover, the strength demonstrated by Juventus in this game made the outside world look up to them.

Some Old Lady fans even felt that their team had won with honor in defeat. Although they lost, judging from the strength they showed, it did not seem difficult for them to make it out of the group stage.

If the two teams can advance together, maybe they will meet again in the knockout round or even the final.

At that time, Juventus can get back at Manchester City!

After the match between Manchester City and Juventus ended, another group match held at the same time also had a winner.

Sevilla, the winner of the last Europa League, defeated Borussia Mönchengladbach 3-0 at home.

They also surpassed Manchester City with a three-goal advantage and temporarily topped the group.

In other groups, Real Madrid and Paris Saint-Germain in Group A easily defeated their respective teammates, and Ronaldo once again performed a hat-trick in the Champions League.

However, two of his hat-trick were penalties, which reduced the value of this hat-trick.

Compared to Real Madrid's unstoppable momentum, Barcelona's luck is much worse.

In the away game against Roma, they scored the first goal but were tragically reversed.

To make matters worse, young substitute Rafinha was tackled from behind by Roma star Nainggolan just one minute into the game, causing a serious knee injury and had to be carried off the field on a stretcher.

Barcelona's morale was greatly dampened by this, and the departure of Neymar led to a decline in the offensive power of Barcelona's front line. They never scored a goal since then and finally had to accept the result of a draw.

Barcelona, ​​which was in great momentum last year, seems to have encountered a series of troubles at the beginning of this season.

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This makes the outside world somewhat pessimistic about their future in the Champions League.

While the La Liga media are worried about Barcelona's prospects, the Premier League media are also sighing.

As for the reason why they sigh, it is actually very simple.

Arsenal and Manchester United both lost in the first round, and both lost to teams weaker than them, which can be said to be a series of upsets.

"Mourinho seems to have no idea how to attack again, and his team lost because of the lack of offensive firepower.

As for Arsenal, Wenger's luck was really bad. Chamberlain's own goal at the beginning of the game and Giroud's two yellow cards turned into a red card due to his lack of composure in the first half made their situation in the away game take a sharp turn for the worse.

But even so, the Gunners should not just surrender when facing the weakest opponent in the group.

Failure to successfully defeat the opponent away from home is a very unfavorable situation for their qualification for the group stage."

"Maybe, this season we can only rely on Manchester City!"

Although Chelsea won the first round, it was a big victory of 4:0.

However, the Premier League media seem reluctant to mention Chelsea, and the reason is very simple: firstly, the opponents Chelsea defeated were very weak, and the Israeli team has no presence in Europe, so there is nothing to be proud of in defeating such a weak team.

Secondly, Chelsea’s own situation in the league is already precarious. If they still want to keep their Champions League spot this season, they must make a choice between the league and the Champions League.

Of course Chelsea can give up the league and focus on the Champions League.

But given their current state, even if they qualify from the group stage, they probably won’t go far.

Therefore, no one dared to pin their hopes on this Blues team.

Thinking in this way, Manchester City, which is both capable and competitive, seems to be the only one worthy of trust!

"Fortunately we have Manchester City!"

The British media and newspapers finally found a glimmer of comfort.

But if Manchester City is eliminated one day, they will probably wail collectively!

…

After playing the Champions League, Guardiola felt temporarily relieved.

So he started to do something. In the sixth round of the Premier League, he moved Kante's position forward to central midfielder, trying to develop his offensive attributes.

This adjustment cost Manchester City a heavy price. At the end of the first half, the score was 1:2, and Manchester City, playing at home, actually fell behind.

This made the fans who came to the scene feel very incredible. What happened to Manchester City? Is it a sequelae of the Champions League?

Compared to the confusion of Manchester City fans, the Hammers fans were collectively excited.

West Ham United's record this season is quite good, especially when facing the top-ranked giants, they have won consecutive victories.

In the opening match of this season's Premier League, West Ham United defeated Arsenal 2-0 away from home, giving the Arsenal fans a little shock.

In the second round, they had a fierce battle with the dark horse Leicester City at home.

Even though the opponent scored two goals in a row at the beginning of the game, West Ham United continued to attack the opponent. At one point, their ball possession rate exceeded 70%. They almost kicked around Leicester City's goal and even scored a goal.

If it weren't for the unfortunate red card for one of the Hammers' players, they might have really been able to overthrow the dark horse Leicester City.

However, this defeat did not cause too much of a blow to the Hammers. In the fourth round of the Premier League, West Ham United visited Anfield and defeated Liverpool 3-0, successfully conquering Anfield, which also gave Klopp, who was making his debut on the Premier League stage, a little shock.

If West Ham United can win this game smoothly, they will have defeated three of the top five Premier League giants, and they can definitely be called giant killers!

However, Manchester City is not a weak team that everyone wants to bully.

After realizing that Kante was not very comfortable in the central midfielder position, Guardiola decisively gave up this attempt in the second half and put Kante back in the defensive midfielder position.

And in the 65th minute of the second half, he replaced the main striker Aguero who had returned from injury.

After Aguero came on the pitch, he was very active. The front attacking group formed by him, Lin Quan, De Bruyne and David Silva caused great trouble to West Ham United's defense.

In the 72nd and 78th minutes of the second half, Aguero and Lin Quan scored goals successively to help the team reverse the score. They finally defeated the Hammers 3:2, defended their home court, and extended Manchester City's winning streak to 6 games.

Although the team won in the end, Guardiola was in a bad mood after the game.

He seemed to be still immersed in the failed transformation of Kante and couldn't extricate himself! "Is it still not working?"

Guardiola felt quite regretful. It would be great if he could really develop this attribute of Kante!

"Why did you change Kante into that? Wasn't Yaya Toure this type of player before? But when he was in the team, it seemed that you didn't like to use him very much!"

Lin Quan couldn't understand Guardiola's stubbornness, as human energy is limited.

Kanter is good at defense, so let him play to his strengths. Why force him to do something he is not good at? (End of this chapter)