Up next
The Bala Beam is now shipping
Tuchel continued his remarkable transformation of Chelsea, aided by the Manchester City manager’s unexpected changes
If you gaze long into England, England gazes also into you. In his five years at Manchester City, Pep Guardiola has grappled with assumptions and sacred cows, expanded perceptions of how football may be maintained, and forced a reconsideration of the role of the goalkeeper and the centre-forward. He has changed the English game, but the English game has also changed him.
How else to explain the fact that by the end of Saturday’s Champions League final the team of the high priest of juego de posición, the most influential coach of this century, should have become reliant in its search for an equaliser on long throws from a full-back? The sight of Kyle Walker drying the ball on his shirt, preparing to launch another ball into the mixer, may have become emblematic of those final minutes, but it was only one part of a tactical story that had two distinct themes.
