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With a balancing act that sees Manchester City host Atletico Madrid on Tuesday for the first leg of the Champions League quarterfinal before a crucial Sunday date at home against Liverpool in a match that could decide the Premier League title, Pep Guardiola will need to have his squad more focused than ever.
Guardiola has made mistakes at this stage of the tournament before. Rolling out a 3-4-3 trying to match Lyon after City’s base formation worked so well in 2020 resulted in a 3-1 defeat to crash out of the tournament. Overthinking was something that Guardiola acknowledged in his pre-match press conference. “Always I overthink and create new tactical and ideas. And [Tuesday] you will see a new one.” When asked for clarification or if he was joking, Guardiola continued: “I always think a lot, and that’s why I’ve had very good results in Champions League.”
In contrast to a Diego Simeone side that you typically know what you get, Guardiola needs to ensure that his team doesn’t tactically self-sabotage as home favorites. This tournament has been a team effort for Atletico Madrid as they’ve struggled to score while being their typical stingy defensive selves, scoring and conceding nine goals in the competition thus far. But City’s attack has put the ball into the net 23 times, it’s on a different level than those that Atletico has played so far. And while Atleti’s defense has been good, it’s also allowed five goals in two games against Liverpool compared to allowing four goals in their other six matches. So they could struggle against top tier competitions.
Jan Oblak has been in good form ranking third in Champions League goals prevented with 3.1 and he’ll be busy to…
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Source : cbssports
