You hear about the atmosphere and the threat on the counter-attack and the recent results against other big teams and you almost fall into the trap that Manchester City might not win one of these games.
Not that these are easy games, and not that the other team, whether it be Copenhagen, Fluminense or anybody else, are not serious outfits, it is just that City are two things in particular: very good and very professional.
It really would be a big mistake to think that these games are actually easy, though. The reason City usually coast through is because they work very hard, trying everything to ensure that the things that could go wrong, do not go wrong.
If they think they could get into danger on the counter–attack they put extra emphasis on keeping the ball. They are more patient, giving the raucous home fans little to cheer about.
They go into these matches as the better side, no doubt, but what makes the biggest difference is that they know that their superior quality is going to count for anything they have to back it up with a proper performance.
It was actually put to Pep Guardiola after the match that City’s 3-1 victory looked easy.
“I know how difficult it is when the people think it is easy,” he smiled. “It was not. Ask Bayern Munich and Galatasaray and Man United (the teams Copenhagen met in the group stage) how easy they are. They are a really, really tough opponent, I know it.”
Guardiola was delighted with his team’s performance (Photo: Alex Livesey – Danehouse/Getty Images)
On Tuesday morning, The Athletic covered body language, one of the key tenets of Guardiola’s success in Manchester, about how the day-to-day approach in training fosters a mentality that helps the team play at their best in the toughest arenas, to come back from difficult scenarios and win.
And on Tuesday evening we saw another tenet: taking every game extremely seriously.
“Always I have huge respect for the first leg in the last-16, always,” Guardiola said 24 hours earlier, citing examples from his time at Barcelona, and how the quarter-finals can look after themselves when the team is in their run-in frame of mind, but these earlier clashes can catch better teams out if they are not on their game.
“I said to the players this morning (Monday) that they have to prepare mentally, the game plan will be what it has always been but they have to be ready to suffer mentally. Tomorrow will be a tight game. I feel it and normally my gut doesn’t lie to me.”
If he told them on Monday then he doubled down on Tuesday.
“We had a good meeting today,” he said post-match. “I showed the perfect images, the perfect concepts to make the players understand which type of game they are going to face tonight.
“This is my job, always make a warning to the players: ‘The team we are going to play has these attributes, this strength as a team’. And they proved it, we felt it. But we behaved with the right personality, the right patience. Everybody was at the top, top level otherwise you don’t make these results in Europe in the last 16.”
It is why we can talk honestly before the match about how Copenhagen beat Manchester United in this ground, how the atmosphere inside the Parken stadium can make a difference, and we can appreciate that Jacob Neestrup’s side are not to be taken lightly.
But we should not make the mistake of forgetting just how good City are, and “goo” here means a combination of quality and readiness. We cannot live in a world where we accept that City are, at present, a far better side than United and then wonder if City might suffer the same problems United did.
Guardiola will bend over backwards to ensure that does not happen, and he explained exactly what he wanted his side to do in the Danish capital.
“In this type of game if you attack quicker than you should they make transitions and you suffer a lot,” he said. “We wanted to make the right tempo; not slow, not fast, to make this incredible stadium quiet.
“I had a manager who said when you start in a big, big stadium with a lot of crowd, shouting, pressure, you should make 1000 passes. It’s not allowed to score a goal, just passes, and the stadium is low down (quiet). And this is what we tried to do.
“We tried to play a lot with Phil (Foden) and Jack (Grealish), Jack and Phil, make runners and switch the play. I saw the games against United, home and away, and Bayern Munich, and how difficult it was for them. I knew it and the players knew it, they followed us and they played that way, that’s why I am really pleased.”
No wonder it looked easy. But never make the mistake of thinking that it actually is.
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