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Tactics not most important thing in Champions League: Guardiola
Tactics not most important thing in Champions League: Guardiola
Lyon send Manchester City packing in quaterfinals
Lisbon : Manchester City's Champions League (CL) frustration continued with their shock 3-1 defeat to Olympique Lyonnais in the quarter-finals at Lisbon.
On the side of City, Pep Guardiola surprised by betting on Fernandinho on the right, AymericLaporte in the middle and Eric Garcia on the left in a very defensive line in Saturday's encounter, reports Xinhua news agency.
In the first minutes of the game, the Spanish coach's tactics seemed to have worked, since City managed three chances in just eight minutes, with a dominant 75 per cent possession of the ball. However, after 10 minutes, the game started to change and the Lyon team started to take shape.
In the 23rd minute of the first half, TokoEkambi's shoot was stopped by Garcia's sliding tackle, and Maxwel Cornet took the loose ball, firing it in the back of the net. The goal was even reviewed by the video referee, but confirmed shortly thereafter.
City's response came soon after, with the English team growing in the game against Lyon goalkeeper Anthony Lopes performing four saves in the first half, ensuring that the game went to the interval with minimal advantage. At the beginning of the second half, Guardiola was forced to bring on attacker RiyadMahrez for Brazilian defender Fernandinho.
Despite dominating possession throughout the match, defensive errors led to underdogs Lyon going through to the semi-finals where they will face the might of Bayern Munich.
City coach Pep Guardiola was on his knees a number of times during the dying moments of the second half when City conceded twice after equalising and Raheem Sterling missed a sitter when the score was still 2-1.
In this competition, the tactics are not the most important thing, Guardiola said in the post-match press conference.
"They (Lyon) are so fast and our central defenders are not so quick so I didn't want to leave them two versus two. We worked for three days on this, we discussed it and we reviewed this and when you play like we did in the last 20 minutes it shows the system is not the problem."
City's defensive woes led to them giving Liverpool a free run in the Premier League title race despite scoring 102 goals this season and it was found wanting against Lyon. They were woefully caught out when Maxwell Cornet put the French side ahead and the same happened again when MoussaDembele scored the second just seconds after Sterling's miss at the other end.
"It is what it is and hopefully one day we'll break this gap in this competition," added Guardiola, who has led City to two Premier League titles in four seasons but never gone beyond the quarter-final stage in the Champions League.
"We created more chances, had more shots, we did everything but unfortunately we are out again."
With this result, the semifinals are already defined with two French and two German teams. On one hand, Paris Saint Germain and RB Leipzig are playing on Tuesday, and on the other, Bayern Munich and the newly qualified Lyon, on Wednesday.
