203 Comments
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Ryan O'Hanlon's avatar

This is insane. The Champions League is the best competition in sports. I would absolutely wear a hat and even consider getting a tattoo on my lip.

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Scott Dangler's avatar

The single leg version is much less fair and much more random, fun, and exciting

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Philip Johnston's avatar

Outside or inside of the lip

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Miguel's avatar

Bubble football for the win.

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Ryan O'Hanlon's avatar

The final stats:

-xG: City 2.58, Lyon 0.97

-Shots: City 17, Lyon 7

-Final-third passes: City 103, Lyon 30

-Penalty-area passes: City 11, Lyon 7

Credit to Lyon; they took the chances when they got them, but c'mon man! Wtf! Even with Pep's over-tinkering, City created the overwhelming majority of chances. Maybe you pin the first half on Pep, but in the second half, Laporte fell, Sterling missed, and Ederson biffed. Game over. That's what makes knockout soccer beautiful, I guess. The best players in the world fuck up all the time, but over a 38-game season or even a two-leg tie, it evens out. One game, though? You can't come back.

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Miguel's avatar

The game seemed tighter than this but oh well. I knew somthing was up when I noticed Pep was wearing unfamiliar knitwear.

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Kenny Stone's avatar

The actual expected goals for Lyon’s first and third are higher than the xG number. They were outside the box but both pretty good chances.

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murakozybalazs's avatar

well, Pep didn't really made it in two legged ties neither since leaving Barca

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Ryan O'Hanlon's avatar

It's lit. The French league is the best of the Big Five European leagues, clearly.

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Scott Dangler's avatar

Rest>Form?

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Ryan O'Hanlon's avatar

Form is temporary. Rest is permanent.

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Ryan O'Hanlon's avatar

OK, I'm done for the day. Love you guys. Hope you enjoy doing these as much as I do. Enjoy the narratives over the next few days, and let's hope the semifinals produce the same amount of bonkers shit that these four games have. The Champions League is the best. See you back here on Tuesday.

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El Pibe's avatar

Leipzig Lyon final...LFG!

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Ryan O'Hanlon's avatar

Sterling turning that situation -- running away from goal, to a bouncing ball, with a defender on his back -- into a high-quality chance is so, so good.

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Ryan O'Hanlon's avatar

Better end to the half from City, and I do wanna say: Lyon are a pretty good defensive team. It's not like you can just roll it out there and score on them. Plus, I think Cornet's finish was way more impressive than it initially looked. However! City are supposed to be as good as Bayern Munich. That was ... not it.

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murakozybalazs's avatar

I mean there are obvious free spaces (outside the sidebacks, behind the wingbacks), which are there to exploit by the diagonal runs of KDB and Sterling, so its not flawless. its just... so defensive with this much players behind the ball, and there is not so much help to them whatsoever

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Ryan O'Hanlon's avatar

The different situations of on-the-way out players fascinates me. Sometimes coaches will just stop using players if they know they're leaving (see: Can, Emre). Other times, they'll build their teams around them (see: Ramsey, Aaron). And sometimes a coach will announce a guy's impending departure ... and then immediately start him in the biggest game of his career (see: Garcia, Eric).

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Ryan O'Hanlon's avatar

Pep's about to get eliminated because his one great defender fell down.

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Jon Swagman's avatar

Did he get stepped on? I can't even tell.

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Ryan O'Hanlon's avatar

Weeeeeeeeeeeeeee

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Jack Dawson's avatar

Damn, we gotta update the rankings

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Philip Johnston's avatar

As a Man united fan I couldn’t agree more!

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Ryan O'Hanlon's avatar

Caqueret just kneeling behind the wall is killing me.

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Miguel's avatar

Hair slicked back like Christian Bale in American Psycho playing peek-a-boo. The CL just keeps in giving.

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Sam's avatar

i saw koke get a handball in la liga match post restart after doing something similar...dont really understand the upside

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Ryan O'Hanlon's avatar

This and "defending with your hands behind your back" are two of the dumbest hacks for easy-to-fix problems.

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Sam's avatar

beside the opportunity to improve hamstring flexibility mid match

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Ryan O'Hanlon's avatar

xG update: 1.86 to 0.42 ...

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Rick Mahan's avatar

Need another update after that sterling miss

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Ryan O'Hanlon's avatar

"And Pep has parity" is a good in-the-moment call.

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Ryan O'Hanlon's avatar

I have no idea what this lineup is. Might be the weirdest, least-explicable-to-the-layman lineup I've seen Pep. Also, what happened to Bernardo Silva?

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Thomas Van Grinsven's avatar

Do you think he’s playing this to prepare for Bayern?

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Ryan O'Hanlon's avatar

THERE HE IS. I like that. Bayern kinda play with two up top, so a back three would make sense. This is the best explanation I've seen.

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Thomas Van Grinsven's avatar

Young & in the house

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Thomas Van Grinsven's avatar

Kyle walker vs Alphonso Davies will be an insane matchup on the wing

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Sam's avatar

lol to pep trolling by starting 19 yo they bought from barca academy in champions league quarters though

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Mohit Kumar Manhas's avatar

I want Guardiola to overthink so much that he ends up playing his normal team

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Ryan O'Hanlon's avatar

Kyle Walker 1) kept the runner onside, and 2) stopped running back after the ball was played when he mayyyybe could've gotten pressure on Cornet if he kept the recovery-run going.

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Scott Dangler's avatar

Moussa is the King Dembele

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Miguel's avatar

Pep doesn't suffer from male pattern baldness he's just bald from rubbing his head thinking about how he can kneecap his teams in CL knockout games..

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Jeremy's avatar

Amazing to see these Private Equity wankers get what they deserve

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Philip Johnston's avatar

You love to see it!

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Jeremy's avatar

You can’t buy your way out of shit futbol

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Jonathan's avatar

PSG, Atleti and now Man City all put on more defensive starting 11s like they're trying not to make mistakes in the first 45 and win the last 45. But if you think you're more likely to win the last half, aren't you just better off doing that for the full 90?

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Ryan O'Hanlon's avatar

[guy tapping head meme]

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Ryan Wright's avatar

no surprise lyon are beating these english farmers

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Ryan O'Hanlon's avatar

oh no oh nooooooooooo

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Ryan O'Hanlon's avatar

Correct me if I'm wrong, but is the fake crowd-noise machine chanting "Oh, Kev-in De Bruy-ne"?

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Stephen W's avatar

I don’t hear it, but I know some broadcasters use audio from the teams’ prior games for chants and stuff. Don’t know how that translates to a neutral site.

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Connor's avatar

Looking forward to a full revised Dembele rankings pod

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Jack Dawson's avatar

I’ll try and make it happen

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Mohit Kumar Manhas's avatar

UEFA having their CAS revenge

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Sam Martin's avatar

Ryan, I think I remember you making this point during the last world cup, but I think it is relevant here: dominant teams should try to make games higher scoring when playing an inferior opponent. I am a dumbass when it comes to soccer, but from a game theory perspective, more scoring lessens the impact of randomness in a sport like soccer where individual goals can be lucky.

Standard practice, though, seems to be the "defense wins championships" line of thinking. Pep is not the only one: Tuchel loves to play very defensive/conservative lineups for PSG, for example. Didier Deschamps won the world cup with an embarrassment of attacking talent by playing 4 CBs and trying to win every game 1-0.

Thoughts on this rambling, half-baked take?

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Ryan O'Hanlon's avatar

Absolutely agree! You're gonna have a couple embarrassing exits because soccer is random, but it works out over the long run. Look at Bayern yesterday -- or even PSG. They got ripped open a bunch in the first 30 minutes, both teams, and then dominated the rest of the match.

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Sam Martin's avatar

Ultimately, this game and every game is going to come down to randomness, but going for a 5-2 xG line instead of 3-1 seems more likely to be successful

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Miguel's avatar

Pep's been stung with attacking teams in this comp as well. Especially at Bayern.

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Ryan Wright's avatar

sterling lmfaoooooooooooo

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Sam's avatar

i know we already established ligue 1 as best of big 5 but crazy lyon was in 7th 1 when they cancelled

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Jon Swagman's avatar

Lyon is much better than 7th best in France to be fair.

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Miguel's avatar

Robbed of a late run by their country's Marseille suporting president!

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Bryan Koch's avatar

One way to solve your years-long left back problems: don’t have a left back!

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Greg D's avatar

Is pep still wearing cargo pants?

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Thomas Van Grinsven's avatar

This will be a horrible VAR situation

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Ryan O'Hanlon's avatar

Lyon have looked dangerous as soon as they started to try attacking again. Was ... Pep right?

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Miguel's avatar

City do look shaky and supreme tactical fouler has already vacated the ptch.

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Jon Swagman's avatar

I think I would like to see Mahrez on for Fernandinho at half.

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Jeff Leitch's avatar

And David Silva for Rodri

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Ryan O'Hanlon's avatar

My guess is that Pep's been triggered by all the bad bounces that have gone against his teams in the CL over the past five/six years, so he trotted out this lineup that should theoretically at least limit the bad bounces, even if it muted his own team on the attacking end. And, well, you can never eliminate the bad bounces ...

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Miguel's avatar

Pep's at it AGAIN!!!!!!!!

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Scott Dangler's avatar

Aouar😍

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Sam Martin's avatar

Pep really played 3 CBs and 2 DMs in a game against inferior opposition where you should be pressing to score as much as possible. Incredible stuff

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Ryan O'Hanlon's avatar

And he still only lost because all of his best players decided to massively fuck up in three separate individual moments.

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Thomas Van Grinsven's avatar

Every choice he makes is hyper analyzed and he probably gets credit when he shouldn’t and gets shit on when he shouldn’t. Everyone praised him after leg 1 vs Madrid but that game only changed once Sterling came on

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Scott Dangler's avatar

More bad bounces to trigger Pep next year...he gonna hire Pulis as a CL assistant

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Sam Martin's avatar

I know it's a counterfactual, but you wonder how many chances they'd have had if he started a normal attacking lineup

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Nassim Kezoui's avatar

They would have won toward the end, like PSG is used to do, even if, once in a while, Lyon wins.

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Tony James's avatar

This

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Tony James's avatar

This

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Miguel's avatar

Have said for a while that the French league is underrated (strokes chin)

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Mohit Kumar Manhas's avatar

What’s the definition of dummy?

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Mohit Kumar Manhas's avatar

I know it’s a dumb one but if City blows this game, the narrative that Pep can’t win CL without Messi would gain a lot of traction

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Ryan O'Hanlon's avatar

Kind of reminds me of what happened with Clayton Kershaw in baseball (sorry if this alienates!). He's the best pitcher of the last 20 years but constantly lost in the playoffs b/c of a succession of absurd happenings. Now, the still loses in the playoffs a lot, but that's because he's not as good any more. Not saying Pep isn't good anymore, but all of the "Pep tinkers too much" stuff was overblown and the result of, like, Thomas Muller and Sergio Aguero missing PKs, but now he actually is over-tinkering and if it costs him it'll seem like it validates the previous decade of nonsense.

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Sam's avatar

could say the same about cp3

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Miguel's avatar

If I was a Pep stan i'd reply that Barca won two when he was there and only one since, so why can't every other manager do it.

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Scott Dangler's avatar

Surely Mahrez on after half?

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Jesse Ziter's avatar

Foden to save the day? Stage set for a hero-making moment ...

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Scott Dangler's avatar

Probably shouldn't wait till then, but not likely

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Jesse Ziter's avatar

I’m generally fairly pro-VAR but that Lyon goal was a great example of how it can really take the air out of an exciting moment, right?

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Mohit Kumar Manhas's avatar

No English or Spanish teams in Semi Finals, just like we all imagined

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Scott Dangler's avatar

"Those from the gastronomic capital have cooked up something scrumptious" 👍👍👍

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Scott Dangler's avatar

LE WHAT

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Stephen W's avatar

.99xg?!

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Rick Mahan's avatar

David Silva could double the size of his statue outside the Etihad if he pulls city back

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Jesse Ziter's avatar

Man. Sterling is a fucking superstar.

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Jesse Ziter's avatar

Sterling with that Phonzie Davies patience in the box.

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murakozybalazs's avatar

yeah, he is a bad man

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Rick Mahan's avatar

Mama there goes that man

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Thomas Van Grinsven's avatar

Nice clearance by cancelo from lyon’s box

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Thomas Van Grinsven's avatar

Never thought I’d want to see Benjamin mendy subbed on

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Thomas Van Grinsven's avatar

I hate to be a stereotypical “pep tinkers too much” guy but I’m not sure this setup gets the best out of any of the city players. Fernandinho is probably better with a close outside back, walker doesn’t go forward much anymore, de bruyne is better shifting right from the middle, not starting there, etc

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