Manchester City vs. Real Madrid: Three ways Pep Guardiola can approach Los Blancos in Champions League

In the afterglow of an underwhelming but extremely necessary win over Club Brugge in their last Champions League match, Pep Guardiola set the clock running. He acknowledged his Manchester City side were not ready for the test posed by Real Madrid (or Bayern Munich) there and then. However, he noted, a lot could change in two weeks.

Time is almost up. And, well, precious little has changed. In two games the English champions have been utterly mullered by Arsenal before a much rotated side needed all the cavalry the bench could muster to scrape past League One Leyton Orient. Precious little appears to have changed. The attack is ponderous, the midfield lacks dynamism and it requires very little indeed to pry open a defense that is missing its Rodri-shaped shield.

Now Vinicius Junior and Kylian Mbappe are coming to town, leading a Real Madrid side who have their own vulnerabilities in an injury-riddled backline. All that is required is for City to come up with a way of getting their jabs in on the European champions’ weak torso, ideally while covering off their own glass chin. Fortunately for them they have a manager who will drive himself mad in pursuit of the perfect gameplan to quash Madrid. The stage seems set for one of those games where Guardiola tries something completely different, wildly experimental and/or potentially disastrous. 

How might City change to quell the threat of Madrid and heighten their own? Let’s imagine.

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1. Use a proper defender at right back

If there has been a constant through the many ways City have inflicted disaster on themselves this season, it has been the sieve with which they have attempted to defend their own right flank. When Kyle Walker returned from injury he looked to have lost half a yard of burst, but even that post-prime version of their erstwhile club captain would be preferable to the options currently at their disposal. He’s now at AC Milan.

Rico Lewis was the next man up when Walker left and the youngster has his qualities, forged in the Guardiola sides that were so utterly dominant they never had to worry much about defending. Lewis passes and carries the ball well, his movement is sharp and he has a strong sense of positioning when City are camped in the attacking third. Get him going backwards, however, and he looks like a 20-year-old defender who has spent most of his professional career not really defending.

Lewis has evidently lost the trust of Guardiola as a starting right back in the biggest games. It is hard to understand exactly what Matheus Nunes has done to earn it. Club Brugge’s goal at the Etihad 12 days ago might have been the most obvious example of a winger blowing by the Portugal international, but it was hardly the only one. No wonder. Whatever Nunes might be he is not a right back. A natural defender would have known that when Ferran Jutgla had him on the breakaway his best bet was to delay so that the three covering midfielders could get back and give City the numbers. Instead, he committed to a tackle he never got close to winning, Club Brugge’s forward was away and no one was able to get across to Raphael Onyedika.

These sorts of moments have been the norm not the exception when Nunes is playing at right back. Perhaps it is a function of being an advanced midfielder for a Guardiola team that still pays lip service to their press. Those players need to be snapping at their opponents’ heels when they are facing towards their own goal. Do that against a tricky winger like Leandro Trossard — particularly when Bernardo Silva looks so light on muscle — and you risk turning positions like this into a free kick in a dangerous area.

In a bid to exploit Nunes’ third man runs, Guardiola has generally utilised either a 2-3-5 or 3-2-5 in possession, his right back pushed up towards that frontline where he can hold width and give Phil Foden a channel to move into. That is something that might work if City were at their most effective out of possession, suffocating the opposition with high pressure. Instead even Leyton Orient players can pass their way around four black and yellow shirts and create a shot for themselves seconds later.

Now imagine it is Luka Modric slipping those passes up the field, Vinicius running onto them. The covering right center back isn’t going to be able to get across quick enough. There’s little value, then, in leaving Nunes back. Lewis might not be the one either. John Stones or Manuel Akanji at right back? Perhaps, but they would not have the legs to keep up with Vinicius or Kylian Mbappe.

There is one who could keep up with them. In Lens’ 2-0 win at Reims in November, Abdukodir Khursanov hit a top speed of 22.67 mph. The fastest either Mbappe or Vinicius have hit in the Champions League this season? 22.18. The slight drawbacks? Khusanov did not really play as a right back for his previous club, though covering the right side of a back three might be something Tuesday calls for. Well that and the fact that his debut in English football was as trying as any young footballer could wish for. Speaking after Khusanov’s error in the 3-1 win over Chelsea, Guardiola suggested he might take his 20 year old Uzbek defender out of the firing line for a while. Hurling him back in front of some of the sport’s deadliest marksmen would be quite the gambit.

2. Play through Haaland

From something that has not worked well for City to a more successful approach, at least in flashes. Compare and contrast Erling Haaland’s heat map from the victory over Chelsea with that for his season as a whole. 

One of the purest penalty box players of his generation was back in midfield, a mere four of 26 touches coming in the box. For the season over 30 percent of Haaland’s touches have come in the box. Against Chelsea that proportion was halved. Had this been performance not come from a 6′ 4″ Norwegian it might even have been labelled a false nine display. Arguably, that is what it was. Before that term came to mean someone who does not look like a No.9 leading the line, a false nine was someone who dropped towards midfield to create space for other forwards to attack.

In this case Omar Marmoush was crashing into the space Haaland was creating. If his runs had been timed better, goals would surely have followed. Similarly a strong leap by Levi Colwill 17 seconds into that contest might have been what stopped City from getting an even earlier goal, given that Marmoush is probably better positioned to claim any flick on than Trevoh Chalobah.

City might well have been trying the same thing against Arsenal last Sunday, it is hard to be sure given how rarely the long passes they attempted even came close to Haaland. Certainly, however, Marmoush’s positioning even closer to his No.9 suggested Guardiola had seen something he liked against Chelsea.

Against Madrid it might work even better. Carlo Ancelotti will not be able to field Antonio Rudiger, the sort of robust center back who can assert himself on Haaland aerially. David Alaba too, meaning a potential center back pairing of Aurelien Tchouameni and Raul Asensio with Federico Valverde dropping back to cover the right flank. That is a lot of players inexperienced in their position with precious little reps together. Such circumstances tend to bring with them a rickety line that leaves space in the wrong spots, whose offside line falters at just the wrong moment. A bit of little-ish guy playing off the big lad up top ball might go a long way.

3. A game of keep away

The risk, however, comes in Haaland not winning those flick ons, in a more rapid fire attack being repelled by Madrid in much the way it was by Arsenal. There is a reason why Guardiola has never earned comparisons with Charles Reep or Sam Allardyce. The long ball game might be the most direct route to goal, but a game of second balls and duels it is not as easily controlled as one where City complete 500-plus passes. Open up any contest to transitions and Mbappe, Vinicius, Rodrygo and Jude Bellingham might just rip through you.

“It’s impossible to control those four players for 90 or 180 minutes,” said Guardiola. “All four are exceptional, we know that. We have to reduce their involvement. They have skill, they combine well regardless of the opponent. 

“But we will try to impose our game, be clever to get a good result to take to the Bernabeu.”

Those two concepts of control and imposition hint at Guardiola’s particular approach to Champions League around the turn of the decade, the defensive possession that took City to the final in 2021. In the three years prior to Haaland’s arrival there was no defense in Europe’s top competition that was anywhere near as miserly as theirs, giving up an average of 0.72 non-penalty expected goals per game. This was the team of 61 percent possession, measured build up and a packed middle.

It could work again. Kevin De Bruyne, Ilkay Gundogan, Bernardo Silva, Mateo Kovacic: all of them look to have lost a little burst — if they ever had one in some cases — but against a Madrid team that does not really chase them in their half of the pitch, they could just manipulate the space like they used to. Add in a Jack Grealish to bring a bit more pausa to the midfield, hope that Nico Gonzalez’s presence in training on Monday means he will be fit enough to feature, his muscularity approximating at least one of Rodri’s great traits. Perhaps, and this is where we get really radical, sacrifice Haaland in pursuit of control.

Covet the ball, attack only when the defense is set, spread the attacking responsibility: it has all worked for City before. Whether it will work again seems unknowable, about the only thing that can be known for certain at the Etihad right now is that what they have won’t work against Madrid.