Saturday, 12.07.2025
Guardiola and Sarri face off for the first time in England. Both managers showed a preview of their likely tactical approach for the upcoming 2018/2019 season. City’s pressing game proved to be the big difference between the teams, creating dangerous counterattacking opportunities even when the build-up was not being executed to a high level.
A game of two states. Before the lone goal of the match, it was a tactically dynamic affair with several notable aspects surrounding possession behavior, team tactical mechanisms in transition, and high intensity defensive executions from both teams. After the French took the lead, the Belgians veered from their original focus in search of an equalizer. France were able to absorb Belgium’s attack and earn their spot in the World Cup Final.
Even after harder 1st half, Belgium eventually found a way through Panama’s organized and deep defensive structure, which in the end became a really dominant performance for Martinez’s side.
Belgium with their so-called “golden generation” could be a real challenger for this World Cup, since their overall quality puts them among the best national teams. Although their individual quality doesn’t mean anything, if the players are not being put into a functioning structure. Marc Wilmots’ tenure showed us the negative side of that, therefore it was necessary to hire a coach who is able to solve this problem both from a strategic and from a tactical perspective. After his first 3 games Roberto Martinez found a solution, implying a 3-2-4-1 system, which looks to be the most optimal choice the Belgians could use.
Kilmarnock inflicted Celtic’s second defeat in as many months at Rugby Park on Saturday. Having only taken over in October, Steve Clarke has already defeated both Rangers and Brendan Rodgers’ side at home, as well as securing respectable draws in Glasgow. Just as significant is the manner in which his team have achieved such success, showing a level of organisation rarely seen in Scotland.
This might be it for the La Liga title race. After yet another Barcelona win at Estadio Santiago Bernabéu, the Blaugrana can enjoy a comfortable lead, while some Blancos call for the head of coach Zinédine Zidane who thought man-marking Barça’s key players was the best strategy.
In the span of two weeks, Dynamo Kyiv managed to secure a couple of their most impressive wins in their club history. Through being drawn against FC Barcelona in the Group Stages of the 1997/98 Champions League, some of Europe’s managerial titans were able to square off. Valeriy Lobanovskiy would be matched against Louis van Gaal. In the matches, Dynamo were too much for Barcelona thanks to their well-designed strategy, despite having inferior talent.
For much of the early stages of this season I have been unable to write for various reasons. During that time there were a number of interesting games and impressive performances. In this series I will analyse aspects of some of these matches.
The Carlo Ancelloti era at Bayern came to a sudden conclusion after an underwhelming performance on Wednesday evening. This match was Champions League group stage match that many across the world anticipated once the draw was made back in August, only for it to be notable for the wrong reasons for Bayern. For Paris St. Germain, the match came as an opportunity to show to the world if they are worth mentioning as a club with legitimate hopes of winning the competition with their reloaded squad. With both sides won their opening Champions League fixtures, PSG comfortably took the top spot in the group after a decisive victory over the German champions.
Rangers hosted the first Old Firm game of the season already five points behind cross-city rivals Celtic after six games played. Brendan Rodgers’ side extended their winning run at Ibrox despite a resilient defensive display from the home side, which served to highlight some of the champions’ shortcomings.
