How Manchester City dismantled Juventus with straight passes and diagonal runs

New York Times

4 hours ago

Manchester City look like themselves again. Not because Rodri is back, not because they are the only team at the Club World Cup who ended with a perfect group-stage record, but because Pep Guardiola's side are carving teams apart from out wide again.
'I liked the way we did it,' Guardiola said after the 5-2 win against Juventus.
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Their opponents had only conceded eight in 11 games under Igor Tudor before facing City. The prospect of trying to cut open a stubborn 5-4-1 block in the Orlando heat could have become torturous quite quickly.
City made it look rather easy, even without Erling Haaland for the first 45 minutes. Omar Marmoush was the focal point instead.
Juventus mixed their out-of-possession approach — man-to-man in the high press, and a 5-4-1 mid-block where the centre-backs were relatively touch-tight but the midfielders defended zonally — and City showed flexibility too.
When building up in their own half, Jeremy Doku and Savinho, City's wingers, drifted inside and became No 10s close to Marmoush. This made space for full-backs Matheus Nunes and Rayan Ait-Nouri to push on.
The risk was leaving big spaces out wide that could be exploited in transition, by Juventus' wing-backs especially. Guardiola, as he always will be, was full of praise when this did not happen. He loved 'the patience to make a lot of passes to be calm.'
Savinho and Doku's narrow positioning looked to be less about getting them on the ball centrally and more about pinning Juventus' outside centre-backs deep. This would create a problem when a midfielder wanted to jump and press a City defender — it would create space for Rodri, Bernardo Silva or Tijjani Reijnders.
In Juventus' half, City flipped their wide scheme. The wingers went wide and full-backs narrow. This gave extra cover and set Doku and Savinho up for one-v-one scenarios.
City were good at not rushing crossing scenarios (just four in the first 27 minutes), partly because it made less sense without Haaland, and they could wear Juventus down with a short passing game and off-ball runs.
That desire for quality runners is something City have recruited for. Last December, about halfway through the Premier League season, (when adjusted for possession) they had attempted the fewest overlaps and and fewest passes to runners in-behind.
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This game, and the first three goals, showed the added quality that comes from Doku when he has Ait-Nouri's attacking support, and how effective a pairing Nunes and Savinho are.
City's opener came in classic fashion. Often, the best time to pick the lock of a compact defence is when the defence jumps as the attacking side recycles the ball.
Here, Ait-Nouri becomes a second No 6 as play is connected from right to left: Nunes, to Rodri, to Ait-Nouri. If the passage seems harmless enough, that's because it is.
But this move was 2021-22 City-esque in bringing the tempo of the game down before immediately slicing opponents open.
Ait-Nouri recognises wing-back Alberto Costa is jumping forward to Doku. He is so focused on shutting the Belgian down that he moves outside the vertical line of the ball.
The Algerian international splits the back line inside Costa, with a straight pass for Doku's diagonal run.
Doku cuts in and curls a far-post finish beyond Michele Di Gregorio. City have good box occupation too: Savinho has locked off the back post for rebounds, Marmoush is on the penalty spot and Rodri has arrived late should a cutback be on.
City's second came 15 minutes after Teun Koopmeiners had equalised following an Ederson error playing out against the press; there were multiple times he picked a bad pass and executed it poorly, but City more than compensated in attack.
On one of the rare occasions that Juventus doubled up out wide, City exploited it. Savinho and Rodri are playing two-v-three, and there is little protection for Juventus in the left half-space.
This makes Nunes the dangerous runner from deep.
Juventus are too passive, and Savinho has the time and space to thread a diagonal pass outside left wing-back Filip Kostic.
Nunes makes the straight run behind Koopmeiners (a reverse of the straight pass and diagonal run from Doku for the opener).
The approach play is excellent and earns the luck of an own goal from Pierre Kalulu. City have four plus Nunes in the box, fairly well-spaced, though nobody makes a penetrative run beyond the defensive line — the biggest downside to not having Haaland on the pitch.
City completed four through balls against Juventus. They only managed more in three Premier League matches in 2024-25 and their most in a Champions League game last term was four away to Sparta Prague.
Haaland came on at half-time and Nicolo Savona stayed deeper defending him. He almost scored within a minute of the restart when Bernardo slipped a diagonal pass for Savinho's straight run inside Savona, and his low back-post ball was just out of Haaland's reach.
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The third goal was the pick of the bunch for how City manipulated and dismantled Juventus' man-for-man pressing.
Here, City show flexibility again as Nunes has moved into midfield and Savinho is wide. Weston McKennie's jump to Ruben Dias forces the wide pass, and City's midfield rotates like clockwork.
Nunes' run — for a possible first-time Savinho pass in behind — takes Koopmeiners away.
This allows Reijnders to drop in and receive from Savinho. The Dutch international was marked by Kalulu, but ended up between two Juventus players and neither wanted to go with him.
Reijnders drives to the edge of the final third in a five-v-five. Haaland has already moved into Savona's blind spot.
Koopmeiners has done well to track Nunes' run but his body shape is awkward and — as with Costa for the first goal — he is outside the vertical line of the ball.
A straight pass from Reijnders; a diagonal run from Nunes.
The full-back gets his assist (his cross for Kalulu's own goal is not counted) for Haaland's tap-in.
The win means City avoid Real Madrid in the round of 16. There is a potential for a repeat of the 2023 Champions League final in the quarter-finals: the winner of Inter and Fluminense face City or Al Hilal.
'It has been a long time since we had a performance like this on and off the ball,' Guardiola said. 'This is just one game, but I think the players felt again what it was like to be a good team.
'The belief always comes from your performances, not your past.'
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