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Posts Tagged ‘Pep Guardiola’

Chief Executive League Manager´s Association Richard Bevan says that Chelsea´s owner decision to sack Andre Villas-Boas is an embarrassment to the Premier League.

In nine years Chelsea´s owner Roman Abramovich has hired, and fired, eight managers, with Villas-Boas being the last of the saga.

According to Bevan “What´s for sure is the club, despite unlimited wealth, haven´t yet worked out how to build a successful football club”

On the other hand, Villas-Boas claims that he was not given enough time to connect with the players and to take his plan into the next level.

And now the question is… who will replace the Portuguese?

Roberti Di Matteo second in command up until now will be in charge of the team; at least until the end of the season, but the speculation dance has already begun. The two names that sound the most are right now the top rated managers in the world, playing in the same League: Real Madrid´s Mourinho and FC Barcelona´s Pep Guardiola. The first one has already made clear that he wants to return to the Premier, and Guardiola has not renew his contract with FC Barcelona yet, in fact, is taking him longer than ever to decide over his future in the club.

Who, at the end, will have the courage to become the ninth manager in nine years in a team full of aging players, owned by a capricious multimillionaire difficult to please?

Things did not look good for Real Madrid fans when Mourinho announced his final line-up to take over FC Barcelona in the first leg of the Copa del Rey quarter finals. The list included Carvalho and Altintop .

But, still, in the 11th minute, thanks to a great assist from Karim Benzema, and the always appreciated help from Pinto (Barça´s eternal question-mark goalkeeper in the Copa del Rey competition), Cristiano Ronaldo scored and for a moment it looked like the conservative tactic planned by Mourinho was going to be successful.

Time only proved that Ronaldo´s goal was just good luck, and when Barcelona started to play the way they always do, Madrid started to shake.

Let´s just say that Barcelona did not crushed Real Madrid thanks to Iker Casillas and the posts. Instead, Barcelona scored in a very unusual way that only emphasizes that the whole team was really connected and concentrated on the work at hand. In the 49th minute Puyol shoot a powerful header after a corner kick. This goal, this way, really took Madrid players by surprise. So did the one by Abidal, who scored the coolest goal in the 77th minute after a wonderful play and assist by Messi.

And the Argentinean was, unintentionally so, one of the main characters in the bad play starring the overly aggressive Madrid defender Pepe, who showed us once again that something terrible in going on in his brain. The Portuguese stepped on Messi´s hand voluntarily, when the Argentinean was getting on his feet after falling down. Still, he saw no red card.

What did Mourinho said after the match? “I haven’t seen it, but obviously if it is deliberate he will be punished,”

And Pep Guardiola… well, he was extremely happy, politely saying that he did not see the aggression thanking instead all the players for their wonderful job and even taking the time to single out Alexis: “I want to especially thank Alexis [Sanchez],” He has played a fantastic game. He has stolen my heart”.

This result leaves Barcelona a comfortable leeway to prepare for second leg taking place next Wednesday at Camp Nou.