In Italian, it is Contrattacco.
In English, Counter Attack.
In Korean, a counterattack.
By definition, a counterattack means that the disadvantaged side looks for an opportunity to strike back.
Counterattack.
We hoped that this word would become the single keyword that could explain today’s match.
1:24
FIO 0 : 0 MCI
The score currently displayed on the scoreboard is 0–0.
But if you ask whether we and our opponent are on equal footing, the answer is no.
We are already at a disadvantage.
Because we lost the first leg 2–4.
So, to be exact, the score is 0–2.
The moment the match began, we were already in a position where we had to launch a counterattack.
Furthermore, even from an internal perspective, what we must aim for is also the counterattack.
Man City is a team that wants to play out the match while holding the initiative in any situation.
Our manager believed that today, even with a two-goal lead, would be no different.
Realistically, it would be difficult to snatch the initiative away from such a Man City.
Therefore, the aspect we trained the most for while preparing for the second leg was also the counterattack.
Whether externally or internally.
The keyword for the second leg had to be the counterattack.
If so, what is the most important thing in a counterattack?
Surely, it is speed.
The faster the counterattack, the better.
It is an obvious truth.
From the first pass to the final shot, shortening the time by even one second raises the success rate of the counterattack by a meaningful margin.
We had devoted nearly all our training time to shortening that one second—no, that 0.1 second.
Later, we sweated through countless repetitions of the same scenario until the mere beep of the timer was enough to make us gag.
We staked our lives on it, pouring hundreds of thousands of seconds into the pursuit of a single second.
Yet amid all that training, what we realized was this: how to execute the fastest possible counterattack.
This was quite peculiar.
The answer did not lie in speed.
Rather, the answer lay in doing it slowly.
What do I mean? This was during the thick of training.
We were so focused purely on faster, even faster, that we could hardly shorten our time at all.
No matter how hard we tried to quicken our pass timing, no matter how careful we were to reduce unnecessary touches, the time did not decrease.
On the contrary, the more obsessed we were with speed, far from getting faster, we often failed to even reach the opponent’s box.
It was because of mistakes.
The more impatient we became, the more mistakes came out in basic touches and passes.
As mistakes piled up, far from shortening the time, we could not even get to the finish.
We were growing exhausted.
The opponent being who they were, we had to shave off even 0.1 seconds to have any chance of winning.
Already impatient, the more we trained, the further behind we fell—naturally, we were tired.
But then, amidst all that, someone suggested that just once, we stop worrying about time and focus solely on the counterattack itself.
I believe it came up because it was not even about time anymore—we could not get to the opponent’s box.
Surprisingly, the best record came out precisely then.
It meant that when we focused on accuracy rather than speed, only then did the fastest counterattack emerge.
I still remember everyone laughing emptily after hearing the coach who was timing us.
All that effort to go fast, fast, and no record came out.
Yet when we tried to do it accurately—in other words, slowly—the best record came out.
Everyone could only burst into hollow laughter.
Then, a thought suddenly crossed my mind.
The saying “more haste, less speed” was not empty words, after all.
In the end, the conclusion was this.
The lifeblood of a counterattack is speed.
The lifeblood of speed is accuracy.
Thus, the fastest counterattack = the most accurate counterattack.
And where does accuracy come from?
It comes from composure and patience.
Bang—!
Bang—!
Today, as always, unable to hold out even for the time it takes a packet of instant noodles to cook, we gave the ball away before we could even string two touches together.
The rondo from hell had begun before three minutes had even passed.
Given the enormous gap of two goals, we were in no position to waste a single minute or second.
Therefore, our hearts as we watched them grew endlessly impatient.
The desire to charge in and steal the ball right this instant burned like a furnace.
It was easy to understand why Romero on the right was twitching like a puppy about to shit itself.
However…
“Hold the line! Don’t jump out!”
We knew we must not grow impatient.
At the captain’s voice from behind, everyone stepped back a pace.
We had to wait with patience.
After all, no matter how one-sided the match, three chances will come.
If we can capitalize on all three of those chances, a comeback is possible, so there is no need to rush.
No need to rush at all…
Bang—!
Bang—!
Bang—!
…Mmm.
Of course, knowing something in your head and actually sticking to it are two different things.
The time on the scoreboard kept ticking, yet the opponent showed no intention of coming in, merely increasing the number of meaningless passes.
To think we had to watch that with patience.
Easy to say, but incredibly difficult in reality.
Thanks to that, my feet kept trying to move before I knew it.
In times like these… it was best to use Romero.
Romero was the easy mark.
“Don’t go out! Romero!”
“I wasn’t going out!”
We all felt like holding hands and enduring together, but we couldn’t.
So we bound each other with an invisible string, if only with words.
If we endure and endure… like a cold winter passing before we know it.
If we wait with patience, spring will surely come someday.
Baaang—!
…Like now.
“Back!”
The moment the opponent’s horizontal passing finally turned vertical.
Pointing toward the pass with my hand, I turned and ran back.
Now it was time to show what we had prepared.
*
The first leg, 4–2.
The opponent was Fiorentina, a perennial mid-table Serie A team that had qualified for the Champions League for the first time in decades.
For Manchester City, the defending Premier League champions and challengers for the treble, this second leg seemed to be a situation with far too much leeway.
The odds offered by legitimate bookmakers alone proved it.
The odds for Man City advancing to the quarterfinals were 1.38.
On the other hand, Fiorentina’s odds to advance exceeded 4.0.
The only reason Fiorentina’s odds did not exceed 5.0 was a single player.
But Man City could not help but be mindful of that one player, either.
The sole variable.
A player who, despite the comfortable situation, made it feel strangely uncomfortable.
A player who had taken a lead that could have been 4 goals going into the second leg and locked it down to 2.
“…”
Manager Guardiola stood in the technical area with his arms crossed, staring at the pitch.
A strange tension emanated from his gaze.
In fact, if you considered every situation.
If you discussed the standard way to approach this second leg, it would obviously be to focus on defense, minimize aggressive attempts, and see out the match stably.
Time was on Man City’s side, and moreover, since the initiative to dictate the match’s flow was also theirs.
They simply had to kill the clock slowly. There was nothing difficult about it.
Man City had absolutely no need to reach for a different option.
And such thoughts were no different for Guardiola, a man brimming with inventiveness and creativity.
He too knew that there was no need to go the hard way, no need to turn the match into a quagmire—he simply had to follow the standard path.
The problem was that while thinking this, the memory of the first leg kept flickering before his eyes.
The first leg against Fiorentina had been a match satisfactory even to that perfectionist.
His players had controlled the game perfectly and moved exactly as he wanted.
Though they had failed to score in the first half, that was merely a bit of bad luck.
The approach had been perfect, so there was no point in quibbling over the result.
They had proven it by scoring 4 goals in the second half, so there was nothing to point out.
However, that did not mean there had been no mistakes.
Exactly two moments.
There were lapses in concentration, both coming around the 10-minute mark before the end of each half.
Truthfully, two mistakes in 90 minutes was a performance you could practically call perfect.
Football is a sport of mistakes.
Not making a single mistake for 90 minutes is impossible even in the eyes of a perfectionist, so criticizing those two lapses would be harsh.
But the problem was that in exactly two moments.
In those two moments, there was a player on the opposing team who had not missed a single one of those gaps and stabbed through them.
Football cannot be perfect.
But if there is a player on the opposing team who catches every opportunity given to him perfectly, the story changes.
To suppress such an opponent perfectly, they too had to be perfect.
If that was not possible, they had to find a way to cover up their mistakes.
These thoughts complicated Guardiola’s mind a little.
And those complicated thoughts kept poking at something deep in his chest.
People used to call that something the “great manager syndrome.”
Wasn’t it a term born from the tendency to make peculiar choices in the Champions League knockout stage and self-destruct?
Naturally, Guardiola did not agree.
He merely agonized over and over to make the best choice at every moment.
It was not because he wanted to make peculiar choices on purpose.
Likewise, he was doing so now.
[De Bruyne plays it long forward, connecting with Grealish on the left. The 4th minute of the first half, the first attack begins from Man City.]
[A bit surprising. Fiorentina waits with their line dropped as if they have no need to rush, while Man City rushes at such a defense.]
[It’s as if the two teams have swapped… Grealish, to the center!]
They looked like they could spend time leisurely enough.
With De Bruyne’s long pass as the starting point, Man City attacked first.
The comfort of a two-goal margin?
Of course, that was true.
There was leeway.
But if you asked whether it was ample… Guardiola did not think so.
He believed they had to stretch it wider.
Had he not witnessed it in the first leg?
A player who turns two mistakes into two conceded goals.
Therefore, Guardiola thought there was no luxury to spend time dawdling and doing nothing.
Not simply holding on, but stretching it further.
This could not even be called the “great manager syndrome.”
Since Man City’s strength could hardly be called defense, it was a choice with merit.
However.
Everything in the world is like that.
The measure for judging the process is the result.
Succeed, and it is a divine move; fail, and it becomes the great manager syndrome.
Everything flips like the palm of a hand depending on the result.
[Grealish, to the inside… Ah! Nastasić cuts it out with a tackle! That ball to the front—]
[A counterattack, can they go up quickly?]
[Bonaventura, looks like he’ll turn… but back again. If so, the counterattack… Ah, the ball goes to Lee!]
[He has to turn! That’s right! Lee, who succeeds in turning back calmly!]
Grealish cut inside from the left and played the ball to Haaland breaking through, but the pass was blocked.
Nastasić gave that ball to Bonaventura, but Bonaventura chose to play a backpass again instead of turning immediately.
At the moment when, rather than launching a quick counterattack, it seemed Fiorentina’s objective was to keep possession, as if proving that more haste means taking the long way around, the ball went through and through to Lee Jian’s feet.
And Lee Jian calmly and accurately succeeded in turning his body forward with his first touch and dribble.
[Lee! He drives the ball up quickly! There’s plenty of space!]
[What choice will he make! For now, it looks good to quickly spread it out to the side, but…]
[He drags it in a bit more! Rodri is closing in, but ah! A pass connects to the right!]
Then, instead of quickly playing the pass, Lee Jian carried the ball up the center and drew in the defense.
It would have been strange if eyes had not been drawn to Lee Jian carrying the ball through the center.
Thanks to that, when the positions of the defenders including Rodri shifted slightly toward the center—
only then did the pass come out, heading precisely to the right.
It was not rushed.
But it was fast.
At this, Man City’s defensive line was thrown into disarray.
In a counterattacking situation, the defense inevitably becomes more frantic than the attack.
No matter how top-class the defenders.
Because Lee Jian’s pass was so accurate, the defenders shifted to the right again.
Romero was a player with more than enough finishing ability, so they could not leave him alone.
In that situation, Man City’s defenders forgot about the shadow striker hiding in their very shadows.
And it was inevitable—just moments ago, he had been a central midfielder.
[Romero, a low cross to the inside!]
[He saw Lee!]
Romero slid and whipped a cross into the box.
And toward that cross, Lee Jian, who had been penetrating directly in front of the goal, likewise dove and stretched out his leg.
Soon, the trajectory of the low, driven cross and Lee Jian’s foot met at one point.
BAAANG—!
That shot pushed in from point-blank range was one that no one, not even Ederson, could have stopped.
Swooooosh—
Swish—!!
The goal net rippled.
At the same time, the Artemio Franchi descended into frenzy.
Waaaaaaah—!!!
A roar that felt like it would tear our ears off, like our bodies would shatter.
In that roar…
“…”
Manager Guardiola was feeling as though his PTSD was flaring up.
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