By Liam Styles
29/11/2023, 04:33 PM
The Spider bit again as always. Once again, Julian Alvarez is Manchester City's most decisive player and the best card in Pep Guardiola's deck. On a night with the sound of drums and hunger for the Champions League at the Etihad, the Argentine striker was the unexpected hero in a duel that became much more complicated than expected.
The Santpedor coach faced the duel with the need to add a single point to definitively seal first place in the group and get into the round of 16 with one day to spare. However, Marco Rose's Leipzig were willing to play spoilsport and ruin their night. They achieved it, in fact, leaving with a 0-2 lead at half-time and shaking up the atmosphere in the stadium. Everything seemed to go wrong until the changes came. In the same minute that Julian Alvarez entered, everything changed.
Aware of the problems that his team was facing, Guardiola replaced Kyle Walker and Jack Grealish in the 54th minute, who was not able to impose his game, bringing on two strikes that are always sharp, Jérémy Doku and Julián Álvarez. As surprising as it may seem, although the Belgian contributed a lot of overflow up front, his great form was overshadowed by the earthquake of the Argentine striker.
In the same minute of the change, Erling Haaland chased a ball from Foden to wake up the Etihad with the 1-2 lead. City, finally, woke up and seemed to believe in the comeback. Once again Foden, who received the MVP for best player of the match, scored the tying goal after an assist from Gvardiol, who again did not mind condemning his former teammates with a great performance. Everything was open until the 87th minute, when Foden masterfully controlled the ball so that Julian was in charge of finishing the job. It never fails.
The Julián-Foden duo is a partnership that only brings joy to Manchester City. When they share the playing field, they play and make the rest play. Bringing them together inside after the change was a blessing for Guardiola, who managed to generate much more danger in the final third of the field and behind the Leipzig players, resulting in an epic comeback that saved the day.
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