Barcelona & Man City: Two reasons to watch.

(Baonghean.vn) - At 1:45 AM tomorrow (October 20th), hosts Barcelona will face Manchester City in the Champions League. Fans of attacking football will have dozens of reasons to stay up all night watching these two teams with formidable attacking lineups. But perhaps just two simple reasons are enough to make this match unmissable.

Guardiola "goes home"

Coach Guardiola made his name with Barcelona at Camp Nou, and tonight he is leading Manchester City back "home." Leaving Barcelona wasn't because Guardiola disliked the Tiqui-Taca style of play or the club's owners; he simply wanted to become a "propagate" of this flamboyant style of football to Europe. Initially, it was Bayern Munich of German football, and now it's Manchester City, the giants of English football.

Image from the Internet.

Last year, Man City's possession rate was 57%, but after Guardiola arrived, it increased to 62%, and the number of goals also rose from 1.87 goals per game last season to 2.37 goals per game. Guardiola likes to manage a team with 11 players who can play the ball with their feet, so he boldly "sacked" veteran Joe Hart to bring in Claudio Bravo, the goalkeeper from Barcelona.

Under the Spanish manager, Man City lacked the personnel suitable for Guardiola's preferred 4-3-3 formation, but he still wanted to build a "magic triangle" with Sergio Aguero, Raheem Sterling, and Nolito as the three apex. Of course, playing in a 4-1-4-1 formation meant the base of Raheem Sterling and Nolito was wider than the base of the triangle formed by Lionel Messi, Luis Suarez, and Neymar.

People are waiting to see, after his time away, what version of Tiqui-Taca Guardiola has upgraded upon his return to Nou Camp, and how it will function before the authentic Tiqui-Taca style.

Atomic bombs and hydrogen

Barcelona boasts the legendary "atomic" MSN trio of Lionel Messi, Luis Suarez, and Neymar, while Manchester City is also on its way to creating the "explosive" ASN trio (Aguero, Sterling, and Nolito). The Nou Camp will witness a clash between these two highly anticipated attacking trios. This season, the MSN trio has scored 10 goals and provided 9 assists for each other, despite only playing together for 230 minutes out of a total of 1080 minutes for Barcelona. Even though Messi, Suarez, and Neymar have only played together for just over two seasons, that's an incredible feat for an attacking line!

On the visitors' side, the trio of Aguero, Sterling, and Nolito have played together in 6 matches, accumulating a total of 339 minutes of playing time. The ASN trio have scored 12 goals but only assisted each other 4 times.

Manchester City's center forward Aguero is far inferior to Suarez in terms of playmaking ability, having yet to provide a single assist. Although they have the same goal-scoring efficiency with a "4 to 1" ratio, Barcelona's attacking trio only needs 92 minutes to score, while Manchester City's trio requires 113 minutes to find the net.

At Camp Nou, Barcelona are in incredibly impressive form with 16 wins and 1 draw. Meanwhile, in the Champions League, visiting team Man City have only lost 1 of their last 5 matches. So, will the home team Barcelona, ​​the "creator of Tiqui-Taca," or the visiting team Man City with their "Tiqui-Taca version 2" win?

An Thanh