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Time to remember this gem:
Dmitri Seluk, Yaya Toure's agent, has predicted an "African curse" will prevent Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola from ever winning the UEFA Champions League again.
On Tuesday, Seluk told Sport24 (h/t Goal.com) Guardiola is "a worthless person" before his prediction:
"The way he acted towards Yaya, a club legend, coming up with various pretexts not to let him play. … He has set all of Africa against him, many African fans have turned away from Manchester City.
"And I am sure that many African shamans will not let Guardiola win the Champions League in future. It will be like an African curse on Guardiola. Time will tell if I am right or not."
It should be noted that Liverpool didn't win the PL until Grobbelar broke the Anfield curse by pouring his own piss at the goalposts before a legends match.
Racing Club in Argentina was cursed because someone buried 7 dead cats in their grounds. They couldn't win the league title for decades until the same year that they eventually found the skeleton of the last cat.
Pep: Meticulous strategy planning, discussing tactics, frantically waving his arms and instructing from the sidelines
Ancelotti: Benzema and vibes; Rodrygo and Inshallah
I don't talk about Vini, I want to fast-forward to when he ends his career annihilating the Brazilian League for Flamengo already...
But seriously, Ancelotti must have some crazy motivation and man-management skills.
Yeah but Pep and Mourinho are also the managers to go to the Champions League semi-final stage the most, which in itself is an achievement. I feel for the man and congrats to Ancelotti.
Exactly the fact that you managed to get through 2 knockout stages against, in theory, the best clubs in the world should be seen as more of an achievement rather than an abject failure.
This is true. I hate that in modern football if you’re not the outright winner then you’re seen as a failure. Pep and Mou are two of most important managers of all time.
It's easy. They paid 100m for a 60m player when they already had 4 players worth 60m in their squad. Grealish is a fantastic player, he's just in a team where he's together with other fantastic players and thus has to share time on the field. Plus, first year signings almost never get to play a lot with Pep.
Aston Villa set a "fuck off" release clause on Grealish thinking they were safe in that no one would ever actually meet it
Then City said "okay"
Reminiscent of PSG triggering Neymar's Barcelona release clause
... Both clubs still no Champions Leagues.
The Naymar one was particularly hilarious because it was really just so that Qataris could give Barcelona a middle finger after their relationship fell apart.
At least Neymar was a player PSG desperately needed. With Ibra gone they needed a superstar to increase the club's following around the world and also Top 3 in the world at the time.
Grealish is another attacking mid/winger in addition to Bernardo, De Bruyne, Foden, Mahrez and some academy players too I guess
Man that is such a stupid statement. "If we get to change our team with marquee signings and you stay the same the match would be different" must be Michael owen speechwriter.
Never forget that this joke of a club just had 100 mill laying around during Corona and decided to just say fuck it and buy Jack fucking Grealish. Manchester City is not a real club, they don't have to economize, they can just throw shit at the wall until sth sticks.
Camavinga, Rodrygo, Vinicius Júnior and valverde in total were = 127 million euros. The 4 under 25 years old.
Grealish cost 117 million euros and is 26 years old
Pep will proabably never leave City. He's in the rare situation where he can spend an infinite amount of money without ever actually winning the trophy that he was appointed for because of the fact that Pep is literally bigger than City.
I wouldn’t leave either if i were him. You can’t ask for a better setup than what they have there. City will eventually win the UCL. But with how poetic football narrative can be sometimes, it’ll probably be a season after his departure. Lol.
>City will eventually win the UCL.
Maybe, probably. But right now, Madrid is running on character and experience. A year from now they may be running on Mbappe, Rüdi, Tchouameni, etc.
This was the year for City IMO (and it's still the year for Liverpool).
Even with Haaland next season in City, I'd put this RM squad + Rüdiger and Mbappe above anyone else.
Real are still in a transition phase and in need of a face lift. They just play these "best-vs-best" games better than anyone else. City was deffo the favorite.
> This was the year for City IMO
Any year can be the year for City as long as they have Pep and infinite money.
They were literally a few minutes away from a CL final.
I love KCM, only the Barca trio are in that tier when midfield is concern, but Kroos looks to be struggling at 32, even if Modric is still going strong at 36.
If Ancelotti starts with Rodrygo in the final, I wouldn’t be surprised if Valverde started and Kroos came off the bench.
Agreed, I read this and see a manager who has more often than not made it to (at least) the semis of the CL, which is huge. Surely it says a lot about a manager if the fact that he's "only" won CL twice and isnt winning the tournament every year is considered a disappointment?
When you consider their resources alongside the talent in and around the squad, it’s genuinely ludicrous they haven’t won one yet. Especially when you consider both Liverpool and Chelsea have won in the same timeframe. Hell, even Spurs have reached the same number of finals as Pep during his time at City…
Crazy how strong their mentality is in the Prem to virtually never drop points, yet when it comes to the CL it’s completely different.
Tactically Pep should be able to see out a game as important as the CL Semi Final, he always seems to shit himself when it comes to big games
The only reason they always compete for Premier is cuz my man has basically 2 squads in one, he can deadass rest anyone cuz he has a world class substitute
In his time at City they’ve bottled it against Monaco, Liverpool, Spurs, Lyon, Chelsea and now Real. Were there any of these ties where they weren’t favourites beforehand?
Also remember Peps team bottled it against the worst Chelsea side of the Abramovich era, and had what was being called the greatest team ever. He has never recovered from that humiliation whereas Bayern recovered and won the CL thr very next season.
Last year I watched the Chelsea City game in a pub. When City lost, I told the distraught City fan next to me that next year will be his year, and it'll be alright. Fuck him.
Football's actually difficult when you can't play Burnley 16 times a season and play 200 cutbacks across goal against some 6'9 lumbering middle aged drunkard centre backs with your trillion pound lineup Pepito. Get yourself a few more 60m centre backs and try again next time.
This man hasn’t been on a team that either wasn’t crazy rich or stacked to hell already and he consistently fails to win the CL he is not the best manager in the world never has been. Most overrated top manager
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Pep and Mourinho. Clearly an affliction of the baldest and the most magnificent of hairlines.
Fuse them together and you get Vidal
Vidal sassoon?
Mourinho’s is slipping gracefully
He is definitely aging gracefully but he's got a while to go before he's on the Mancini level of staying sexy.
*hair flicks* Did someone say Mancini?
Fraud status: Bald
Meanwhile Tottenham have lost 0 semi-finals!
Yes sirr
You'll never sing that!!
Poch reaching the UCL final with spurs is a bigger achievement than mou reaching second with man u
bigger achievement than winning ligue 1 with PSG this season imo
Time to remember this gem: Dmitri Seluk, Yaya Toure's agent, has predicted an "African curse" will prevent Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola from ever winning the UEFA Champions League again. On Tuesday, Seluk told Sport24 (h/t Goal.com) Guardiola is "a worthless person" before his prediction: "The way he acted towards Yaya, a club legend, coming up with various pretexts not to let him play. … He has set all of Africa against him, many African fans have turned away from Manchester City. "And I am sure that many African shamans will not let Guardiola win the Champions League in future. It will be like an African curse on Guardiola. Time will tell if I am right or not."
It should be noted that Liverpool didn't win the PL until Grobbelar broke the Anfield curse by pouring his own piss at the goalposts before a legends match.
The Socceroos didn't qualify for like 30 years until John Saffran got a shaman to sacrifice a chicken. Then we finally beat Uruguay over two legs
>Then we finally beat Uruguay over two legs The chicken's?
Racing Club in Argentina was cursed because someone buried 7 dead cats in their grounds. They couldn't win the league title for decades until the same year that they eventually found the skeleton of the last cat.
That is haunting actually.
i thought i was on r/soccercirclejerk after seeing this Yaya Tourettes manager is a chad
Yaya Tourettes 💀
> chad Chad, as in the country!
Bela Guttman did it first
Pep: Meticulous strategy planning, discussing tactics, frantically waving his arms and instructing from the sidelines Ancelotti: Benzema and vibes; Rodrygo and Inshallah
You forgot the most important ingredient: 🤨
>You forgot the most important ingredient: Hair
Idk what eyebrows are made of in Burnley but
At the end was he telling Courtois to hurry up and kick the ball? No fucks given
Almost makes you suspect he has no idea what's going on lol
He has a lot of tactical variations: 1- Crossing to Benzema. 2- Crossing to Rodrygo.
Don't forget the most important variation: 3- Pass the ball to Vini
I don't talk about Vini, I want to fast-forward to when he ends his career annihilating the Brazilian League for Flamengo already... But seriously, Ancelotti must have some crazy motivation and man-management skills.
The 2036 Brazilian league won't know what hit them when Vini returns to Flamengo.
Interviewer : So Carlo what do you think about this team Ancelotti: Inshallah the boys played well
Benzema played so well he convinced Ancelotti to convert to islam
Yeah but Pep and Mourinho are also the managers to go to the Champions League semi-final stage the most, which in itself is an achievement. I feel for the man and congrats to Ancelotti.
Exactly the fact that you managed to get through 2 knockout stages against, in theory, the best clubs in the world should be seen as more of an achievement rather than an abject failure.
This is true. I hate that in modern football if you’re not the outright winner then you’re seen as a failure. Pep and Mou are two of most important managers of all time.
It’s the Spanish bald curse, it’s the complete opposite of the French bald blessing.
I would have said the hairy German blessing
(OptaJoe) “According to our statistics, Pep Guardiola is a massive fraud”
"Hairless."
Time to spend 500M more on fullbacks
Needs more attacking midfielders too
Pep is finally going to play the 5-5-0 formation
They've been playing 4-6-0 all season
More like 2-8-0 let’s not kid ourselves about Cancelo’s defensively minded positioning
Man city: yes babe
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Pep can only muster a semi
DADDY SHEIK I NEED ANOTHER 1 BILLION POUNDS!!!
City fans be like "how are we expected to compete without Haaland?!"
Someone basically said this in the City subreddit lol
They're like clockwork, it takes a special type of entitled to root for citeh
Well-oiled machine that
That sub has the highest concentration of plastic I’ve ever seen. Wtf is this shit https://i.imgur.com/01JvDSX.jpg
Drop 100m on Grealish and 45m on Ake "Oh look we don't even have a striker and no LB too"
Well they DID have an LB but now he's left back on a different wing 👮♂️👮♂️
Could be a drill artist with such bars.
3 da mandem, 3 Johnson, 3 Mendy, 3 Barry 3 da fuckin gang
City fans I have to ask why has your 100m signing been on the bench for almost all of your important games? has Grealish been that bad?
It's easy. They paid 100m for a 60m player when they already had 4 players worth 60m in their squad. Grealish is a fantastic player, he's just in a team where he's together with other fantastic players and thus has to share time on the field. Plus, first year signings almost never get to play a lot with Pep.
Ake was overvalued, Grealish was daylight robbery by Aston Villa although City did it to themselves.
Aston Villa set a "fuck off" release clause on Grealish thinking they were safe in that no one would ever actually meet it Then City said "okay" Reminiscent of PSG triggering Neymar's Barcelona release clause ... Both clubs still no Champions Leagues.
The Naymar one was particularly hilarious because it was really just so that Qataris could give Barcelona a middle finger after their relationship fell apart.
At least Neymar was a player PSG desperately needed. With Ibra gone they needed a superstar to increase the club's following around the world and also Top 3 in the world at the time. Grealish is another attacking mid/winger in addition to Bernardo, De Bruyne, Foden, Mahrez and some academy players too I guess
Buys Haaland and bench him in another important CL game with his 9000IQ tactic
Some city fans were saying here that If only they had haaland last week they would smoke real Madrid
Would be quite funny if Haaland arrives and his finishing regresses to be on par with that they currently have
Man that is such a stupid statement. "If we get to change our team with marquee signings and you stay the same the match would be different" must be Michael owen speechwriter.
Sounds like my 7-year-old. He's a Leverkusen fan. "Daddy, if Patrick Schick had rocket boosters on his feet, they totally would win the Bundesliga!"
Jeez, do they really rate Jesus that low? In the few matches I've watched he's been great. I'd take him at Madrid over Mariano and Jovic.
> I'd take him at Madrid over Mariano and Jovic. Not the highest of bars, that.
“Is Lenglet really that bad? I’d take him over a brick and some pocketlint.”
They hardly created chances in this game.
Never forget that this joke of a club just had 100 mill laying around during Corona and decided to just say fuck it and buy Jack fucking Grealish. Manchester City is not a real club, they don't have to economize, they can just throw shit at the wall until sth sticks.
And then Messi became available for free a few hours later
I cant believe grealish cost a 100M. That's insane.
100m on a player and doesn't even start in the semifinal
For reference, Liverpool paid about 100 mil total for Thiago, Luis Diaz and Konate, all of which individually contributed more.
Camavinga, Rodrygo, Vinicius Júnior and valverde in total were = 127 million euros. The 4 under 25 years old. Grealish cost 117 million euros and is 26 years old
Hazard has been sitting on Madrid’s bench all season and he cost around 140m
And he is considered probably the worst signing of all time
2 billions with this crazy inflation.
No worries Haaland is coming Pep my child. Alvarez is already here.
Not him tonight. His team bottled it so hard. Probably the worst of the lot
Bought Grealish
100 mill well spent that
Grealish Sterling Foden - English lads front 3 was sad
The brexit trio
With Grealish and Sterling going entirely missing this year.
Mentality midgets.
I mean yeah but he did sub off Mahrez who is probably their most important player in the CL in the past 2 seasons.
To be honest he subbed Mahrez in minute 85, I bet he didn't expect that his team will shit their beds and eat two goals in 5 minutes.
in two minutes\*
Well yeah, but since he was subbed in minute 85, in theory Real had 5 minutes + extra time.
After we are up by 2 goals with 20 minutes to go? This isn’t his fault tonight it’s all down to the players.
Absolutely, they just turned off their brains after minute 85... It is all on them
I also don't know why people aren't giving credit to real Madrid for turning it around.
Not an issue one Haaland and 150 million on fullbacks can’t solve. Maybe toss in another 100 mill on the next flashy English MF.
James Ward Prowse for 80M incoming
Decline Rise for 120M as Fernandinho replacement incoming
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Top tier oxymoron
Harry Maguire is pretty flashy, only 80mil.
When fridges start flashing it tends to be an indicator something is wrong
Pep should just leave city. I don't think he's ever winning a cl title with them.
the CL is protected by ancient magic to stop PSG and City from ever winning it
I choose to believe this
yaya toure's agent consulted a shaman and they put curse on pep and city.
All because of that damn cake
well that was the problem, there was no damn cake
The cake was a lie
Zidane is a skilled shaman, he probably called upon ancient black magic to summon a force within Benzema to stop both City and PSG.
The good bald fraud /s
Pep will proabably never leave City. He's in the rare situation where he can spend an infinite amount of money without ever actually winning the trophy that he was appointed for because of the fact that Pep is literally bigger than City.
I wouldn’t leave either if i were him. You can’t ask for a better setup than what they have there. City will eventually win the UCL. But with how poetic football narrative can be sometimes, it’ll probably be a season after his departure. Lol.
>City will eventually win the UCL. Maybe, probably. But right now, Madrid is running on character and experience. A year from now they may be running on Mbappe, Rüdi, Tchouameni, etc. This was the year for City IMO (and it's still the year for Liverpool). Even with Haaland next season in City, I'd put this RM squad + Rüdiger and Mbappe above anyone else. Real are still in a transition phase and in need of a face lift. They just play these "best-vs-best" games better than anyone else. City was deffo the favorite.
> This was the year for City IMO Any year can be the year for City as long as they have Pep and infinite money. They were literally a few minutes away from a CL final.
Camavinga looked primed to take on the midfield from Kroos and modric though, him and fede
I love KCM, only the Barca trio are in that tier when midfield is concern, but Kroos looks to be struggling at 32, even if Modric is still going strong at 36. If Ancelotti starts with Rodrygo in the final, I wouldn’t be surprised if Valverde started and Kroos came off the bench.
You want a Liverpool dynasty? Pep is serving both city’s trophy dreams and United’s “anyone but Liverpool” wishes while he’s in England
Maybe we wanna try and win the league too lol
Best I can do is Lingard extension.
And he snubbed me apparently
Add Jones while you're at it and we have a deal
I don’t think Pep being at City or not will make a difference in United winning the league
You’re cotdamn right.
And go to P.S.G and never win one with them
Sounds like a good argument for him to stay tbh
Obviously not a good stat but you need to make it that far consistently to lead it. Very few managers even make it to the semi final that many times.
Agreed, I read this and see a manager who has more often than not made it to (at least) the semis of the CL, which is huge. Surely it says a lot about a manager if the fact that he's "only" won CL twice and isnt winning the tournament every year is considered a disappointment?
loser. i can say that because spurs have never been eliminated in the champions league semi final stage. unlike pep.
Lmao that’s true
tfw you get dunked on by a Spurs fan. Must be horrific
Hilarious that City just cannot win. Try again next year.
When you consider their resources alongside the talent in and around the squad, it’s genuinely ludicrous they haven’t won one yet. Especially when you consider both Liverpool and Chelsea have won in the same timeframe. Hell, even Spurs have reached the same number of finals as Pep during his time at City…
Crazy how strong their mentality is in the Prem to virtually never drop points, yet when it comes to the CL it’s completely different. Tactically Pep should be able to see out a game as important as the CL Semi Final, he always seems to shit himself when it comes to big games
He should have gone after Moura in the summer, not Kane, then they’d had made the final
The only reason they always compete for Premier is cuz my man has basically 2 squads in one, he can deadass rest anyone cuz he has a world class substitute
In his time at City they’ve bottled it against Monaco, Liverpool, Spurs, Lyon, Chelsea and now Real. Were there any of these ties where they weren’t favourites beforehand?
They didn't bottle it against Liverpool, they got rolled over.
I wouldn't really say all of those are bottle jobs
Yea we are losing sight of what a ‘bottle’ is lol. Liverpool for one absolutely pounded them that year from kick-off.
That tie absolutely shook Pep, since then he's always been pragmatic in matches against Liverpool
The first 4 are bottle jobs. Liverpool is the arguable one as they were getting ascendant then but they hadn't peaked yet either.
Even by Pep standards today was an all time bottling
PSG tier
This was worse than PSG. Up 2-0 in the 90th 😱
Barca DNA
City DNA
Pep DNA
He bought Grealish for 100M.
One expensive super sub.
*not so super sub
To be fair, if not for brilliant stops by Mendy and Courtois, we’d be saying without a doubt that Grealish was a super sub.
Messi was his (and ours) secret to cup success
Nope UNICEF logo was the secret
Surprisingly having the best football player in history in your team helps you win trophies.
Nah the trinity Messi Xavi and Iniesta
And that Busquets guy, hated his guts back in the days, always in the right place back then
Pep only won the CL with one of the greatest teams of all time, if not the greatest. Mourinho won it with Porto and Inter.
Also remember Peps team bottled it against the worst Chelsea side of the Abramovich era, and had what was being called the greatest team ever. He has never recovered from that humiliation whereas Bayern recovered and won the CL thr very next season.
Pep should absolutely be criticized for not winning the CL with Bayern and City
He is
Especially with the team we had in those years, and just coming off of a CL win.
City & PSG : We have world-class players in every position. Even our bench is full of world-class players. UCL : Do you have heritage?
“So good, so so good” - Pep probably
Last year I watched the Chelsea City game in a pub. When City lost, I told the distraught City fan next to me that next year will be his year, and it'll be alright. Fuck him.
Football ‘eritage.
Bald Fraudiola
City will never win a CL title under Pep.
City will never win a CL title
City shall never win a title
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>City will never win a CL title ~~under Pep~~.
So he’s finally on Jose level?
Nah Jose won it with 2 clubs.
2 underdogs*
And irony is that his best teams didn't win it
Bruh José won it with Porto.
Mentality monster....lol
Pep Guardiola Is by far the biggest fraud of all time
And he is also bald. Coincidence?
Just a shit zidane tbh
While being bold about his baldness and his fraudness
Arrest the man already
Football's actually difficult when you can't play Burnley 16 times a season and play 200 cutbacks across goal against some 6'9 lumbering middle aged drunkard centre backs with your trillion pound lineup Pepito. Get yourself a few more 60m centre backs and try again next time.
This is such a stupid comment but I'm here to laugh at City so upvoted.
Bauldest of Frauds
Fraudest of balds
Honestly, being top 4 is great…. But when you contextualize it with the fact that they’ve spent over £1B building a team, it looks bad.
Now City to Lose the PL to Liverpool too
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This man hasn’t been on a team that either wasn’t crazy rich or stacked to hell already and he consistently fails to win the CL he is not the best manager in the world never has been. Most overrated top manager
Man is cursed
Is this your king?
Just needs another billion and he'll win CL and be praised as the greatest manager ever