It was not possible for us to to know that they they will play with uh with Fernandinho in a back-three on the right so we did we discovered that surprise uh just uh before the whistle of the referee i'm Rudi Garcia we'll talk about the game Lyon Manchester City in uefa champions league season 1920 the game was in lisbon for the final eight it was particular because uh it was at the end of after the end of the season because of the kovid in march 2020 the competition stopped in france and it was a second
game of official game of our season the beginning of the next season so this day the 15th of august 2020 we know that playing a guardiola's team means that you will have maybe 30 percent ball possession to to can score and to cut beat them and the rest of the time you need to to defend well and and very well and not let them use the spaces particularly in the box we will speak about that after for that competition i played with the back three antony lopez was the my goalkeeper and i played with donaire
marcelo and marcel the wingers were maxwell corner who is a forward normally and leo dubois in the midfield we played with three players bruno di maresch useem awar who did a fantastic final eight and uh a young a very young one uh maxson who is for him uh maybe the second game in in championship memphis depay how captain and carl tocoy can a very very interesting fast attacker we expected manchester city in a 4-3-3 like this or 4-2-3-1 like this but when they give us one hour before the game the first 11 it was not
possible for us to to know that they they will play with uh with fernandinho in a back three on the right so we did we discovered that surprise uh just uh before the whistle of the referee so they played with ederson walker cancello eric garcia in the center of the backfield laporte and fernandinho was the the right center back after that they played with rodri gundogan sterling gabriel jesus and for me the best player of this team kevin de bruyne we prepared this game with uh clear instructions like you can see the density the defensive
density and offensive density of my players is in the center so for us the instruction for my forwards was put the game on the side don't let play rodri okay and after well defend on the side and be careful to to this passes from the side to the box with uh de bruyne gabriel jesus or sterling on on the left we know that better for her than the central defender have the ball than gundogan rodri or kevin de bruyne who are very creative players the other instruction was uh because we know that we knew that
we we had only 30 persons uh ball possession recovery of the ball playing back to the defense so the the first the first goal whether something like that high defense because they play always high they have a good ball possession when they lose the ball there is a big counter pressing from manchester city so the first goal marcelo long ball for tokui kambi who was not offside with eric garcia edelson goes from the ball and corner follow very well the the action he had the ball here and he cut score uh for the first goal
just here the var confirmed that was not offside so the second part of the plan was very good about eating them in the spaces behind the the back of their defense half time one wonder for us and after five million is the second um in the second half uh happened um what what we knew at the half time at the halftime i told my player they can't uh stay like this with the back three so they will change maybe at the beginning of the second half or maybe later mares enter take off fernandinho and mares
enter on the right side of the attack of manchester city and he put the brain in a four two three one like this um like i told you the the the big quality there are a lot of qualities but the big quality of city is to can to complain the spaces in the box so they did like this mares with with sterling mares ball on the on the spaces sterling uh with with donaire uh defending but but debris came here in the in the back in and uh and uh sterling gave him the ball for
the one one so typical manchester city offensive action but uh like i told to my player the the opponent had the right to play well so it's not always our fault or our mistake after that i remember i take off dubois who was in difficulty in the right side i put tete a physical one my first substitute was mendes a stronger midfield stronger than bruno guimaraes and after that i pulled tete and i put dembele in the match on the one one because it was necessary for us to have a two quick player in the
front it was one one until uh 75 minutes 75 when when dembele and tete enters for us uh because like i told you uh i needed some quick player and and fresh player in the in the in my attack the second goal was a recover from maybe maxson's cacre la port had the ball he tried to play with the midfield kakre recovered the ball give to awar and after a world play in the spaces tokuykombi was offside but he didn't touch the ball and uh and dembele was uh faster than than laporte and one to
one against ederson it was 2-1 for us so it was like we thought the the game the possibility of it them back back to the to their defense one of the key moments of the of the game was the the very big opportunity for sterling just before we scored this the third goal with a wisdom belly but in football it's always like like this uh when one team has a big opportunity like sterling if they miss this opportunity in the in the few minutes after this opportunity there is a big danger for the team who
misses this action so one of the key moments was that sterling in front of the goal with that goalkeeper without no one any a kick over the bar in football you need to have a little chance also to to to win but we can push the chance in in our side the third goal came in a in a long ball from uh from antoni lopez maybe dembele fighting in the air and after red adelaide recovered the ball and uh and go with the ball with dembele with hour maybe and playing a four against three pass
from rena delay to hour shoot at the goal and uh and anderson let the ball go and uh and um and dabeli scored his second goal and the third for us it was clear that the game was was finished we we played well and in the end and we knew that maybe for city it was also a psychological problem because they tried to win these champions the years before it was quite difficult for them to to go to semi-final so maybe we it was also uh an important thing for us to be all the time
all the game in the in the in the score because we we lead the game win one one we will again the the game with two one and uh in the psychological point it was very very good for us to play like this to lead like this the match to have success in this opportunity so for leon is a it's a it's a historic game for for sure an historic result you
