The Warm-Up: Manchester City love the Champions League again

When the teamsheets dropped, and we all saw who would and wouldn’t be lining up for Manchester City in the Bernabéu, it’s fair to say we all had the same thought:

Isn’t it weird that there isn’t more hilarious Pep Guardiola/Peppy Hare from Star Fox crossover material?

…just the Warm-Up, then? Right, right. You were probably thinking something more like “Is Pep Guardiola going weird in the Champions League knockouts again?” No Raheem Sterling. No Sergio Agüero. No David Silva. No Fernandinho. No Fernandinho. Like going out to bat without a box on, if your box was also really good at tactical fouling.

Anyway, circumstance in the form of an injury to Aymeric Laporte soon brought Fernandinho onto the pitch. But for the rest, Guardiola had a Plan. With a capital P. Gabriel Jesus lined up on the left flank of a 4-4-2, with Kevin de Bruyne and Bernardo Silva up top, the strangest little man-big man partnership this competition has ever seen.

And hey, it worked! For almost an hour. Madrid looked confused, City looked comfortable; everything was going according to Plan. Until they lost the ball cheaply in midfield and the entire defence panicked and ran over to cover Vinícius, leaving Isco all on his own. The best-laid Plans of hares and man.

Luckily for Guardiola, not picking Raheem Sterling meant he was waiting on the bench. Shortly after he came on City had an equaliser, and then the lead, thanks to a striker’s header from Jesus — resurrected up front — and a daft foul in the box. Two away goals, Sergio Ramos sent off … hey, maybe that was the Plan all along? Pep, you genius. Do a barrel roll!

While everybody was busy watching Guardiola’s best Mourinho impression, over on the other side Lyon were making Juventus look extremely ordinary.

On the face of it, this looks to have been a total systemic collapse for the Italian champions. The attack didn’t muster a single shot on target. BT’s expert in underwhelming midfields, Jermaine Jenas, called the heart of the team “stagnant”, which is an excellent word that football coverage needs to use more. And as for the defence, well, here’s the goal.

There are six defenders in the box when that goal goes in. None of them are even threatening relevance.

Lyon, on the other hand, were well-organised, and a constant source of irritation to their notional betters. Obviously, the intersection of two-legged football with giant piles of money means that Juventus are still favourites to go through. But for a side that should in theory be among the favourites for the whole tournament, they looked horribly pedestrian. Still, at least Maurizio Sarri knows what the problem is:

If you’re reading, Maurizio, have you tried saying “please”?

One eye on Madrid. The other on Lyon. Which leaves the third eye to keep watch on events in Middlesbrough. It’s a spiritual business, keeping up with the football.

And the big news from the Ironopolis is that Leeds, who are supposed to be doing that second-half-of-the-season implosion thing, won their second game in a row. A pretty decent goal, too. That shot coming back off the post was all part of Marcelo Bielsa’s devious plan, which we mortals could not hope to understand.

Leeds could have had more — just Patrick Bamford things — but that goal went unanswered and opens up a five-point cushion in second place. Which will come in handy next time they walk out onto the pitch looking absolutely knackered.

Pfft. Quitters. Get the forks out, lads, give it a poke. It’ll be alright.

Generally speaking, the Warm-Up likes to tie this bit into the main events of the day. Which is why we went searching for videos of Zinedine Zidane. And we found loads, and they were great … but halfway through one of them we found an assist from Guti that was so spittle-sprayingly ridiculous that we just ended up watching Guti assist videos instead. It’s no.3 in this gorgeous collection of gorgeousness. What a player.

You know that time Manchester City spent a load of money they weren’t allowed to, bankrolled a brilliant team with it, and then got caught and it all fell apart? No, no, the other time. Back in 1906.

Here’s Simon Burnton in the Guardian taking us back to the days when moustaches were moustaches, and £6 a week was an illegally extravagant wage.

All hail the Europa League. You could, if you wanted, watch Arsenal attempt to defend a slim lead against Olympiakos, or Manchester United try to edge ahead of Club Brugge. But really, you should be watching Ajax vs. Getafe: the first leg was snide, bad tempered, and extremely funny. And Ajax are two goals down.