Columbus 1-0 NY Red Bulls
Columbus win again in the playoffs! Berhalter took a cautious approach here, resting Higuian for the first half given that he's in his mid-30s and played 120 minutes earlier in the week. But after coming on as a second half sub he played a
lovely backheel to Zardes for the winner.
Given all the horrible distractions off the pitch, it is great to just be able to cheer on CBus and enjoy the football.
Columbus are not the most talented team in the playoffs, and have had to win two away playoff matches just to be here with a good chance of progressing. What we do have is a good balance of youth and experience, pace and technical skill, organization, a high team work rate, and a manager who keeps the team motivated and makes good decisions.
The presumption is that Berhalter will leave to manage the USA after this season, and that is bittersweet. Hopefully he can give us one last hurrah and deliver us to our new ownership in good shape.
What some other clubs conveniently forget is that Guardiola took a year of intense thinking and learning - his first year in charge at Manchester City - to learn and work out what he needed to do. At the time, he was much criticised - some nonsensical stuff was penned about how, for all of his success abroad, he wasn't cut out for the challenge of the Premiership. He was watching, listening, observing, thinking and learning.
The contrast with Mourinho is striking.
True, but football has become a very short-termist affair - from the perspective of the fans, media and owners alike. People want results NOW, and when they don't come the knives are out. It doesn't matter WHY, they just need heads to roll and signings to be made until things get better. Knee-jerk.
I think some of the criticisms of Pep were/are legitimate - for example, he only works with world-class players and virtually limitless transfer budgets, so we don't know how he would do at, say, Spurs, or Leicester. Very, very few managers enjoy such luxuries, so I think it is a perfectly valid question to ask just how much of his legendary managerial powers stem from his resources and how many are truly his own qualities. We will probably never know, since he has no reason to step down to a lesser team. Perhaps if/when he takes the helm of the Spanish national team we will get a better idea of how he operates under some time/talent constraints - though Spain's talent pool is also pretty deep.
Also, "systems" managers like Pep do produce teams with certain weaknesses. They are not always flexible enough in response to different opponents, and can struggle to break down resolutely defensive teams. They require certain kinds of players with certain temperments for certain positions, so the roster-building demands are pretty specific.
With that being said, Pep is clearly a serious student of the game, obsessive in his preparation, an effective motivator, articulate, and when given those massive resources he usually delivers. Some of the early criticisms just sounded like jingoistic braying, and they have been proven to be just that now that Guardiola's Man City are dominating the league.
