In football, when a team is playing badly, in that poor game, wrong passes, scarce creativity, crooked kicks, licks behind Lambança, and the result is not coming, or costs to come, it is said that such a team is “playing a ball”, which is “missing ball”.
Superécnico Pep Guardiola, 54, with stints in Barcelona and Bayern Munich and since 2016 at Manchester City, had very rare bad football moments of his teams.
Almost always, Barça, Bayern and Man City, under the Spaniard baton, featured a showy, engaging football based on a lot of pass and patience to get close to the rival area to create chances to build the victory.
It worked year after year. In England, with Guardiola, the blue-blue-blue uniform team won six Premier League (the incessible English Championship), being the current four-time champion, a Champions League, a Club World Cup, two England Cup, four English League Cups, England Super Cups and a European Super Cup. It’s not little.
Team fans, and other teams, as well as sports media, accustomed to seeing the dominance of Man City, was surprised to come across a season, the current stumbling blocks in the team of stars Haaland and Bruyne.
Guardiola, in her coach career, accumulates in 2024/2025 her worst performance, with some clearance: in 43 games valid for competition, there were 14 defeats of Man City, five of them followed (from October 30 to November 23), something unprecedented for the Spaniard.
Not enough, some setbacks came in striking goals, for Tottenham (4-0) and Arsenal (5-1), in English, and for Sporting, from Portugal (4 to 1), in the Champions League. There was also a 4-2 for PSG in the European Championship.
The fall in performance and the defeats that became common meant early eliminations in the League Cup (to Tottenham) and Champions (for Real Madrid), as well as the impossibility of getting Penta in Premier – the difference in the fourth place for the leader, Liverpool, is now 20 points (67 to 47).
That is, the Guardiola team is “missing”. Who realizes this and blames himself for it. There was a moment, after 3-3 with the Netherlands Feyenoord, in which he, afflicted and disappointed, was mutually leaving nail marks on his bald and face.
Now, have you decided to spare you and the players and blame? She, the ball.
This season remains to Man City and Guardiola, so that she is not a complete fiasco, winning the England Cup, ongoing, and/or the Club World Cup in the middle of the year.
In the national competition, Man City suffered last month to eliminate the third division (2-1, turning) Leyton Orient, and also had trouble spending on the 1st of this month by Plymouth Argyle, which is in the second division relegation zone. He did 3-1, but started losing and only scored the third goal at the end of the second half.
After the game, when commenting on the many chances wasted – the team has finished 29 times – Guardiola stated that “the ball is not good”, mentioning the exaggerated number of times the kick comes out loud, over the post.
“Many years ago this has been happening in the England Cup and the League Cup,” he said. “The ball in the Champions League is exceptional, the ball in the Premier League is exceptional. This is not.”
Is Guardiola’s complaint from? Probably no. When the team goes bad, coaches always try to find a culprit.
It is usually arbitration (the face -to -face or video). Sometimes the condition of the lawn (in Europe, with real “rugs”, hardly glues).
This time, left for the ball. That, as it does not speak, nor can it defend itself.
The manufacturer of the Pellet at the England Cup is the English Miter, who on her site states that the balls “are created to maximize control, accuracy and durability, either during training or on the day of the game.”
The English Federation, which organizes the England Cup, says the mitre balls “have gone through all FIFA tests”, meeting the necessary requirements.
In field soccer, the ball must be circumference from 68 to 70 cm and weigh from 410 to 450 grams.
