This whole series is fun to watch and the jokes are endless. Anyone notice the Bale with Gulf clubs and Icardi with his stolen gf in there? It was a quick shot, easily missed lol
Allegri I would say is slightly better. Back when he was coach of Milan, he won the scudetto first season, and always made Champions League except his last season. Milan was not that good of a team at that point, especially in the later seasons. Also he always made the UCL knockouts with Milan every season. In 2010-11, he made the round of 16 and lost to Tottenham. He made quarterfinals in 2011-12 and only to lose to an extremely talented Barcelona side. He even put up a serious good fight against Barcelona throughout his seasons with Milan when Milan were clearly inferior on talent. When he coached us, he made the UCL final on his first season with us. Real Madrid were strong favorites in that semifinal. We were also robbed against Barcelona in the final. Alves clearly tackled Pogba to the ground in that second half and we should've got a penalty which would have put us 2-1 ahead. Also Chiellini was injured that game. In 2015-16, he almost got us through against Pep's Bayern Munich if it wasn't for that terrible Evra mistake at the end. In 2016-17, we trashed Barcelona 3-0 and that was when they had MSN. Some people say we were slight favorites but I don't think so. It was very 50-50 if not in Barcelona's favor. Before that game, we did not look that impressive at all throughout the regular season in Serie A or UCL. In 2017-18, we almost turned around a 3-0 deficit against Real Madrid at the Bernabeu. When else was another team able to even come close? This was Madrid who won 2 back to back UCL's before that season, not chokers. That penalty in the end ruined it, but I'm not sure if we can blame Allegri for Benatia being stupid and the penalty was somewhat controversial, although I gotta say it was probably fair. It looked like a foul inside the box to me at least. His only real failure season was his last one in 2018-19 when we lost against Ajax in UCL. Otherwise he was very decent. I'm not saying that Allegri is the greatest manager in the world, but I think he is definitely above average and just below the top tier managers.
There is no way shape or form Allegri is a better manager than Pep, its just not true at all and I don't even like the guy
I appreciate everything that Max did for us but and I think that Pep is overrated but...2x EPL Champions, 3x Bundesliga Champions, 3x La Liga Champion, 2x Champions League. Round of 16 or better every year with Barca, Citeh, and Bayern. To include 5 semi-final appearances, and 2 quarter-finals.
Any news of Chiellini coming back? I adoreeee him, hope to see him back soon. But I think he semi-retire I guess? I miss Chiellini btw, I still don't like de Ligt., regardless of how people made him good to be.
Allegri had 6x Serie A Champions, and 2 Champions League Finals, and always Round of 16 or better in Champions League for 9 consecutive seasons. Also Allegri was managing much less talented teams. Barcelona, and Bayern Munich, are better teams on paper than Juventus, or at least they were when Pep was managing them. Man City is likely comparable on paper but has a better bench at least or maybe very comparable. Man City and Juventus are probably on par on paper, but Allegri's Juventus was much more successful than Pep's Man City. When did Pep's Man City do better than Allegri's Juventus? Give me one season that they surpassed Allegri's Juventus? The other thing is in 2008-09 when Pep won the treble with Barcelona, what about the match fixing scandal in the Chelsea vs Barcelona semifinal that everyone forgets? My Goodness, how many freaking penalties were Chelsea denied in that semifinal? People only look at results and don't look at the details behind all these results. Like the teams they coached, the players they had, the teams they had to face, etc.
Literally no one else thinks Allegri is better than Guardiola. When Allegri wins multiple Champions League trophies, titles in multiple leagues and actually plays football that doesn't put the average football fan to sleep, come talk to me. You don't mention about his Milan days that those sides were actually relevant because there was no domestic rival given how Juve had been punished after calciopoli. You also don't mention that Conte's Juve beat Allegri's Milan to the scudetto despite Allegri having the superior players at the time. The Bayern loss you refer to was on Allegri. After having the second leg at hand he completed decided to go into a defensive shell allowing Bayern to recoup the two goals and beat us in extra time. Allegri made the ingenious move to sub off our best attacking players that day giving us no chance after the Germans equalized. And as you mention Pep was the victor. You give credit for "almost turning around" the deficit against Real and fail to critique him for losing 3-0 at home to a Real side which that Juve could have defeated. You can't praise a manager for almost overturning a deficit where he led the same team that lost so badly in the earlier leg. Same as the Atletico fixture last season. We're going to praise Allegri for the 3-0 home victory and forget that he led the side that was lucky only to lose 2-0 in the away leg of the fixture? I agree that the only season he had with us that was a clear failure was last season where he lost against a clearly inferior Ajax side. I'm not saying Allegri was a bad manager. Overall he did well in typically meeting his objectives with us. That said, your initial commentary about Guardiola applies the same to Allegri. They win only when they are favorites-but Pep has the unequivocally better resume and his sides play better football.
Guardiola won the CL twice, 2009 & 2011. It was during the Spain era where they won the EC twice & the WC. The 2009 side included Puyol, Pique, Busquets, Xavi & Iniesta from the La Roja. It also included Toure, Henry, Eto'o and some guy names Messi. In 2011, he had the same Spanish internationals along with Villa. Foreign cast members included Mascherano, Abidal & that Messi guy. Pep had a great team and had great success with those players. Somewhat like Sacchi who had great success with Milan with a roster of gli Azzurri & the Dutch trio. That success has yet to be repeated elsewhere as was the case with Sacchi. He deserves credit but so too does Allegri.
Seriously, this good football, etc, puts fans to sleep, does not matter. What matters is the results. Yes Pep plays much better attractive football, but if you don't get results than it is pointless. In 2010-11 season, Inter Milan was still a world class team with many great players. Milan's squad was not superior to Inter Milan that season. In 2011-12 when Conte's Juventus beat Allegri's Milan, Allegri did not have the superior squad. Most of his squad were world class players at their time, but they were all way past it and so aged and very slow. Ibrahimovic was the only world class player at that time in his squad. The rest were huge letdowns and were really losing it. Remember Italy in 2010 world cup? This was 2 years later and those players were in even worse condition than 2010 Italy. Very slow and couldn't keep up with the pace of the game. Conte's Juventus had some young promising talent as well as Pirlo at his prime. Also not to mention, Conte is a great manager as well. You have a point here, but at the same time, I feel that we were very unlucky in that game as well. We had a number of chances that we failed to convert because of our players wanting to try things on their own. We did not keep up the momentum when we attacked because players were overconfident. Not necessarily on Allegri. Part of it maybe was but not all of it. And Pep definitely did not out-coach Allegri. Allegri technically won the tactical battle in most of the game. Bayern only started to outplay us when it came to extra time and they did have the younger and faster players. Honestly did you watch the game we lost 3-0 to Real Madrid? Do you know how lucky Real Madrid were to beat us 3-0, and how controversial the Dybala red card was? We had many chances to convert that we didn't. Like that last chance at the end of the first leg, and also earlier in the game Higuain completely choked. Also let me say that Ronaldo scored the luckiest goal ever by bicycle kick. It was a very lucky goal that gets scored like 1/10 times. The third goal happened because we were down to 10 men and were flattered being 2-0 down plus a man down. I don't think it it down on Allegri that players like Higuain choked. With the Atletico fixture, in the first leg Allegri got it wrong, I'll give you that and I agree with you. Our defense was so shaky, and I do think Allegri was out-coached in that game for sure, but he managed to turn it around to make the quarters. One of the few games that I've actually seen Allegri completely get out-coached. Pep has the better resume because he coached much better teams. Both haven't really won that much when they were not favorites but Allegri has won quite a number more times as the underdogs than Pep has as the underdogs.
No one is saying that Allegri isn't a top level coach...It's just that he isn't better than one of the top 3 coaches in the world. If you take away Allegri's most successful spell which was at Juventus and Pep's time at Barca. So if you compare Pep's Bayern/Citeh with Allegri's Milan... Pep has also done it in three separate countries. Also, I think that Allegri is one of the top 5-7 coaches/tactical minds in world soccer.
Guardiola is guilty of doing no more than Allegri at Bayern Munich and even less at Manchester City despite the resources available for his disposal. That has to weigh in greatly.
How talented was Allegri's Milan and How talented was Pep's Bayern and City? Seriously? Also the top 3 managers in the world are Jurgen Klopp, Carlo Ancelotti, and Diego Simeone right now. I would put Jupp Heynckes in there as well but he retired. Maybe Zidane as well. Top 4 in this generation I'd say are Klopp, Ancelotti, Zidane, and Simeone.
It's worth noting that going into the season we were gravely concerned that the central defense would be a major problem after Chiellini got hurt. After some big issues initially, the central defenders have done well. He's not popular around these parts, but Bonucci has been one of our best players. De Ligt shows major promise. Hopefully he is able to avoid the gaffes going forward. And Demiral has looked good and brings an aggressiveness to this side that has been missing for a long time. When Chiellini comes back, we will have an embarrassment of riches in the back.
Its like I said, Demiral reminds me of Montero, hopefully he ends up being better minus the red cards
It wasn't a terribly talented Milan team, especially considering he was beaten by a not particularly talented Juventus team in 2011/12, which should be considered in the debate. It's tough to bring up Carlo ahead of Pep considering Carlo was sacked by Bayern before he could even finish the season and was just sacked at Napoli and hired at Everton...And Simeone is not a top 3 manager in the world imo, hell I would say that Allegri is a better manager than Simeone. He's overachieved with Atletico, but he seems to be running out of ideas with the ever-changing world of soccer. Last thing I would say is that the level of teams being coached are indicative of level as well. Ancelotti unfortunately has been on a downturn over the last 5-6 years compared to Pep who has sustained good results in the league but haven't won the CL without Messi. Guess I must name my top 3 to make things even. I believe the top 3 managers in world soccer are Jurgen Klopp, Pep Guardiola, and Zidane. Then I would have Allegri and Simeone rounding out the top 5.
I know this is very debatable, but when I talk about good coaches, I usually make Champions League weigh a lot more than the country's league mainly because UCL is top teams in the whole world competing against each other. Carlo has won 3 champions leagues (Zidane is the only other manager to do that). Pep won 2, although the first one had some extreme controversy and potential match fixing in the semifinal. Maybe judging by one tie might be a little harsh but Carlo did humiliate Pep when their teams faced each other, and both teams were very comparable on paper talented wise. Not to mention Bayern were the slight favorites due to experience as well, although not by that much. That was the only time they faced each other head to head though. In the Champions League, Carlo was never a failure ever. Same cannot be said about Pep. I don't remember any time that Carlo failed against a team that he was favorites against in the Champions League. Or in fact there was only one time and that was the Juventus 3-2 Real Madrid tie in the 14-15 semifinal, and not to mention he was without Modric in that tie and because that was before Casemiro was a good player, they barely had any suitable defensive midfielders, and without Modric, it made it quite difficult to defend that well. Juventus also had the best midfield during that season so they had the exact weapons to hurt Real Madrid. I also believe that Carlo really did not deserve to get sacked at Bayern Munich. He was underachieving a little bit in the Bundesliga but he always prioritizes the UCL and it makes him underachieve in the league a bit. At Napoli the club were in extreme shambles, and he still did well to get them to Round of 16 in the UCL, especially after avoiding losses to Liverpool (a top team right now). But I honestly don't blame the manager at all, the club were already dealing with a few injuries and were in a terrible state. As for Simeone, I feel he did amazing with Atletico Madrid. Let's face it Atletico really were never all that talented of a team on paper. Godin and Griezmann were their only world class players in most of their seasons when they were good. The rest just adapted to Simeone's system and it worked out so well. Diego Costa, Mandzukic, Savic, Koke, Juanfran, and Gabi were all great players but not world class (maybe Mandzukic at his prime was or very close but still). Seriously though, within those seasons, Roma's and Inter Milan's team on paper was very comparable to Atletico's. Look at where Atletico has come and were Inter & Roma have come in those same seasons with almost a comparable team on paper? He won the La Liga in 2013-14 and made the UCL final as well, and almost won it if it wasn't for a very late equalizer. He made UCL final in 2015-16. He beat many big teams on the way as well.
At the time in which I made my prediction I had the odds 80-20 in Liverpool's favor. They seemed to have allot of their tenacity whilst playing this season. That can happen when signing softer players like Morata, Felix, Lemar etc. But I hadn't taken into consideration the fact that Diego Costa could be returning. If he is fit in time for the Liverpool tie, he can be a huge game changer. Made for the big games and fits that Simeone mentality more than any other player. Add to that the fact that they are on the verge of signing Cavani?!?! At this point i'll just say it can go either way. Atleti have turned into a major CL contender with this signing imo and they could go on to win the league as well.
Had Diego Costa been fit for the 2nd leg of the Atletico tie last season. I seriously doubt that we make the come back.