Ten days ago a trip to the very west of Germany would have been just the thing for Manchester City, whose 2015-16 UEFA Champions League campaign kicked off with a 2-1 defeat at home to Juventus.
“It was a strange game,” remarked manager Manuel Pellegrini, clearly flustered, in his post-match press conference. “We never want to lose here at home. We never want to lose important points.”
Perhaps his only solace was the prospect of three, straightforward points from City’s follow-up Group D assignment this Wednesday at Borussia Monchengladbach—3-0 losers at Sevilla the same night.
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“The main issue is that we conceded goals and let Sevilla into dangerous positions,” analyzed Lucien Favre, whose meticulous management of the Foals had helped bring top-tier European football back to the German city after a 37-year absence.
He added: “The team we have now cannot be compared with the team we had in February.”
Back then, when ‘Gladbach were en route to a third-place Bundesliga finish, striker Max Kruse was enjoying a standout campaign that would inspire Wolfsburg’s €12 million swoop during the summer. And both Alvaro Dominguez and Patrick Herrmann—injured to start this season—were available to Favre as well.
But rather than stay the course and await their returns, never mind working with €3 million acquisition Lars Stindle and existing stars such as Granit Xhaka, Thorgan Hazard and Raffael, the 57-year-old quit his post the following Sunday after dropping a 1-0 decision at Cologne.
Favre claimed he couldn’t see a way out of ‘Gladbach’s losing skid, which had stretched to six matches, and stubbornly stuck to his decision even as the club’s board of directors did their utmost to talk him out of it.
Notoriously temperamental, Favre walked out on the club with which he had experienced considerable success, and which wanted to keep him, and left it in the hands of Under-23 boss Andre Schubert.
If City didn’t smell blood their noses weren’t working.
Here was a team that seemed to have hit rock-bottom; here, just when they hungered most for it, was wounded prey that would nourish and strengthen their Champions League aspirations. And, in hindsight, goodness knows they could have used the feeding.
Four days after the Juventus result the then-Premier League leaders lost 2-1 at home to West Ham United, and after beating Sunderland in the Capital One Cup were drubbed 4-1 at Tottenham—a defeat that allowed Manchester United to rise to the top of the standings for the first time since legendary manager Sir Alex Ferguson’s retirement.
Incidentally, Pellegrini tried to divert attention from the Spurs debacle to City’s quest for European glory by criticizing United’s, and Ferguson’s, Champions League record.
“Manchester United, in the whole period of Alex Ferguson, when he was the best manager in the club’s history, only won the Champions League twice in 27 years,” he bristled. “I am sure that Manchester City will win the Champions League in the future because the whole club works well.”
Curious remarks following a string of three losses from four, although the 62-year-old also derided a reporter’s “stupid” questions in further Sunday scrumming.
Those 10 days, it seems, have brought about a temperamental change in the typically stoic Chilean. At Borussia Monchengladbach, meanwhile, Schubert has quickly turned things around, winning both his matches in charge.
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Dominguez and Hermann, as it happened, returned in his first victory—a 4-2 win at home to Augsburg that also saw Stindl find the back of the net. Raffael, for his part, caught fire and provided three assists in a four-minute span.
On Saturday Schubert, whom the German media has affectionately nicknamed “Schubidu,” oversaw a 3-1 triumph away to Stuttgart that featured another exceptional showing from Raffael and a prominent display from Xhaka as well.
“We have actually only changed little things,” the 44-year-old admitted in the run-up to Wednesday’s encounter with Manchester City. But, he added, “We tweaked a few things from Lucien Favre’s time here. We are of course very lucky that it has worked out immediately.”
Lucky for them. Not so much for and City. What so recently seemed a walk in the park for the English side is suddenly anything but easy.
Jerrad Peters is a Winnipeg-based writer. Follow him on Twitter