The game, instead, “belongs to the players,” Guardiola had said. The focus, with Guardiola’s teams, tends to be on the collective: His philosophy is based on the perfect harmony of 11 moving parts. Guardiola’s focus is always on the machine, but for it to work, he needs to fine-tune every cog. The team was outstanding for the first 40 minutes, but United’s goal just before halftime seemed to rattle the confidence of Guardiola’s players. City, by contrast, seemed already to be playing on instinct, so well have the players absorbed their new coach’s message.

Source: New York Times September 10, 2016 19:30 UTC