On Tuesday, after their match in Marseille, Guardiola was asked if the meeting had been easy.
The journalist was referring to a match won 0-3, with Manchester City clearly dominating in terms of possession, chances and control of the game.
The answer: “It is clear, when we won, the game was easy;
when we lose, we are very bad ”.
Pep was referring to those simple conclusions that we make in the analysis of the game, always and definitely associated with the result.
To look at it from another place (and under the same circumstances), Real Madrid returned from Barcelona last Saturday reinforced in its convictions, with a coach who knew what was being done and with the certainty that everything was on the right track.
And Barça stayed at home full of questions, doubts, debates (I promise you that another day and with more calm and calm, I will try to tell you my vision about everything that has happened and continues to happen in Can Barça), and a 1-3 that left them without three points, with a defeat of those that hurt and in the 12th position, although with two games less.
All this on Monday, October 26.
And today, which is already Friday 30, a few days have passed and Real Madrid seems once again in the haze after the epic has led them to rescue a point ma-ra-vi-llo-so in the lands of Mönchengladbach ( every German stadium sounds like an impossible mission and if you don't try Kaiserslautern) and doubts and questions return to Madrid.
If Real had won, let's say 1-3, the question for Zidane would have been the same as for Guardiola: An easy game, right, Zizou?
I remember there was a time, a time that still exists and that I even see when I return to France to comment on the Champions League, that the coaches, and even the players, were asked about you, what you indicated, apart from a question of that that it was civility, a certain belief that the respondent knew more than we did about the subject under discussion.
But that is past and we are in the new normal.
In the one in which the tuteo seems to take the question to the bar of a bar, to the living room of any house or to that dinner with friends with a game on TV included and where a quick, simple and simple answer is sought explain everything.
And the Barça?
Well, Barça has given time in those 72 hours to change its president and win in one of those mythical stadiums, of an even more mythical club like Juventus.
And those who seemed outlawed, for example, Dembélé or Griezmann, show that they are players for high-flying matches, or that an enormous young talent like Pedri, who seemed somewhat overwhelmed in the derby, sorry in the classic, is now the new Iniesta .
Ah, if you think that these things don't happen in the rest of Europe, you could watch Bayern's game, the machine for destroying rivals, and see him suffer to defeat with more professionalism than art (and I wonder who said that professionalism is not there, by itself, full of art) to the Lokomotiv in Moscow.
Or that Liverpool had to bring out all their artillery when Klopp arrived at his locker room after the first 45 minutes and his game against Midtylland was 0-0.
If you are very, very devoted to this football, take a look at Istanbul Basaksehir (it seems that we are in a contest of complicated names) against PSG and tell me if it was a simple victory carried in the wings of an exquisite game or an exercise in absolute pragmatism.