Blue Dan
Well-Known Member
It's probably too early to say, but it has crossed my mind before now that Mancini's possible lack of managerial ability in the Champions League could cost him his job somewhere down the line. What do we think?
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Trauma for one half of Manchester, mere disappointment for the other. But while Manchester City faced up to the half-expected reality that not even an emphatic win over the winners of Group A was enough to secure their Champions League survival, those with a longer perspective in mind wondered whether Roberto Mancini will turn out to be the man to lead them to glory in the tournament.
The fine goals from David Silva and Yaya Touré that put City 2-0 up against the current leaders of the Bundesliga inside the opening hour were entirely consistent with their more attacking football in a remarkably prolific opening to the season. But the danger was always that the effort would come too late, and a glum silence descended over the ground as the news of Napoli's goals came through, broken only by the full-throated chants of the Bavarian fans.
The 47-year-old Italian knows what it is like to reach the final of the continent's premier club competition. In 1992 he was alongside Gianluca Vialli in the Sampdoria team that lost 1-0 to Johan Cruyff's Barcelona at Wembley, and might well have won had his fellow striker – another future Premier League manager – made the most of a couple of excellent chances.
Since turning to coaching and management, however, Mancini's record in the competition has been one of steadily declining achievement. He brought Internazionale their first Serie A title in almost two decades, going on to make it a personal hat-trick in the next two seasons, but his success would not be reflected in the competition that Massimo Moratti, anxious to repeat his father's triumphs as president with Helenio Herrera as head coach, really wanted him to win.
In 2004-05, at his first attempt in the Champions League with Inter, the squad's considerable resources were enough to take him to the quarter-finals, where they were humiliated in both legs by their fellow tenants of San Siro, Carlo Ancelotti's Milan.
A year later they reached the same stage, only to go out to Villarreal on away goals. Then things got worse. In 2006-07 Inter were again eliminated on away goals in Catalunya, this time by Valencia in the round of 16. And in Mancini's final season they were once more unable to go beyond the first knockout stage, losing at home and away to Liverpool without managing to notch up a single goal. The lack of evidence that the side were making progress in European competition under Mancini – indeed, the evidence to the contrary – persuaded Moratti to dismiss the man who had brought him seven trophies.
No doubt, given Mancini's highly professional approach to the job, his two years out of the game and three out of Europe were filled with contemplation of the methods by which he might persuade a group of gifted and richly rewarded players to fulfil the hopes of an ambitious owner at the highest level. And no doubt City's new regime were hoping that he would take the team all the way to the final in Bayern's Allianz Arena at the first time of asking next May.
Were he merely to win City's first English league championship in 43 years, they would be unlikely to take the Moratti option. But the fact remains that in Mancini's fifth Champions League season as a manager of a club at the very top level of financial support, with a vastly expensive array of talent at his disposal, he has failed even to make it out of the group stage.
There have been occasions during this campaign – in the two games against Napoli, from which they salvaged only a single point, and the 2-0 defeat in Munich – when Mancini appeared to have learnt little from his experiences. Facing Bayern on their home turf, for example, he paid a heavy price for a series of frankly bizarre decisions, picking a pair of attacking full backs – Micah Richards and Gaël Clichy – and left Nigel De Jong, his most efficient midfield shield, on the bench, dropping Joleon Lescott while inviting Kolo Touré to make a first start since his return from suspension. This was the night Carlos Tevez apparently refused to take the field as a substitute, when many believed he should have started a game City wanted to win.
In the return match last night, against a Bayern side stripped of three of their best players by injury and illness and with half a dozen others allowed to sit it out on the bench, City were given the opportunity to improve their European record, and took advantage of Jupp Heynckes' selectorial decisions. Silva's incisive shot and Yaya Touré's strike at the end of a lovely move involving Sergio Agüero and Edin Dzeko warmed the home fans on a chilly night.
"It takes a team years of development to succeed at this level," Heynckes observed afterwards. "City have had a lot of new players coming into the club. I think Mancini is slowly getting it together. But it will take experience and time."
City's fans have known much, much worse than elimination from the Champions League, and success in turning their present lead in the domestic championship in victory in the spring would dispel even the tiniest cloud from the East Manchester sky. In Europe, however, their manager can consider himself still very much on trial.