Vincent Kompany has pinpointed how Pep Guardiola speaks about opposition sides more than any manager he's played under, claiming his analysis of the opposition is the bedrock of Manchester City's success.
City are on the verge of completing a Treble and have headed to Istanbul for the final piece of that puzzle. They wrapped up the Premier League title after overhauling Arsenal to claim their fifth top-flight crown in the space of six seasons.
City beat rivals Manchester United 2-1 at Wembley last weekend to claim the FA Cup and they're now just one game away from doing something only United have done before.
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Kompany played under Guardiola at City for three years before departing in 2019. He will come up against his old boss on the touchline in the upcoming Premier League season, having already done so in the FA Cup.
And Kompany believes that City under Guardiola will be calm heading into the Istanbul showpiece with their experience shining through. The former City captain pinpointed Guardiola's focus on the opposition as one of their main advantages.
Speaking to Gary Neville on The Overlap, Kompany said: “It’s a team that’s won so much [Manchester City] so they will be as calm as you can imagine [ahead of the Champions League final]. They will do what they’ve done all season – they’ll go home, play with the kids, have meetings about the opposition – and go into the game like any other. That is the advantage when you’ve played in a lot of cup finals, you learn that it’s just another game.
“Pep Guardiola had definitely mentioned and talked about the opposition more than any other manager I’ve played under. Once you get to a point where you’ve faced different systems and coaches, the team masters all these things and I can imagine it’s less about the opposition and more about your successes.
“In general, in the beginning with us, more than any other manager, he’d mention them [the opposition] because everything depends on what the opposition does.
“But that’s why they get 100 points because they’re always good at what they do and at stopping the other team
“This current Manchester City team is bigger in size [compared to the one I played in].
“They have one big advantage now, which is that they’ve got a six or seven-year library of solutions against different teams, whereas in the beginning teams hadn’t adapted that much yet, so the one style we had was unbelievable.”
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