Pep Guardiola says Manchester City’s 2-1 win at Huddersfield Town gave him more satisfaction than other more high-profile victories because of the way his side fought back in adversity.
City on Sunday secured an 11th successive league win, equaling a club record, and an 18th straight victory in all competitions after coming from a goal down at the John Smith’s Stadium.
Nicolas Otamendi’s own-goal gave Huddersfield a halftime lead, but Sergio Aguero equalized with a penalty before Raheem Sterling’s lucky finish, for his 12th goal of the season, won the match in the closing minutes.
Photo: Reuters
City are eight points clear at the top of the English Premier League and have enjoyed some big victories this season, notably beating Stoke City 7-2, Watford 6-0, and both Liverpool and Crystal Palace 5-0.
However, Guardiola ranked the win at Huddersfield above all of those when asked, arguing that the test they faced in west Yorkshire would benefit them much more than the bigger victories.
“Definitely. They were the same words I said in the locker room after the game. We need to win those kinds of games in that way. That is so important,” Guardiola said. “When you win well, people are happier and say nice words, but that is not reality at the high level of the sport. In a high level when you have one week’s rest and have time to prepare, you can score goals, but normally that can’t happen a lot of times.”
Sterling has now beaten his previous record for goals in a season — having never managed more than 11 in a campaign before.
Guardiola was delighted that the winger, who also won the penalty from which Aguero scored, is proving so prolific, but still believes there is more room for improvement.
“He is young, he can still improve, but now he is a winning player, he is winning games,” he said. “Before he made good actions, but now he wins games. We are in November and already he has made a record. He has improved, but not just in terms of goals. He is strong. Before, he lost a lot of balls. He keeps it much better now.”
Huddersfield boss David Wagner was proud of the way his team, promoted from the Championship via the playoffs in May, acquitted themselves against opponents widely expected to win the league this season.
“Where should I start? I am disappointed because of the result, but I am happy because of the defensive performance, the attitude, the desire, the passion, the emotion the players have shown,” Wagner said. “At the end, I think it makes total sense to take the positives out of this game. We defended well against the best team in the Premier League.”
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier