Pep Guardiola stood by his decision to shake up Manchester City's tactics in their Champions League quarter-final against Lyon after his team suffered a shock 3-1 defeat by the unfancied French outfit.
Guardiola strayed from the 4-3-3 formation with which City had outclassed 13-times winners Real Madrid in the last 16, instead fielding a back-three including vastly inexperienced Erik Garcia, 19, as the central defender.
"In this competition the tactics are not the most important thing," Guardiola told a news conference.
"They (Lyon) are so fast and our central defenders are not so quick so I didn't want to leave them two versus two.
"We worked for three days on this, we discussed it and we reviewed this and when you play like we did in the last 20 minutes it shows the system is not the problem."
Garcia was badly caught out of position for Lyon's second goal, while the defence also slipped up for the opening strike from Maxwel Cornet, who was allowed a free strike from outside the area.
"I don't know why it didn't work but I know why we played this way," added the Catalan.
"We struggled in the first 25 minutes but in the second half we felt free, we were there and I had the feeling we were better than them but you have to be perfect in this competition and we were not."
City fell behind to Cornet's strike in a sloppy first half and although they looked like their usual selves after the break and levelled through Kevin de Bruyne, they were stunned by two strikes from Moussa Dembele, sandwiched between an unbelievable open-goal miss from Raheem Sterling.
"It is what it is and hopefully one day we'll break this gap in this competition," added Guardiola, who has led City to two Premier League titles in four seasons but never gone beyond the quarter-final stage in the Champions League.
"We created more chances, had more shots, we did everything but unfortunately we are out again."
Guardiola did not complain about Lyon's second goal, which survived a VAR review after a potential foul by Dembele on City defender Aymeric Laporte.
"I don't know, I don't want to talk about those circumstances because sometimes it seems like I'm complaining or looking for excuses. We are out, I had the feeling we were incredible already, but we made mistakes in the boxes in the key moments."
He also rued Sterling's astonishing miss which would have made it 2-2 and was promptly punished by Dembele's second goal which was the killer blow.
"That moment sums up this competition, we had to equalise and after we conceded the third goal," he said.
"That's this competition, you have to be perfect."
Notable salonnières of the Middle East through history
Al Khasan (Okaz, Saudi Arabia)
Tamadir bint Amr Al Harith, known simply as Al Khasan, was a poet from Najd famed for elegies, earning great renown for the eulogy of her brothers Mu’awiyah and Sakhr, both killed in tribal wars. Although not a salonnière, this prestigious 7th century poet fostered a culture of literary criticism and could be found standing in the souq of Okaz and reciting her poetry, publicly pronouncing her views and inviting others to join in the debate on scholarship. She later converted to Islam.
Maryana Marrash (Aleppo)
A poet and writer, Marrash helped revive the tradition of the salon and was an active part of the Nadha movement, or Arab Renaissance. Born to an established family in Aleppo in Ottoman Syria in 1848, Marrash was educated at missionary schools in Aleppo and Beirut at a time when many women did not receive an education. After touring Europe, she began to host salons where writers played chess and cards, competed in the art of poetry, and discussed literature and politics. An accomplished singer and canon player, music and dancing were a part of these evenings.
Princess Nazil Fadil (Cairo)
Princess Nazil Fadil gathered religious, literary and political elite together at her Cairo palace, although she stopped short of inviting women. The princess, a niece of Khedive Ismail, believed that Egypt’s situation could only be solved through education and she donated her own property to help fund the first modern Egyptian University in Cairo.
Mayy Ziyadah (Cairo)
Ziyadah was the first to entertain both men and women at her Cairo salon, founded in 1913. The writer, poet, public speaker and critic, her writing explored language, religious identity, language, nationalism and hierarchy. Born in Nazareth, Palestine, to a Lebanese father and Palestinian mother, her salon was open to different social classes and earned comparisons with souq of where Al Khansa herself once recited.
LUKA CHUPPI
Director: Laxman Utekar
Producer: Maddock Films, Jio Cinema
Cast: Kartik Aaryan, Kriti Sanon, Pankaj Tripathi, Vinay Pathak, Aparshakti Khurana
Rating: 3/5
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
COMPANY PROFILE
Founders: Alhaan Ahmed, Alyina Ahmed and Maximo Tettamanzi
Total funding: Self funded
HWJN
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Company%20Profile
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Key findings
- Over a period of seven years, a team of scientists analysed dietary data from 50,000 North American adults.
- Eating one or two meals a day was associated with a relative decrease in BMI, compared with three meals. Snacks count as a meal. Likewise, participants who ate more than three meals a day experienced an increase in BMI: the more meals a day, the greater the increase.
- People who ate breakfast experienced a relative decrease in their BMI compared with “breakfast-skippers”.
- Those who turned the eating day on its head to make breakfast the biggest meal of the day, did even better.
- But scrapping dinner altogether gave the best results. The study found that the BMI of subjects who had a long overnight fast (of 18 hours or more) decreased when compared even with those who had a medium overnight fast, of between 12 and 17 hours.
Honeymoonish
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What can victims do?
Always use only regulated platforms
Stop all transactions and communication on suspicion
Save all evidence (screenshots, chat logs, transaction IDs)
Report to local authorities
Warn others to prevent further harm
Courtesy: Crystal Intelligence
FIGHT%20CARD
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Results:
First Test: New Zealand 30 British & Irish Lions 15
Second Test: New Zealand 21 British & Irish Lions 24
Third Test: New Zealand 15 British & Irish Lions 15
SWEET%20TOOTH
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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
