Pep Guardiola

The mother of Manchester City coach Pep Guardiola has died after being diagnosed with the novel coronavirus, the English Premier League champions said on Monday. 

"The Manchester City family are devastated to report the death today of Pep's mother Dolors Sala Carrió in Manresa, Barcelona after contracting coronavirus. She was 82-years-old," City said in a post on their official Twitter account. "Everyone associated with the club sends their most heartfelt sympathy at this most distressing time to Pep, his family and all their friends." 

Barcelona forward Lionel Messi and Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola have each donated $1.08 million towards the fight against coronavirus. Argentina international Messi’s donation will be split between Hospital Clinic in Barcelona and another medical center in his home country, according to a report in MARCA. 

Heading into Wednesday’s Champions League Round of 16 first leg between Real Madrid and Manchester City, the narrative centered around the contrasting styles of managers Zinedine Zidane and Pep Guardiola. In essence, how would the laissez-faire approach of Zidane, which yielded back-to-back-to-back titles in this competition between 2016 and 2018, fare against the meticulous neuroticism of Guardiola, which hasn’t earned the Spaniard Old Big Ears since 2011. 

For once, UEFA has shown it’s got a bit of a spine. After years of failing to truly punish violators of Financial Fair Play, UEFA handed down its biggest penalty yet, banning Manchester City from the Champions League for two seasons on Friday. The English club was also fined $32.5 million. The Man City UCL ban is subject to appeal at the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

BREAKING: Manchester City banned from Champions League for two seasons by UEFA and fined 30 million euros

Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola has escaped any sanctions from the Football Association for turning himself into the Meme Lord during Sunday’s 3-1 defeat to Liverpool. 

After being booked for diving in the first half, Sadio Mané sparked Liverpool to a yet another dramatic, come-from-behind victory. The Liverpool winger set up the equalizer and scored the winner in the closing minutes of a 2-1 win over Aston Villa on Saturday at Villa Park.

Almost immediately after, he was being attacked for diving by the manager — of next week’s match.

Things are heating up in the Champions League (read: Real Madrid bottom of Group A) and there’s no surer sign of the increase in dramatics than managers getting booked. In a first for the Champions League, coaches can now be on the receiving end of both yellow and red cards from the match official, and although Match Day 1 of the competition came and went without history being made, Match Day 2 brought the moment we’d all been waiting for.

Manchester City star Bernardo Silva has been the subject of controversy after tweeting an adolescent photo of teammate Benjamin Mendy alongside the logo of Conguitos, a Spanish candy. The logo is a candy mascot with blatantly racist caricatures.

The tweet said “Guess who?” along with some emojis.

The Football Association are looking into this tweet posted by Bernardo Silva earlier today...

It’s been an eventful week for building from the back. It began with Mexico’s beatdown of Gregg Berhalter’s longterm vision for the USMNT in East Rutherford, a result which led to a cry for abandoning the philosophy.

Things reached a crescendo yesterday with Arsenal — the masterful architects of their own downfall in recent times. Sokratis Papastathopoulos showed exactly why 2-0 is the most dangerous lead in football by passing the ball straight to Gerard Deulofeu in his own area.