When Pep Guardiola uttered those words – 'I don't train for tackles. What I want is to try to play well and score goals. What are tackles?' – the headlines wrote themselves.
A crunching challenge can be as celebrated as as an effort on goal in England. Winning the second-ball is sometimes as good as one, too. It's what the fans who fill the terraces love.
As Sportsmail's Jamie Carragher said, it was open season on Guardiola. The quote was used as a stick to beat him with. Wrongly so, too.
