Antonis Matakos

@Tactx_ @Mann_aus_Berlin I also wonder how much of it was not just tactical but psychological. We’ve seen Pep overthink Real Madrid games and it backfiring completely too. Kompany simply stuck with what the players know best, perhaps to avoid burdening them with unfamiliar instructions and extra stress.

@AntonisMatakos @Mann_aus_Berlin A risk he took. While in the same phase there was an opportunity for his team.

Risk and reward. Both teams attacking the game. What do you see?

@ruedashraf @Tactx_ PSG won't defend in a low block like Madrid do. They like to have the ball, like Bayern do

@Tactx_ Enrique will have seen all this... PSG will do same with their 3-headed monster as opposed to 2 of RM.. if Enrique starts Barcola, him & Dembele will be speed monsters..

Bayern got away with one last night. Kompany refused to adapt to the threat from Madrid. He backed his team to control the play but leaving Vini Jr. and Mbappe with space is a tough job for any defender in a 1v1. Bayern's full-backs are aggressive, leaving the CB's isolated.

@Tactx_ @Mann_aus_Berlin Going 2vs2 with a man-oriented press vs Vinicius and Mbappe is way too risky IMO. I love Kompany as a coach but he got away with it here

@Mann_aus_Berlin One team do it because they have no choice with their superstars at the top end. The other team play the way that helped the manager get the job in the first place.

@Tactx_ A lot of teams have tried to beat Real with control only for Real to find a way at the first sign of vulnerabilty. Kompany tried to beat them instead at a basketball game and it worked. But it was a really risky approach. I think xG is equal or even favouring Real over two games

In modern day football, defending with eight players is not the norm and is not a strategy that will gain long term success. Kompany was bold. He knew the threat but stuck with his ideas. It came off in the end, but the threat was far greater than he would have liked.

@Tactx_ It has to be said that Mendy and Trent did a really good job defensively on Olise and Diaz respectively

Madrid stayed compact with their two lines of four. This left the wide positions open. Bayern probed but without any real shifts in tempo once the ball reached wide positions.

@shemsifcb Maybe individually not on the level of Ribery/Robben/Lewandowski but this has to be the best functioning trio that Bayern has ever had

Since joining Bayern 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Harry Kane: 167 G/A in 138 games 🇫🇷 Michael Olise: 90 G/A in 98 games 🇨🇴 Luis Diaz: 42 G/A in 42 games

@MinimumWidth Bayern is not that good today

Real Madrid is the most annoying team to play. It doesn't matter how much better you are then them they simply turned entire matches into moments and they're gonna win those moments.

@MinimumWidth I think they decided to utilize more Semenyo's depth runs. They were playing only through Doku in the first half

Nothings changed for city structurally this half, they’re simply playing with better timing and Cherki’s decided to take over. They’ve gotten a lot better with their use of depth runs and rotations as the seasons gone on.

Almost 800.000 signatures: “EU citizens cannot tolerate that the EU maintains an agreement that contributes to legitimize and finance a State that commits crimes against humanity and war crimes. Full suspension of the EU-Israel Association Agreement.” eci.ec.europa.eu/055/public/#/s…

@esetfcb Same referee as well

The foul Carreras did on Olise is the same shit foul Benatia did on Vasquez 8 years ago and it was a penalty. But it's Real Madrid. It's corruption.

@blacktom1961 Δε γίνεται αυτό, απ τη στιγμή που έχουν πυρηνικά

Αν το Ισραήλ δεν πάψει να υφίσταται ως κράτος, ποτέ δεν θα υπάρξει ειρήνη στην περιοχή. Το Ισραήλ ως «λαός του Θεού», είναι άλλη υπόθεση εντελώς - αλλά δεν είναι κάποιο κράτος.

The "publish or perish" culture must perish. Scientists need time to think. We just published our Slow Science Manifesto, where we argue that huge changes are needed in the way we fund, publish, and evaluate science. Read more and sign here: slow-science.com

A really dangerous situation. Too many submissions. Too many generated papers. Little responsibility. 1. In 2026, more than 24,000 submissions were made to the International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML). It’s TWO times more than in 2025. To fight it, the organizers now require researchers to pay $100 for every subsequent paper. 2. LLM adoption has increased researcher productivity by 90% (there’s a recent paper in Science). 3. The number of papers is becoming far too high. Submissions to arXiv have risen by 50% since 2022. 4. There are simply not enough reviewers. Plus, many scientists no longer want to invest precious time in it for free. 5. We can’t easily identify AI-made papers from the genuine ones. __ Important words from Paul Ginsparg, a co-founder of arXiv: “AI slop frequently can’t be discriminated just by looking at abstract, or even by just skimming full text. This makes it an “existential threat” to the system.” Basically, we’re getting closer to the tipping point. 📍 Many professors blame the AI. But the problem is likely elsewhere: 1. Without a sufficient number of papers, many PIs can’t get funded. They have to prove their credibility to reviewers. Their proposals have to rely on prior publications. In many countries, there are some informal (or even formal) expectations for how many papers a group with a certain size has to publish to survive (funding-wise). 2. Our students / postdocs need papers if they want to be hired in faculty roles. Yes, some departments hire people with few publications. But the majority still want to ensure their faculty can get funded. If funding is partly a function of papers, this is used in decision-making. 3. The number of papers is important if you want to get high-level awards. Many of them are not given because you published one paper (even if it’s great). They are given because you made a meaningful CONTRIBUTION to the field. How do you make it? Publish more papers. 4. Tenure promotions in many places take the number of your papers into account (often indirectly). Your tenure may get delayed if you don’t publish enough. Not everywhere, but for many mid- to low-ranked universities this story is more or less the same. + There are many more to mention. 📍My opinion: Much of this is rooted in how funding is distributed. There is a strong correlation between the requirements at a university and the funding acquisition criteria. If funding were based ONLY on the quality of published papers, universities would hire people for the quality of their science. If funding agencies strongly discouraged publishing too many papers, universities wouldn’t expect numbers from faculty during promotions. And some supervisors wouldn’t pressure students and postdocs to publish unfinished studies and low-quality data. Yes, we need good detectors of fake papers. But we also need the right policies and better funding allocation criteria.

@MinimumWidth Coman never did 😔

That fact that he gets into these positions often is a great sign and he’ll most likely improve in front of goal but honestly I love him how he is at the moment being an incredible 1v1 player who can stretch the pitch.

@stzysultan Both have immense technical quality. That is the biggest difference to Coman-Sane, imo

Olise-Díaz is proving to be the most complete wing duo right now. Olise’s connective play & all-phase influence with his creative passing, dribbling & shooting with Díaz as an out-ball with top physical traits to retain the ball & run in-behind defenses. So complete

@liverpxxl9 @Jon_Mackenzie Thing is, current City is still very much a work in progress, and they look sharper every week. With Arsenal, by contrast, it looks like we’re seeing the finished product of years of building. All the more impressive that Pep already has City able to go toe-to-toe with them.

@Jon_Mackenzie I like City’s approach but it relies on having technically excellent players. Foden, Cherki etc are incredible at outwitting physicality. Still might no be enough to win the trophies with Arsenal leaning into physicality too

I feel like no one is talking about how thin the elite manager market is right now. A combination of a few peak-age coaches going international (Tuchel, Nagelsmann), clubs taking early risks on younger coaches (Hurzeler) and the tactical meta shifting means there are slim picks.

@Jon_Mackenzie @liverpxxl9 I think Pep is already pushing back with his tactical approach this season. Compared with recent City sides, this version is less physical/more technical. He also still seems to be tweaking and experimenting; I don't think he’s fully settled on a definitive blueprint yet.

@liverpxxl9 I think we're just in a downcycle. No one really knows what the next stage is going to be and so everyone is just taking the path of least resistence and going physical. At some point, there will be a push back.

@iMiaSanMia Colombian Thomas Muller

Kompany on Luis Díaz: "Lucho has got a kind of 'chaotic creativity'. He can always do something in chaos. As a defender, I always found it uncomfortable to play against such players because you never know whether you have the ball under control or he has it. He kept his head up while on the ground and played a great pass. He did the exact same move in training yesterday. That's a quality of his"

@TacticsTI Why do you thini we didn't we see the typical runs into space from Laimer and Stanisic?

This was the biggest reason for me why Arteta’s game plan brought victory for Arsenal and took away Kompany’s Bayern’s best attacking threat. They were simply ready to execute themselves the same overcommitted man-marking, and Bayern didn’t have their best ball-carrying players available, who could break it. Kompany tasted his own medicine for the first time. #ARSBAY

@esetfcb Surprised he hasn't deleted this yet