Bonucci shows why Pep needs to sign him in the summer
AS Leonardo Bonucci defied Barcelona’s superstar-studded attack with a series of headers, blocks, and tackles, City fans looked on like losers in a cheesy game show.
You could almost hear the TV commentators, purring over Juventus’ rock-solid defence, taunting them with “Here’s what you could have won!”
Bonucci was a City target in the summer of course, and the Blues will re-double their efforts to sign the 6ft 3ins stopper when the summer transfer window opens.
But after a season in which City’s defence has been a clear weak point, that shut-out – over two legs, of course – of Messi, Neymar and Suarez, was a reminder of exactly why Pep Guardiola was keen.
It was pinpointed as a weakness last summer, but attempts to sign Aymeric Laporte and Bonucci both fell through, and with Vincent Kompany struggling with fitness, Aleks Kolarov was converted into a centre-back – an experiment which worked for a while.
John Stones has all the raw materials to be a top Guardiola-style defender, and Kompany is superb when fit, but Kolarov and Nicolas Otamendi are too inconsistent to be long-term solutions.
Unless Kompany can defy the odds or Tosin Adarabioyo sort out his future, it means that Stones is the only centre-back City can count on for the coming years.
The comparisons with Barcelona’s Gerard Pique are relevant – both are talented young footballing defenders who need schooling in the darker arts of defending.
Pique found Carles Puyol as a tutor and template at Barca, and Bonucci would be just the man to fashion Stones.
Puyol and Pique were a strange mix – one was a fresh-faced posh boy who adorns magazine front covers, the other was a tough farm boy who spent his youth sliding around on gravel pitches. Stones might be a Barnsley lad, but as a grammar school boy from a comfortable background, he is more Michael Parkinson than Skinner Normanton.
Bonucci is more streetwise – he once tackled an armed mugger who tried to rob him of his watch by punching him in the face and then chasing him down the street.
He takes that attitude onto the pitch, and armed with that shrewd, innate sense of defending which all top Italian players seem to possess, it makes the 29-year-old a fearsome defender.
Hopefully, Kompany can still play a part, both in City’s future and in educating Stones, but Guardiola cannot afford to gamble on his fitness.
Puyol and Pique won the lot together – league titles, Champions League, World Cup, European Championships – because their odd relationship worked.
Puyol gave Pique a harder edge to his game, and the younger man helped to keep his senior partner’s emotions in check.
Bonucci is the kind of player – and the kind of man – that City need, if they are to augment their brilliant attacking ability with a strong defence.