It wasn't simply because Jasper Cillessen looked pretty ordinary on both the goals, via which Barcelona lost to Alaves, that old friends Luis Enrique and Pep Guardiola were linked by Claudio Bravo at the weekend.
So much of football, once you take talent and fitness as basic staples, is about belief systems: confidence, psychology, conviction and dogged determination.
After Guardiola's team won at Old Trafford in that exceptional Manchester derby, he was asked whether he was troubled by how many times Bravo had had to play the ball like a sweeper.
"But that's exactly why we played so well!" answered Guardiola, whose facial expression suggested: "Wasn't that obvious?"
Pressed on whether his Chilean import had looked out of form because of the manner in which City conceded United's only goal -- when Bravo dropped Wayne Rooney's free kick -- Guardiola called his goalkeeper's performance one of the best he had seen.
Guardiola sometimes uses a lexicon that not everyone follows but his point was that for Bravo to commit errors, such as that which led to Zlatan Ibrahimovic's goal and then almost being caught out by Rooney, but to nonetheless stick determinedly to "Pep principles" was exemplary.
Bravo, to many English eyes, appeared to be someone taking too many risks. And although he and John Stones not communicating well in their first game together has nothing to do with how many times Bravo played out from the back rather than, as traditionally, booting the ball long, I know that in the UK media and among fans the two subjects were lumped together to build toward what supporters love to term "dodgy keeper" syndrome.
What Guardiola was referring to was the fact that, in football, as in "real" life I guess, it's often easiest to follow the path of least resistance.