Why Pep Guardiola has struggled to turn domestic dominance into repeated Champions League glory at Man City

Pep Guardiola was brought to Manchester City to get them over the line in the Champions League, but just one triumph in a decade shows that not even the greatest manager of his generation can guarantee sustained success in Europe’s premier club competition.

After City were knocked out of the Champions League by Real Madrid for the fourth time in five years following a humbling 5-1 aggregate loss, yet another European campaign has ended in failure for Guardiola.

Why, then, has the 55-year-old struggled so much to turn periods of domestic dominance into repeated glory on the continental stage, or are the standards we are judging him by simply too much?

Barca’s Dream Team

The Catalan has always had a special relationship with the ‘cup with the big ears’ stretching back to his playing days with Barcelona where under mentor Johan Cruyff, the silky-smooth midfielder was part of the team that won the trophy for the first time in the club’s history in 1992.

That original ‘Dream Team’ only managed to be crowned European champions on that one occasion. But after returning to manage his boyhood club in 2008, Guardiola immediately led them to Champions League glory in his debut campaign at the helm, before repeating the trick in 2011.

In fact, but for Jose Mourinho’s 2009-10 Treble-winning Inter Milan side, Pep’s brilliant Barca team of Lionel Messi, Xavi Hernandez, Andres Iniesta and Co would surely have become the first to retain the trophy in the modern Champions League era.

And yet, Pep’s early dominance all seems a long time ago now.

A decade of pain as Pep proves no Champions League guarantee

No one would have believed you after Guardiola returned to management in 2013 following his sabbatical, having left the Nou Camp 12 months earlier, that it would be another decade before he lifted the European Cup again.

But that was the case, first at Bayern Munich where despite winning three successive Bundesligas, Guardiola – who was brought to Bavaria to take Jupp Heynckes’ then-European champions to the next level – saw his three-year spell at the club end without him delivering the trophy following semi-final defeats by Spanish opposition.

By not delivering a sixth European title for Bayern, Guardiola’s time in Munich was ultimately deemed a failure – not that it concerned Man City, though, who were determined to bring the Catalan to the Etihad in order to also land the trophy.

Other domestic titles followed, and plenty of them, but not the Big One as City managed to continuously fluff their lines on the continent.

The likes of Monaco [round of 16], as well as Liverpool, Tottenham Hotspur – in agonising circumstances after Raheem Sterling’s last-gasp winner was ruled out for offside in 2019 – and Lyon [quarter-finals] all ended their European dream in his first four years in charge.

And having reached his first final in a decade, Guardiola out-thought himself by omitting key defensive midfielders Rodri and Fernandinho from his starting line-up in a surprise 1-0 loss to Chelsea.

Fine margins & luck of the draw

When Pep did finally manage to get his hands back on the trophy for a third time as a coach in 2023 en route to City winning the Treble, many thought that breakthrough win would act as a springboard to further success in the coming years.

Instead, City have found themselves up against the immovable force that is Real Madrid, with the 15-time champions the only team to have beaten them in the knock-out stage of the competition since they lost the final to Chelsea five years ago.

Some of those reverses were heart-breaking too, such as in 2021-22 when City seemingly had one foot in the final, only for Karim Benzema to singlehandedly turn the tie on its head late on at the Bernabeu.

There was more pain two years later when Los Blancos edged a thrilling last-eight contest 4-3 on penalties at the Etihad, before Pep’s old foes were at it again last season, knocking out a wounded City 6-3 on aggregate in the playoffs.

Glass half full or empty?

Tuesday’s clash with Real was Guardiola’s 191st Champions League game as a coach, 117 of which were wins, with only Carlo Ancelotti bettering those numbers.

In fact, the veteran Italian, who like Guardiola also won the European Cup as a player, is the only manager to have won the trophy more than him.

Guardiola is contracted to City for at least one more year, intimating after the latest loss to Madrid that he intends to be back next season for another stab at the competition and a possible fourth Champions League that would move him closer to joining ‘Carletto’ at the summit on five titles.

At the same time, though, is a record of just one Champions League title from two final appearances while in charge of the best team in Germany and England over the course of the last 15 years – Jurgen Klopp has been to four finals with Borussia Dortmund and Liverpool in that same period – really a good return for a manager of Pep’s talents?

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