It was an eleventh elimination in the Champions League for the Manchester City boss, who could not help himself as his side blew away a two goal lead with just few minutes away from reaching a consecutive Champions League final.
Pep Guardiola of Manchester City during the UEFA Champions League Semi Final Leg Two match between Real Madrid and Manchester City at Santiago Bernabeu Stadium in Madrid. (Photo by DAX Images/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Also, it is the sixth time the former Barcelona boss has lost out in the semi final of the competition, most times when you’d expect his side to reach the final due to the advantage in quality and depth in squad.
The first in 2009-10, his Barcelona side were the defending Champions and paraded the best players in the world. Lionel Messi, Xavi Hernandez and Andres Iniesta all made the balon d’Or podium that year, finishing first, second and third respectively.
Asides that, they also have very good and experienced players like Carles Puyol, Javier Mascherano and even though Sergio Busquets was still young, only few around then bettered him at what he does.
However, they lost 3-1 in San Siro against Jose Mourinho’s Inter, and could not overcome adversity in the second leg at the Camp Nou, even as they dominated proceedings from the onset, the could manage just a goal and ended up losing 3-2 on aggregate.
His second Champions League semi final elimination should have raised more questions but due to the fact that he had won twice and it was his first season at Bayern Munich, no one took note of it being a major failure.
The Bavarians were the defending Champions having won the competition under Jupp Heynckes the season before. The German manager had met Real Madrid in the semi final in 2012 and went past them before eventually falling to Chelsea in the final.
In 2013, Heynckes eliminated Barcelona in the semi finals and beat fellow German, Borussia Dortmund to claim the title in a final played in Wembley, in what was the Bavarians second final appearance in consecutive seasons.
However, Pep Guardiola could not build on this achievement in 2014 and was well beaten by Carlo Ancelotti’s Real Madrid 5-0 on aggregate, after a disappointing second leg 4-0 humiliation at the Allianz Arena in Munich.
Pep Guardiola watches on as his Bayern Munich side were destroyed by Real Madrid in Munich.
The following year, he met his former side Barcelona in the semis. He was well beaten in the first leg at the Camp Nou without managing to score what would have been a vital away goal and his quest for a comeback was dampened after the Neymar scored for Barcelona in Munich.
The night ended with a 3-2 Bayern win but Barcelona would advance to the final 5-3 on aggregate due to the 3-0 first leg result.
He reached the semi final again, for a third consecutive time with Bayern Munich and again, a Spanish club was on hand to send him packing.
Having lost 1-0 to Atletico Madrid in the first leg played in Spain, hopes of progressing to the final was dealt a big blow when Antoine Griezmann scored a vital away goal for the visitors in the second leg and though Bayern won 2-1 in Munich, it wasn’t enough to see them progress to the final.
Interestingly, just few years later in 2020, the Bavarian won the competition under Hansi Flick just months after the German was named the manager of the club. Leaving more doubts over the ability of Pep to deliver on the big stage.
Last season, he did went past all the obstacles and reached the final but lost to Chelsea in Porto. On papers, City looked more of the favorite and that has been the case in the Champions League for the past couple of seasons.
The odds are always in favour of Pep Guardiola’s side to win the competition due to how well they dominate in league and how good the players are both individually and collectively. However, they tend to falter on the big stage season in and out.
After Riyad Mahrez scored the first goal in Madrid 17 minutes from time, it all pointed to an all English final, a repetition of last season and Manchester City again making it to their second ever Champions League final.
However, if only Guardiola had learnt from the previous knockout round games involving Real Madrid, that this is a team that doesn’t give up the fight until the final whistle is gone, he wouldn’t have let complacency overtake his thinking.
It is understandable the withdrawal of Kyle Walker and Kevin De Bruyne as the former could not continue due to injury that kept him out of the first leg in Manchester. Though all the while he was on the pitch, he played his part to perfection.
For the later, he never looked his best on the night and was never comfortable running or chasing. Looked as though he is nursing an injury and bringing in Ilkay Gundogan to replace him with under 20 minutes of normal time to go isn’t a bad call.
The Spaniard got it all wrong by taking off Riyad Mahrez and Gabriel Jesus, two players who could have really helped keep Madrid on the back foot with their combined pressing and trickery, as they had done in over 160 minutes of the tie.
To make matters worse for City, Fernandinho was brought on for one of the two, meaning they had both Rodri and the Brazilian on at the same time.
The substitution gave Real Madrid the avenue to increase the pressure on a City side already pinned to their own box, a position which they are not at all used to.
Real Madrid were able to score two goals with their first two shots on target of the match thanks to substitute, Rodrygo Goes’ brace in under two minutes to force extra time.
Lost of momentum and short in confidence, they conceded a penalty five minutes into extra time and trail for the first time in the time, and thus they never recovered thereon.
Pep Guardiola will relive the last few minutes of normal time in his head for a while.
What if he never withdraw Riyad Mahrez and Gabriel Jesus.
What if he had let them continue and complete the 90 minutes of the game.
The Pep’s Champions League curse
Even in the most unusual of circumstances, Pep Guardiola’s sides has suffered misfortunes at that will in the end render his dream of lifting yet another Champions League title futile.
Of the Spaniard’s 11 Champions League eliminations, EIGHT have seen decisive periods that were sudden collapses or flurries of goals conceded by his team
In 2010 against Inter Milan, despite taking the lead with a vital away goal, Barcelona ended up conceding two goals in 13 minutes and ended up losing 3-1.
In 2014 with Bayern Munich, they had lost only by a lone goal to Real Madrid in Spain and kicked off at the Allianz Arena with the home advantage to propel them to victory.
“The trees will burn,” Karl-Heinz Rummenigge had forecast with more than a touch of melodrama. By the interval it was Guardiola’s philosophy and Bayern’s hold on the European Cup that were ash.
Real Madrid had scored three times in the space of 18 first half minutes and Pep Guardiola’s only response at the break was to remove his centre-forward Mario Mandzukic for a holding midfielder in Javier Martinez. He did not dream of scoring five times in 45 minutes, he just wanted the nightmare to stop.
Again, loss of concentration for only 18 minutes was well punished by flurries of goals by Los Blancos, leading to the collapse of Bayern Munich and their dream to retain the crown that year.
2015 was the turn of Barcelona as Pep Guardiola comtuines to struggle to breakfree from the misfortune, it was an even contest, one yet to produce a goal between the two sides heading into the final fifteen minutes of the clash at the Camp Nou but then the curse striked again and Barcelona scored three times in the remaining minutes to win 3-0.
That proved too much for his side to overturn in Munich and eventually, too much for their Champions League dream to deal with.
He left Bayern Munich in the hope that the curse would seize from tormenting him and in 2017 came up against Monaco in the round of 16 then took an early lead at the Ethiad thanks to Raheem Sterling.
Unfortunately, the curse would not just let him be and he conceded two times in eight minutes, leading to massive advantage for the away side as the away goal rule was then in use.
Though City went on to win the game 5-3 but after losing the second leg by three goals to one, it was the French side that progressed to the quarters on away goal advantage.
In 2018, his Manchester City side conceded three times in nineteen minutes in the quarter final first leg against Liverpool, in 2019, conceded two in three minutes at the Ethiad against Tottenham Hotspur.
Interestingly, Manchester City had beaten Liverpool by five goals to nothing at the Ethiad in the same season they lost in both legs of their Champions League quarter final meeting with the Jürgen Klopp side.
For Tottenham Hotspur, they were beaten both home and away by City that season both league matches coming between the elimination of City in the Champions League albeit City were able to keep clean sheets in both legs of the league meeting.
It is the curse that would not just allow them have it the same outside the local competitions.
In 2020 they conceded two times in eight minutes against Olympic Lyon in a one legged quarter final meeting in Lisbon and in 2022, history was repeated as they let in three in six minutes against the Spanish giants.
Where was the curse from ?
In 2018, Yaya Toure’s agent Dmitri Seluk stated that an “African curse” that will prevent Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola from ever winning the UEFA Champions League again claiming that the manager treated his client in a very impolite manner.
“Pep turned all Africa against himself. I’m sure that many African shamans in the future will not allow Guardiola to win the Champions League. This will be for Guardiola an African curse. Life will show whether I am right or not.”
Well, fair to say life has proved him right so far.
Pep Guardiola was appointed the manager in Barcelona when Yaya Toure was still there but the relationship between the two did not go well as the Ivorian was apparently frozen out of the club by the manager.
The two again met in Manchester when Pep Guardiola was appointed manager of Toure’s employer, City.
Into the 2017-18 season, Touré’s agent, Dimitri Seluk, subsequently stated that Guardiola humiliated the four time African footballer of the year by omitting him for the first team. In response, Guardiola said Touré would not be included in the team until he receives an apology.
A few weeks after a public apology to Guardiola on behalf of his agent, Touré made a surprising return to the first team on 16 November, starting against Crystal Palace in which he scored two goals to earn City a 2–1 away win and at the end of the season in 2018, he left the club.
Yaya Touré then said after leaving City: “Pep stole my farewells with City, a club where the fans are beautiful. I would have liked to leave with emotion of this club as could Iniesta or Buffon. But Pep prevented me. The worst part is that at the end I was happy to leave this club that yet I loved so much.”
“He was cruel with me. Do you really think he could’ve been like that with Iniesta? It got to the point I asked myself if it was because of my colour.”
So far Pep Guardiola has failed to win another Champions League and long as this goes, it will continue to beg the question if the Spaniard actually fit into the list of the greatest managers of all time.
His success in European club competition has only been tied to prime Messi, Xavi and Iniesta at Barcelona while he had failed with Ribery, Robben, Schweinsteiger and the likes in Bayern and is currently failing with prime De Bruyne, Bernardo Silva, Riyad Mahrez and the others in Manchester City.
The continuous dominance in local competitions is becoming boring from a manager considered one of the greatest of all time and his continuous failure in Europe, despite the level of investment and quality is making many realize he could be just another manager.
Author: Kehinde Hassan Afolabi