BarcelonaPep Guardiola is often asked about the Champions League. “I’ve already won all this,” he says. And it’s true, he raised two with the great Barça he built from the bench. But that team had Messi’s spearhead. Since leaving the Camp Nou, the Santpedor coach has not been able to lift theear, the most prestigious trophy in European football. It could be argued that this is the only challenge he has left in his facet as a coach.
The Catalan coach is one of seventeen who has reigned in Europe as a coach, at least twice. And there are only three coaches who have won the Champions League three times: Bob Paisley, Carlo Ancelotti and Zinedine Zidane. And of these, Ancelotti is the only one who has done so with two different teams, Milan (2003 and 2007) and Madrid (2014). The others have two ears with two different clubs are Ernst Happel (Feyenoord 1970 and Hamburg 1983), Ottmar Hitzfeld (Borussia Dortmund 1997 and Bayern Munich 2001), José Mourinho (Porto 2004 and Inter Milan 2010) and Jupp Heynckes (Real Madrid 1998 and Bayern Munich 2013) . An exclusive club that reinforces Guardiola’s thesis, always insistent when he says that the Champions League is a competition “very difficult to win” and that it is often decided “by details”. His resume includes two titles, a runner-up, six semifinals, three quarterfinals and a round of 16.
“I have suffered other hard-fought defeats in the Champions League, such as Chelsea’s defeat to Barça. We have been very close.”
“I have suffered other hard-fought defeats in the Champions League, such as Chelsea’s defeat to Barça (2012). We have been very close,” said Guardiola after being eliminated at the Bernabéu in an incomprehensible tie. A match that Manchester City had in their pocket until Madrid, halfway between luck, epic and mystic, scored two goals in a three and nothing, in stoppage time. Then came Benzema’s goal in extra time. And finally, the impotence of a team that, despite having good chances to equalize in the semifinals, would end up being out of Europe. It was the sixth time Guardiola had been eliminated in the Champions League semi-finals, the fourth time he has been away from Barça.
Guardiola debuted as coach winning theear in 2009. Then he would fall in the semifinals against Inter de Mourinho (the famous night of the sprinklers) in 2010, win the final in 2011 and lose the semifinals against Chelsea, the tie that the coach mentions as one of the most painful. Because both that one, still as a Catalan coach, and the one on Wednesday at the Bernabéu, are matches that he really had in his pocket. “We did our best to win,” he said in 2012, on a night when Leo Messi missed a penalty kick that would have led Barça to the final.
Bayern and City, no luck in Europe
The coach left Barcelona with 14 titles in his pocket and took a sabbatical year, and in the 2013-2014 season he took over the reins of Bayern Munich, a club that, curiously, had just won the Champions League at the hands of Jupp Heynckes. In Bavaria, Guardiola would impose his model of play and expand his record with seven titles, but none would be the Champions, a competition in which he reached three semifinals and, curiously, in all three was eliminated at the hands of a Spanish league team. In 2014 it was Madrid, with a 0-4 win in the return leg, in Munich. In 2015 it would be Barça’s turn, winning 3-0 in the first leg at the Camp Nou. And in 2016, Atlético de Madrid. The latter was the most evenly matched, with an overall 2-2, resolved by goal difference.
2016 would be his last summer in Germany. He would then sign for City, the club where he has spent the most years as a coach (this is his sixth), with a total of 10 titles, including a historic poker in 2019 (League, Super Cup, Cup and League Cup). But again, the Champions League has been a challenge. He failed in his first year – which ended in a draw – when he fell in the round of 16 against Monaco. The following year it would be Liverpool who would block his way, in the quarterfinals; and 2019 would be Tottenham, also in the quarterfinals. In 2020, the first year of the pandemic, he eliminated Madrid in the round of 16 – winning at the Bernabeu – but would end up losing, again in the quarterfinals, against Olympique de Lyon in a one-match match played in Lisbon.
Last season, on the other hand, he finally overcame the barrier of the quarterfinals and also reached the decisive match. In the semifinals, he got rid of Paris Saint-Germain, winning the first leg and the return leg. But in the final he lost to Chelsea (0-1). This season, despite being the favorite against Real Madrid and despite making an excellent play-off for 180 minutes, all the work went to waste in stoppage time and overtime. Guardiola, who holds 31 trophies as a coach, will have to wait at least one more year to reach a new milestone, his third Champions League.