rewrite this title The harsh truth of Pep Guardiola’s Man City legacy after Real Madrid humbling

It was a legend’s last Champions League game, though he had hoped it would not be. Real Madrid came to Manchester and made off with a 2-1 win; a managerial legend had seen his side reduced to 10 men by a red card for a Portugal international. There would be no final glory on the continental stage.

For Sir Alex Ferguson in 2013, read Pep Guardiola in 2026? The evidence is unclear. Guardiola invariably points out he has a year left on his contract, though it remains to be seen if he will serve it. Ferguson knew he was going; furious at Nani’s dismissal, he skipped post-match interviews when Real won at Old Trafford. Guardiola was more phlegmatic and forgiving, blaming neither Bernardo Silva for his dismissal nor referee Clement Turpin, tipping the victorious Alvaro Arbeloa to have a fine managerial career. Perhaps, the elder statesman thought, he was the future once.

But attention can turn to his past. Guardiola’s status as a great is secure. The accusation is nevertheless that he could have been greater; at City, anyway. “I have to win six Champions Leagues to be recognised in that? Yeah, yeah for sure,” he replied, with a familiar combination of sarcasm and exaggeration. But Guardiola has a point. It is easy to say he ought to have won more than one European crown with City; lazy, too. In his decade at the Etihad Stadium, his two former clubs, Barcelona and Bayern Munich, have none and one Champions League title respectively. Only Real’s outliers have at least two, and Arbeloa could make it a fifth in that period.

Guardiola can testify to the vagaries of knockout football: away goals, late goals, penalty shootouts, VAR interventions. His captain’s analysis on Tuesday rings true. “In a league [season] the best team wins 95 per cent of the time,” said Silva. “In the Champions League, the best team does not necessarily win.”

City have been the best team in Europe at times since Guardiola’s arrival in 2016. But even in their Treble season of 2022-23, Arsenal topped the Premier League for 248 days. For a couple of months in the autumn of that campaign, Luciano Spalletti’s Napoli were the continent’s outstanding side. By the end of it, City were. Even then, Guardiola remains grateful to Ederson for his late saves against Inter Milan in the final.

City certainly could have won the Champions League more often; it is harsher to say they should have done. Those 10 campaigns can be reduced to seven. In Guardiola’s debut campaign, with the ageing team he inherited, they were not good enough to win; nor have they been in the last two, when they went out in the last 24 and last 16 respectively. “The last two editions we have been out [earlier],” Guardiola noted.

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In the seven in between, the great missed opportunity may have been 2021, when Guardiola picked the wrong team in the final, lacking Rodri or Fernandinho, with his top scorer Ilkay Gundogan anchoring the midfield. There have been other selectorial mishaps: Gundogan on the right wing at Anfield in 2018, Savinho chosen to start in the Bernabeu last week, and the three centre-backs against Lyon in 2020. Guardiola erred by not beginning with Kevin De Bruyne in the first leg at Tottenham in 2019; yet, in an epic tie, there were so many other elements to City’s elimination.

Over Guardiola’s decade, City have been ill-fated at times; at others, as Real again showed, a susceptibility to lightning counter-attacks has brought their undoing. They can note they exited the competition unbeaten, apart from on penalties, in 2023-24; yet a record undefeated run in the Champions League of 26 games has been followed by nine losses in 17. Their last two aggregate defeats to Real were 6-3 and 5-1, and if this year’s scoreline was harsh, the reality is that they have been distanced by the elite.

In theory, they kept their pursuit of the quadruple going into the middle of March; but there was never going to be one, just as, barring a dramatic turnaround, City will not conquer Europe in the final year of Guardiola’s contract, whether or not he is in the dugout. Real beat them without Jude Bellingham and without needing much of Kylian Mbappe; they have other world-class players, led by the inspirational trio of Thibaut Courtois, Fede Valverde and Vinicius Junior. City arguably only have two: Erling Haaland and Gianluigi Donnarumma, though Rodri will be a third if he can recapture his best form.

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Arbeloa marvelled at the depth of City’s squad; perhaps it is a reaction to last year, when injuries left it too small. There is quality, but not extreme quality. Guardiola has acquired an assortment of fine footballers, but not of the standard De Bruyne and co were at their peak. And, in turn, that complicates selection. Each is different but relatively interchangeable: he began with Marc Guehi, Nico O’Reilly, Antoine Semenyo and Savinho in Madrid, Rayan Ait-Nouri, Matheus Nunes, Tijjani Reijnders and Rayan Cherki in Manchester. He blundered tactically by choosing a front four in the Bernabeu, but in terms of talent, his first- and second-leg sides were similar.

A more transitional side are a team in transition. “We are not a complete team,” reflected Guardiola. Abdukodir Khusanov’s extraordinary performance on Tuesday showed the potential in the camp, but while Guardiola created two great sides at City, this is merely good; its direction is uncertain. Either this summer or next, the director will stand aside. “Everybody wants to fire me,” smiled Guardiola when asked about his future. He knows they don’t, but when he finally stands aside, he will take a host of medals from his time in Manchester, but only one in gold from the Champions League.