(Football news) Pep Guardiola has reached an incredible status as a manager. Guardiola the player was a very good one but Guardiola the manager is up there with the greatest of all time. The Spaniard has been winning trophies since 2008 with Barcelona followed by Bayern Munich and Manchester City. He has won 32 major trophies as a manager in 3 different leagues. Recently his side were knocked out of the UEFA Champions League by Real Madrid despite being two goals up with 1 minute of regular time left.

Pep Guardiola during his time at FC Barcelona won two Champions League in 2008/2009 and 2010/11. That incredible Barcelona side with the likes Lionel Messi, Samuel Eto'o, Thierry Henry, Pedro, Xavi, Andres Iniesta, Sergio Busquets and Victor Valdes was invincible. Since leaving Barcelona, Pep Guardiola has managed a great Bayern Munich team and an even better Manchester City team but has failed to win the UCL. The best he could manage was a final with Manchester City in 2021. He was eliminated in the semi finals in each of the 3 times with Bayern while he was eliminated 3 times in the quarter finals with Manchester City and once in the semi final.

Guardiola has spent almost a billion euros with Manchester City in 6 years and has still failed to win a single UCL. A lot of great teams haven't won UCLs like Jose Mourinho's Chelsea and Real Madrid; Diego Simeone's Atletico Madrid. Even Sir Alex Ferguson has only won 2 UCLs but something is different with Guardiola and it's not just about the money. All 3 times Mourinho's Madrid was eliminated in the UCL semi final they had the worst possible luck. Pep Guardiola is often eliminated because of his own tactical mistakes. 

In 2014, Guardiola's Bayern Munich faced Carlo Ancelotti's Real Madrid. Los Blancos won the 1st leg at the Bernabeu 1-0 and in the 2nd leg Guardiola deployed a 4-2-4 formation against that Real Madrid side which had Gareth Bale, Karim Benzema and Cristiano Ronaldo. Real Madrid ended up winning 4-0 at the Allianz Arena by completely outplaying Bayern. In 2020 Manchester City had a one off quarter final against Lyon where the Spanish manager deployed a 3-4-3 formation which wasn't his regular formation. Lyon was dominating City and the system was clearly not working. Guardiola still waited till the 56th minute to change the system after which City finally scored the equaliser but Lyon got two goals towards the end to win the tie.

The biggest blunder was perhaps in the 2021 final against Chelsea. Pep Guardiola had played Rodri as a CDM for the entire season and in the odd games he would play Fernandinho. In the final however, Guardiola played neither as he went with a ridiculously attacking front 6 of Kevin De Bruyne, Ilkay Gundogan, Phil Foden, Raheem Sterling, Riyad Mahrez and Bernardo Silva. He didn't bring Fernandinho on until the 64th minute while Rodri didn't even get on the pitch. City ended up losing 1-0 in their first ever European final. Guardiola definitely has to win the UCL with Manchester City otherwise there will always be something missing from his great tenure.

Also read: Why Real Madrid's legacy does not allow it's players to give up