What history tells us about Pep Guardiola’s Champions League defence
The IndependentSign up to Miguel Delaney’s Reading the Game newsletter sent straight to your inbox for free Sign up to Miguel’s Delaney’s free weekly newsletter Sign up to Miguel’s Delaney’s free weekly newsletter SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. For much of the last seven years, the focus was on whether and when Guardiola could secure Manchester City’s first Champions League and how, amid a series of disappointments, his infamous overthinking contributed to their inability to do so. And yet the only team to record back-to-back Champions Leagues in the years since the Milan team of Ruud Gullit and Marco van Basten were Real Madrid, in 2016, 2017 and 2018: lacking the philosophy of Guardiola’s Barcelona, less dominant domestically but with the pragmatism, the ability to seize the moment and the goalscorers, particularly Cristiano Ronaldo, to prevail in high-stakes knockout games. open image in gallery Pep Guardiola was reunited with the Champions League trophy last summer Look at the broader picture and there may not be another outstanding European team. For much of the last seven years, Guardiola used City’s lack of Champions League titles to argue that they were at a disadvantage, that an institutional winning mentality would aid the established order, as though a muscle memory from the 1950s will kick in.