Guardiola seeks to ease Champions League pain
Competition has been a cruel mistress for manager
After a series of painful Champions League failures, Pep Guardiola is on a mission to seal his Manchester City legacy by finally getting his hands on the trophy again. City start their latest bid to win the club s first European Cup with a trip to Shakhtar Donetsk in the Group C opener on Wednesday.
The long flight to the Ukraine will give Guardiola much time to ponder his curious streak of Champions League flops in recent years. Guardiola has conquered English football spectacularly after winning the last two Premier League titles, the first in record-breaking fashion and the second as part of an unprecedented domestic treble last season.
Yet the Champions League has proved impossible for Guardiola to master since he arrived at the Etihad Stadium. In fact, Europe s elite club competition has been a cruel mistress for Guardiola for most of the past decade, with a series of frustrating exits during his spells in charge of Barcelona, Bayern Munich and City.
Guardiola first won the Champions League as a manager in 2009 with Barcelona. But he has failed to reach the semifinals in any of his three seasons as City boss, extending his long wait to win the tournament for the third time his second triumph coming with Barcelona in 2011.
City s best Champions League run was under Guardiola s predecessor Manuel Pellegrini, who made the semifinals in the last season before the Spaniard took over.
Guardiola s inability to win the Champions League without Barcelona superstar Lionel Messi in his team is a black mark his critics use to question the 48-year-old s right to be ranked as a managerial legend.
While that assessment is harsh on the innovative and inspirational Guardiola, his European campaigns with City have undoubtedly been painful experiences that exposed the few flaws in his team.
PUNISHED
VAR was the scapegoat for last season s dramatic quarterfinal defeat against Tottenham, but the real reasons for City s failure to progress were a subdued first-leg performance in north London and a defensive meltdown in the second leg.
The year before that Liverpool punished City s oddly timid quarterfinal display at Anfield, while Monaco shockingly eliminated Guardiola s side after an error-prone last-16 tie in his first season.
MEMORABLE EVENING
With five Champions League semifinal defeats on his CV two with Barca and three with Bayern Guardiola has become the competition s nearly man since 2011, when his Messiinspired team delivered a masterclass in the Wembley final against Manchester United.
That memorable evening stands as Guardiola s last fond memory of the tournament and the clock is ticking on his hopes of winning it for the third time.
Worryingly for Guardiola s hopes of lifting the famous cup with the big ears in Istanbul later this season, City have endured a rocky start to the new Premier League season.
They are already five points behind leaders Liverpool after Saturday s surprise 3-2 defeat at Norwich, a result that showed how badly City will miss injured centreback Aymeric Laporte.
In the European contest at least City have what looks on paper to be a relatively undemanding group, with Atalanta and Dinamo Zagreb their other opponents. Guardiola remains adamant his players will steer City back to calmer waters even without Laporte. /