Champions League
Guardiola’s next attempt at the handle cup
Wants to win the King’s Cup with Manchester City: Pep Guardiola. photo
© Jon Super/AP/dpa
In the Champions League final between Manchester City and Inter Milan, the roles are clearly divided. This increases the pressure on coach Pep Guardiola. He must not coach it again.
Pep Guardiola politely accepted the bouquet after landing on the runway, but the object of his desire is different in Istanbul. With the cup in his hands, the Spanish coach star wants to get back on the plane on Sunday so that the whole football world can see: he can still do it!
Guardiola has been chasing his third Champions League triumph for twelve years, sometimes tripping himself up spectacularly in the pursuit of perfection. In the final on Saturday (9 p.m. / ZDF and DAZN) with Manchester City against outsiders Inter Milan, he should refrain from daring experiments. Too much is at stake: the title triple and the premiere win for Man City – and also his personal reputation as a coaching genius.
“We have to win the Champions League,” said Guardiola shortly before the showdown in the Atatürk Olympic Stadium: “Sooner or later you have to win in Europe to reach the next level.” The Premier League and FA Cup titles already won this season are nice. But the longing of the club, which has spent an estimated two billion euros on transfers since the sheikhs from Abu Dhabi came on board in 2008, is the Champions League. “I’m judged by winning them,” Guardiola says.
Misjudgments at Bayern and City
He did that twice with FC Barcelona (2009 and 2011). But with Man City and before that with Bayern Munich, bad luck and Guardiola’s miscalculations prevented the big coup. The day before the final, the British newspaper “Mirror” listed “Pep Guardiola’s Champions League failures” again. “The Independent” wrote of the “City-itis” that Guardiola had already afflicted: failing in the most tragic way possible shortly before the goal of one’s dreams.
Simone Inzaghi is planning another final humiliation for Guardiola like two years ago against Chelsea. But the Inter coach considers his coaching colleague to be the “best coach in the world” who has divided modern football into two eras: “Before and after Guardiola.” The Nerazzurri also have great respect for superstars like Erling Haaland, Kevin De Bruyne and İlkay Gündoğan. “But in football in particular there are hundreds of examples,” said Milan winger Robin Gosens, “in which the supposedly smaller player beats the larger player”. And teammate Federico Dimarco illustrated what is probably Inter’s greatest chance of winning: “For us, the final is a dream, for them it’s an obsession.”
The pressure on Manchester and especially on Guardiola is immense. In view of this, the coach should not deviate from the successful formation and tactics. Haaland plays a key role in this, as he can hardly contain his ambition before his first premier class final. “I’ve dreamed of winning the Champions League my whole life,” said the Norwegian striker, who was signed from Borussia Dortmund ahead of the season as a completely new element in the Cityzens’ game. 52 goals in 52 competitive games are a brilliant testimony to the season – but even that would lose its shine without the premier class triumph.
Gündoğan wants triumph at home
It’s getting particularly emotional for Gündoğan, who is captaining Manchester in his favorite competition in his Turkish parents’ home country of all places. The national player also draws additional motivation from his final defeats with BVB (2013) and Man City (2021). But you shouldn’t “overdo it,” warned the 32-year-old, whose contract expires at the end of the season. Playing with the ball has to be “very correct, very precise – and it has to hurt you”.
Inter wants to counter this with great endurance and team spirit. “In important games, my boys have always managed to unleash energies that we thought we didn’t have,” said coach Inzaghi. The team around the former Bundesliga professionals Hakan Calhanoglu, Edin Dzeko and Henrich Mchitarjan is well-rehearsed, disciplined, defensively strong – and up front the Argentine world champion Lautaro Martínez is considered a difference player.
But on paper, the opponent’s squad is much better staffed. The chances for Man City and Guardiola to end the Champions League trauma are good. “We had to swallow poison, but in football and in sport you always get another chance,” said Guardiola. But he should also use it on Saturday, otherwise the star coach only flies home with a bouquet of flowers.