For Pep Guardiola, it is not so much the thrill of the chase, although that is plainly a part of the equation. It is being in it to feel it. The Manchester City manager has talked on numerous occasions this season about how proud he is that his team are yet again in the shake-up for the Premier League and Champions League titles.
The way that Guardiola explains it is a little like how the top golfers and tennis players approach their business. Concentrate on your end of things; the preparations, both mental and physical; the in-game movements and actions. If you leave nothing on the course or the court, there can be no regrets. If you win, it is wonderful. If you fall short, the opponent has just been too good.
Being there, competing to the limit, is everything and, according to Guardiola, it is the hardest bit, the one that requires the most sacrifice. To him, there is a beauty in the constancy of the City machine he has assembled, the consistency that has them set fair for a fifth league title in six seasons and about to contest a third straight Champions League semi-final.
City won the first one – against Paris Saint-Germain in 2021 before losing in the final to Chelsea. Before that, there were three consecutive quarter-final exits and before that, one in the last 16. The knockout rounds of Europe’s elite competition have become the personal playground of Guardiola’s team and, at the same time, the scene of their worst nightmares.
As the chase leads them back to Real Madrid and a first-leg tie at the Bernabéu on Tuesday night, it is impossible to ignore the notion that to impose their vision of a glorious future, they must do more than beat the team in front of them; the one with 14 European Cups to their name. They must conquer the demons of the past which, more than any other opponent, are symbolised by Madrid.
It is not a time to talk about processes and how to measure progress. It is about going beyond, finding a way to embrace a destiny that the club’s Abu Dhabi ownership foresaw when they took control in September 2008. And, however much Guardiola might want to talk in a more balanced and professional way, it is about revenge.
City have been here before. In 2015-16, their breakout Champions League campaign under Manuel Pellegrini in which they won knockout ties for the first time to reach the semi-finals, they pitched up at the Bernabéu for the second leg, the first in Manchester having finished 0-0. And they went so meekly, going out to the only goal. In technical terms, they were always in with a shout; in realistic ones, they never were, Madrid seeming to usher them into a sleeper hold, always in control.
City’s first visit to the Bernabéu had come during the ill-starred, victory-free group stage campaign of 2012-13 under Roberto Mancini. Two-one up with three minutes to play, they conceded to Karim Benzema and Cristiano Ronaldo to trigger a 3-2 defeat and that on-pitch knee slide from the Madrid manager, José Mourinho, in his grey suit trousers.
It is fair to say that it was portent of things to come, although not for City’s third trip in the last-16 first leg in 2019-20. That was when Guardiola overthought it, dropping Raheem Sterling and Sergio Agüero, starting with Kevin De Bruyne and Bernardo Silva as false 9s and coming away with a 2-1 win; one of the finest results in City’s history.
All of the previous seems to pale against what happened in last season’s semi-final second leg, City arriving at the Bernabéu with a 4-3 lead, having had three separate two-goal advantages. They would have another as they entered the 90th minute, Riyad Mahrez having scored for 1-0 on the night, and that was when the craziness gripped – the sequence that frames the rematch and seems to be the only topic of conversion here.
City fans of a certain generation will always expect something to go wrong for their team. It is fair enough when you have seen them play keep-ball by the corner flag in the dying minutes of a Premier League season to get the draw they need to avoid relegation. Only the draw would send them down.
The Guardiola-era disasters have been less slapstick but similarly painful, trackable by the identity of the club’s Champions League conquerors, starting with Monaco and running through Liverpool, Tottenham, Lyon and Chelsea. Nothing was as brutal and bewildering as the closing stages at the Bernabéu, City having missed chances to finish it when Rodrygo’s two-goal salvo forced extra time.
After Rodrygo’s first, from his team’s first clear opening of the night, the board went up to show six additional minutes and the home crowd emitted a primal roar. As their City counterparts fretted, they knew. Benzema’s extra-time winner was inevitable. Madrid would get past Liverpool in the final.
City did not lose to the better team, they lost to one that refused to believe in any scenario other than them winning; which is fortified by the Champions League aria, by a history that says they will find a way; which only needs a minute, even if it is the very last one.
What City will face is more than Benzema, Vinícius Júnior and the rest. It is an aura of entitlement and arrogance; the proclamations on the pre-match tifos, the crown above the badge on the shirt.
City could hardly be in better form – 17 wins and three draws from their past 20 matches, two of the draws coming in the Champions League and proving no impediment to progress. They have scored 60 times during the sequence and conceded only 12. They have Erling Haaland. They have a more secure defence in which John Stones and Rúben Dias have excelled; Rodri, too, in front of it. Their strength in depth is really something.
Guardiola might like to point out that last season’s defeat was only his second as a manager at the Bernabéu in 10 visits, six of them wins. Madrid, meanwhile, have lost three of six in La Liga to sit third, their title defence long since in tatters. There is a reason why City are the bookmakers’ favourites to advance. Yet this is the Champions League. This is Madrid.
