If the most obvious way to look at Pep Guardiola’s record is to survey his medal collection, there is an alternative approach: look at what he could have won. The Manchester City manager has a lone FA Cup to his name and, as he will soon face a sixth semi-final, he has ample experience of reaching Wembley, if not of prevailing there in this competition.
“I am a failure in the FA Cup,” said Guardiola, borrowing from his rhetoric about the Champions League, mockingly trying to pre-empt his critics and, again, invoking Julia Roberts, the Oscar-winning actress who may be bemused to discover she is becoming a staple of City press conferences; go back to the early 2000s and they were about Eyal Berkovic more than Erin Brockovich. But Guardiola meant part of it seriously.
