It is the sort of result that can mark a team out as potential champions of Europe. Beating Real Madrid in the Bernabeu, at the least, could offer an indication a team is equipped to defeat them in a final, semi-final or quarter-final. Though, more than most, Pep Guardiola can testify to Real’s winning habit when the stakes are highest.
His reaction to Manchester City’s 2-1 triumph in the Spanish capital was to argue they would have to play better in the knockout stages of the competition. At least now, with their manager thinking they only require four points to be fast-tracked to the last 16, they should be spared the play-off round that brought their elimination by Real last season. Yet if Guardiola may be football’s most famous perfectionist, it could have been the realist in him who spoke when he said: “In the last stages, you have to be better.”
