Is This The End For Pep Guardiola's Manchester City?
If this is the end, let it be a glorious failure that blazes so bright across the Madrid night sky that it scorches the turf of the Bernabéu...
Good afternoon and welcome back to The Overlap Newsletter! The final Merseyside derby at Goodison Park provided genuine sporting theatre. James Tarkowski fired an unstoppable equaliser past Alisson in the 8th minute of stoppage time, unleashing chaos after the final whistle. Abdoulaye Doucoure celebrated in front of the Liverpool fans and was confronted by Liverpool substitute Curtis Jones, with players from both sides squaring up before the pair were sent off. Arne Slot was also shown a red card - along with assistant Sipke Hulshoff - with the Reds adamant Tarkowski's goal should have been ruled out for a shove in the build-up. Everton manager David Moyes said “it was mayhem all game, an old-fashioned throwback… it was incredible and fitting they got an end like they did.” Liverpool remain seven points clear at the top of the Premier League - but it was Everton who will be able to enjoy that final derby at Goodison Park which showed the magic of the old place. Erling Haaland put Manchester City ahead twice in their Champions League play-off first leg against Real Madrid. The Blues are now fighting for Champions League survival and a place in the last-16 after Jude Bellingham's injury-time winner. Pep’s side now face a mammoth task when they meet again on Wednesday at the Bernabéu Stadium. Catch the latest episode of Stick To Football on The Overlap Youtube Channel as Gary Neville, Roy Keane, Jill Scott, and Ian Wright dive into some of football’s biggest talking points. Listen to the latest episode of It Was What It Was following the link below as Jonathan Wilson and Rob Draper complete the journey that began with Gary Neville reflecting on the legacy of the Busby Babes. They explore who they were before the 1958 Munich Air Disaster, the tragic day itself, and now, turn to the aftermath: How Manchester United rose again:
Quiz Question…
Who are the only two players to have scored more Premier League goals against Arsenal than Jamie Vardy’s 11, with 14 and 12 respectively?
Answer to follow at the end of the Newsletter…
Stick To Football Behind The Scenes:
IF THIS IS THE END OF PEP, GIVE US ONE LAST DANCE
By Rob Draper, co-host It Was What It Was
If this is the end, let it be with a bang not a whimper. Let it be a glorious failure that blazes so bright across the Madrid night sky that it scorches the turf of the Bernabéu, the scene of some of his most wonderful early victories. Give Pep Guardiola the exit he deserves for the beauty he has brought us.
Manchester City go to Real Madrid on Wednesday night and in all likelihood their European season ends there. The Premier League is gone. The FA Cup remains and, given the exits of Liverpool and Arsenal, it’s easy to imagine a glorious sunny day at Wembley in May where Guardiola puffs on a victory cigar having dispatched Aston Villa in the final.
Yet, however the rest of the season plays out, an era is clearly ending. At the very least it is a long goodbye to the 2023 treble winning team, with Kyle Walker gone, Kevin De Bruyne a faded force, İlkay Gündoğan playing like a tribute act, Ederson at the stage of his career where the errors outweigh the brilliance and both Jack Grealish and Bernando Silva no longer the impish inspirations they once were.
Does Guardiola have the energy and verve to go again and rebuild that dynasty, doing so without his trusted friend and confidante Txiki Begiristain, the outgoing sporting director? Does he want to pick up with a new man, Hugo Viana and try to do what? Repeat the unrepeatable?
The greatest trick Sir Alex Ferguson ever pulled was recreating his 1999 treble winners as the dominant team of the next decade and arguably an even better incarnation. Yet Ferguson had roots in Great Britain and, crucially, two foundations in his life that Guardiola appears to lack. Firstly, a hinterland in his obsession with horse racing, a happy outlet for Sir Alex (The Rock of Gibraltar apart) from the ravages of day-to-day life. Where does Guardiola go to relax and regenerate? Certainly the golf course, but as a man more obsessed with the details of the game than Sir Alex ever was, it’s a rare pleasure. The dwelling on details, once his greatest strength, may now be weighing him down. “I want to leave and play golf but I can’t,” he told friend and Michelin-starred chef Dani Garcia in December. “I think stopping would do me good.”
Secondly, Sir Alex was married to Lady Cathy, who seemed to be a solid sounding board and foundation stone of his sanity. It’s impossible not to speculate on where Guardiola’s mind might be in the wake of his separation from his partner of 30 years, Cristina Serra, and whether such a dramatic life event might cause a re-evaluation of life goals.
Of course, Guardiola signed his two-year contract extension in November, so maybe this is supposition and he is truly up for the challenge as the next phase of his life. Yet few read the goings-on at Manchester City better than The Mirror’s Simon Mullock, who has pointed out that Manuel Pellegrini announced a two-year contract extension in 2015 and then six months later revealed he was stepping down to make way for Guardiola, for whom he had always been keeping the seat warm.
We haven’t even addressed the potential fall out from the 115 charges: a guilty verdict would not only make the rebuild much harder, it would also likely mean the exit of another long-term ally in CEO Ferran Soriano. All around Guardiola, the tectonic plates of his life are shifting.
He has always been a mass of contradictions: the human rights advocate who effectively oversees a soft power project for a regime accused of serious human rights abuses; a man who keeps a tight circle of incredibly loyal friends, yet managed to fall out terribly with his childhood confidante Tito Vilanova just before the latter's death; the coach who both inspires great players and can be seen berating them for minor mistakes at the end of games.
And yet the football has been unequivocally majestic. Do you remember that night at Wembley when Leo Messi, Xavi and Andres Iniesta waltzed their way around a very good Manchester United team, making them look like back-up dancers employed to amplify the main act? Do you remember the 6-2 at the Bernabéu when Lionel Messi drifted in to become a false No.9 and befuddle Real Madrid? Do you remember the 5-0 against Jose Mourinho's Real Madrid at Camp Nou in 2010, when it seemed barely possible that football could get better than this?
Truth be told, there is less that stands out at Bayern Munich, just the endless collection of domestic trophies and high profile failures in the Champions League. Yet the Manchester City side that regularly accumulated one hundred points, or close to, in the Premier League and vied with Jürgen Klopp’s Liverpool in a series of epic clashes which will never be forgotten, was a restatement of his beliefs in passing football and the triumph of positional play. We thrilled at the false nines, inverted full backs and kamikaze pressing.
“Today modern football is the way Bournemouth, Newcastle, Brighton and Liverpool play,” is another of Guardiola’s enigmatic observations this season, a man seemingly shocked to find himself behind the tactical trend for the first time in his life. It was only two years ago that his 4-0 win over Real Madrid in the Champions League semi-final was being hailed as the definitive result of an era, the ultimate triumph of Pep-ball over Carlo Ancelotti’s pragmatism.
And so the irony is rich in that it falls to Ancelotti potentially to deliver the fatal blow to Pep’s old-fashioned form of football. Not that it will die completely. There will be revivals and resurrections. The tactical balance between precise possession and more direct passing has ebbed and flowed over the years. No particular form of football ever totally wins the day.
And yet defeat on Wednesday may be enough to finish off Guardiola’s time in English football, with a sense of a line being drawn in his life. A sabbatical or some kind of fresh challenge looms, one that is not quite the up-at dawn, energy-sapping siege that coaching a major European football club clearly is.
So give us one more spectacle, Pep: a 4-3 victory that takes the game into extra time. Or a glorious 5-3 defeat that spellbinds us one more time. Just one more dance before the music fades. That’s all we ask.
We would like to wish our very own Gary Neville a Happy 50th Birthday for Tuesday🎉
Quiz Answer:
Harry Kane and Wayne Rooney