Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola will be hoping to right the wrongs of his past experience at Santiago Bernabeu on Wednesday night in the Champions League.
City take a 4-3 lead over Real Madrid into the second leg of their quarterfinal, with Guardiola keen to go one better than last year – having lost 1-0 to Chelsea. Kevin De Bruyne, Gabriel Jesus, Phil Foden and Bernardo Silva were all on the scoresheet for the Premier League side in the first leg, in what was one of the most exciting matches of the season in all competitions.
But Guardiola will be cautious heading to Madrid, despite the win. It was at the Bernabeu where he admits he made the biggest "f*** up’"of his entire career, crumbling to a 4-0 defeat whilst in charge of Bayern Munich in 2014.
Going into the game, the Spanish boss was deliberating whether to play a 3-4-3 or a 4-2-3-1 formation, before settling on the latter and explicitly telling assistant manager Dome Torrent: “Dome, don’t let me change my mind. This is the only way to go.”
However, he did change his mind. After a pre-match talk with his players, who knew they needed to win by two goals or more having lost the first leg of the tie 1-0 at the Allianz Arena, the former Barcelona boss opted for an untried 4-2-4, with the players keen to play an attacking side that would take the game to Los Blancos.
His side lost 4-0, with Cristiano Ronaldo scoring a hat-trick and Madrid dominating the entire game. Speaking in his book, Pep Confidential, he said: “I got it wrong, man. I got it totally wrong. It’s a monumental f*** up. A total mess. The biggest f*** up of my life as a coach.”
Madrid’s midfield trio dominated Bayern’s two-man partnership, and Guardiola’s team self-destructed on the biggest stage of all. He continued: “I spend the whole season refusing to use a 4-2-4. The whole season. And I decide to do it tonight, the most important night of the year. A complete f***up."
Guardiola will certainly be aware of the issues that his side could encounter after the first leg, especially considering Madrid underperformed yet still managed to put the ball in the back of the net three times. City will be hoping that they can solve their fullback issues for the match, having Joao Cancelo back available for selection and Kyle Walker also in contention – the pair were ruled out for the first leg, forcing Guardiola to play John Stones in right back before he hobbled off of the pitch with an injury.
Speaking about the first leg, Guardiola said:” It was a lovely open game, the fact the teams scored seven goals between them. We were happy, we could have maybe got a better result but also a lot worse. You look at it, recover the next day, analyse it in the cold light of day. For better or worse we always knew this would be over two games. The Etihad and the Bernabeu. To knock Madrid out you have to perform well over two games.”
