Why the word ‘failure’ will hang over Pep Guardiola until he wins the Champions League without Lionel Messi

As Raheem Sterling runs away and slides on his knees, Tottenham’s players fall to theirs. Nobody appeals for anything. Nobody holds any hope of finding a saviour.

On the touchline, Pep Guardiola hops and jumps as if his technical area has turned to fire. A minute later he is crestfallen, wide-eyed in shock and broken by Manchester City’s winner being ruled out. From hope to hopelessness; a minute to define Guardiola’s travails in the Champions League.

Europe’s greatest prize has not been Guardiola’s friend. Since leaving Barcelona, he has lost three semi-finals with Bayern Munich and lost three times before the semi-finals with Manchester City. The Champions League has a hold over Guardiola. Last season they were eliminated by a team that finished 25 points behind them in the league. Tottenham are currently 16 points behind. Each defeat brings a new wave of analytical introspection.

Life at the top

That is not to say that Guardiola is a failure – nowhere near. Manchester City were the highest-performing team in Premier League history last season, and his teams have won the league title in seven of his last nine years as a manager. You can add in another 10 domestic trophies and six continental honours. But until Guardiola proves that he can win the Champions League away from Barcelona and Lionel Messi, his glorious reputation will come with a caveat. Caveats gnaw away at perfectionists.

But then that’s the point of managing an elite club. Before Guardiola arrived at Manchester City, Harry Redknapp urged him to join Dagenham if he really wanted a challenge. Redknapp was entirely missing the point. Losing a match at Dagenham doesn’t come with a wave of social media crowing and a pile on from critics permanently primed to chip away at your reputation. Peter Taylor won’t be labelled as a hirsute fraud if Dagenham are eliminated from next season’s FA Trophy in the quarter-finals. Life at the top is not easier or harder, just different.

In December 2016, with Guardiola in the middle of his first season at City, Redknapp then accused Guardiola of over-complicating things to try and prove how clever he was. The conclusion was nonsensical, but the accusation itself contained a grain of truth. As Guardiola has struggled to win the Champions League, it has become the elephant in his dressing room. Rather than acting on his managerial instinct, he has over-thought and over-complicated his tactical plans. The first leg against Tottenham was the perfect example.

Mistake after mistake

With the benefit of glorious hindsight, Guardiola made mistakes in both legs. The decision to rest Kevin de Bruyne until the 89th minute at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium was a calculated gamble with one eye on Crystal Palace in the Premier League, but it backfired – De Bruyne was comfortably the best player in the second leg. Picking Vincent Kompany in expectation of an aerial assault and set-piece threat seemed logical, but City conceded from a corner and Kompany failed to deal with Son Heung-min properly.

Guardiola also brought on Fernandinho to close the game out when City were in the ascendancy, inviting pressure. For the first time, an unflattering comparison is appropriate. Would Jurgen Klopp have gone defensive so early, or told his Liverpool team to expose the opposition’s frailties and kill off the tie?

In general, Guardiola has solved City’s defensive instability in the Premier League, but old habits die hard in Europe. In 570 minutes of ties against Monaco, Liverpool and Tottenham after which City were eliminated, they conceded 15 goals. And they can’t say it wasn’t coming. City conceded 12 goals in their 10 Champions League matches this season, and trailed in seven of them.

What next?

Next season will bring another chance, another assault at Guardiola’s everest. The latest indication is that Guardiola could stay at the Etihad for another four years. You would back this brilliant coach to manoeuvre his way past this mental block.

But the more immediate question is what happens next to City. There is a league title to fight for, and a season to save. Labelling Guardiola as a failure for missing out on the Champions League praises him with faint damnation. Wednesday was a night of the finest margins – failure and success need not be so binary. But winning only the FA Cup and EFL Cup this season would clearly cause significant disappointment. Their campaign therefore sits on a knife edge.

There are two trains of thought for the post-match response: An exit as cruel as this can cause lasting psychological damage that lingers in the minds of players for subsequent matches, or it can harden players and double their resolve to atone for the setback. Manchester City play Tottenham on Saturday and Manchester United next Wednesday, so Guardiola must ensure the latter.

Every element of Guardiola’s management revolves around an obsession with the process that players must buy into. Trust in the process and trust in yourselves, and the results will take care of themselves.

Right now, City need that unqualified trust more than ever. One misstep need not ruin the journey, but the margins of the title race are as fine as they were on Wednesday in the Champions League. Only with a swift and positive response will Guardiola silence the critics who are busy clearing their throats and shuffling their papers.