Everyone knows the drill by now. Pep Guardiola names a surprise starting XI or formation for a big Champions League game, his side are eliminated, and Guardiola gets the blame for “overthinking” things.
It's become something between a long-running joke and genuine criticism and by now we're well into the realms of confirmation bias. But to what extent has Guardiola's tactical approach actually been to blame for Guardiola's Champions League exits over the years? Here's a look at the decisive tie in Guardiola's 13 Champions League campaigns.
(Beforehand, a couple of caveats. Firstly, by largely concentrating on the defeats, this inevitably overlooks the many occasions when Guardiola's tactical approach has worked excellently. Secondly, “overthinking” here is used as a synonym for “overcomplicating”. Whether it's actually possible to think too much is a different question entirely.)
Part One: Barcelona
It's interesting to look back on Guardiola's four-year Barcelona period in the context of alleged “overthinking” for two reasons. First, that spell brought his only two European Cup victories as a coach. Second, and more pertinently, it's worth remembering that the default criticism of Guardiola at the time was actually the opposite: he was too committed to a default plan, that he only knew how to play one way.
2008-09
Did Guardiola overthink things? No, because he won the European Cup in his first season as a top-flight manager, with a 2-0 victory over Manchester United in Rome.
But this also demonstrates how hindsight plays a major role in our judgment. Guardiola used Lionel Messi through the middle and Samuel Eto'o on the right, the reverse of his usual approach throughout that campaign. He had, granted, used this system briefly at the start of the season, then in the memorable 6-2 thrashing of Real Madrid and with less success in the semi-final against Chelsea.
But it was still an alternative rather than the default. And, in that system, Barcelona were battered in the opening 10 minutes as United started strongly. Of course, then Eto'o scored on the break from the right and later Messi headed home from his centre-forward role, so Guardiola's approach was considered genius — but if United had got their noses ahead in that early period, perhaps we'd be saying something different.
2009-10
Barcelona's famous two-legged defeat to Jose Mourinho's parked bus was, if anything, probably a case of Guardiola underthinking it.
In both matches, he played Zlatan Ibrahimovic up front against the club he'd left the previous summer to little effect. Ibrahimovic's sole season at Barcelona wasn't the disaster that is often portrayed, but Inter's wily, rugged centre-back pairing of Lucio and Walter Samuel were entirely happy to be facing a static centre-forward with whom they could engage in long-running physical battles. If Guardiola had opted for something more complex — like the use of Bojan Krkic to buzz around alongside Messi and Pedro Rodriguez — Barcelona might have caused more problems.
In the first leg, with Barca 3-1 down and admittedly compromised by a gruelling coach trip from Barcelona to Milan, Guardiola brought off Ibrahimovic and introduced an extra defender, Eric Abidal, which summed up how badly things had gone.
In the second leg, Ibrahimovic again started and this time was replaced by Bojan. Here, Guardiola surely got things the wrong way around — Ibrahimovic should have been a Plan B. In the end, Guardiola was forced to chuck centre-back Gerard Pique up front. In fairness, Pique scored a remarkably composed goal to give Barcelona hope, but Guardiola surely got things wrong to end up with Pique as his No 9.
(Photo: Lluis Gene/AFP via Getty Images)
2010-11
Guardiola's second European Cup. The classic 4-3-3 produced a legendary performance to defeat Manchester United 3-1 at Wembley. The midfield trio of Sergio Busquets, Xavi Hernandez and Andres Iniesta recorded an assist each and the forward trio of Messi, Pedro and David Villa scored a goal each. Don't mess with perfection.
2011-12
A shock semi-final defeat to Chelsea. By this stage, worn down by the pressures of competing with Jose Mourinho's Real Madrid — as much through the media as on the pitch — Guardiola had fallen out of love with some of his key players. But he insisted, with some justification, that Barca's performance in the 1-0 defeat at Stamford Bridge was one of the best of his tenure.
It was surprising, therefore, that he opted for a 3-3-1-3 system for the return leg at the Camp Nou. Particularly notable was the use of youngster Isaac Cuenca, an old-school tricky dribbler, down the right, charged with stretching the play. But Cuenca didn't seem any more effective than the benched Dani Alves would have been pushing forward in a 4-3-3.
Guardiola had used the 3-3-1-3 several times in 2011-12, but Barcelona always seemed a little too open to counter-attacks, their defence too vulnerable to speed. The concession of Ramires' goal, just after John Terry's red card, was a serious blow here. But this tie was ultimately lost by wasteful finishing. Messi hit a one-on-one straight at Petr Cech, hit the bar from a penalty and struck the post from the edge of the box. Barca probably did enough to win it.
Part Two: Bayern Munich
Guardiola became more tactically adventurous at Bayern, in part because his side won the Bundesliga at a canter three times on the bounce, which allowed him more freedom to experiment with new systems and have a bit of fun. Inevitably, that approach carried over into his tactics in European competition, too.
2013-14
Bayern suffered a shock 5-0 aggregate semi-final defeat at the hands of Real Madrid.
At the time, the overthinking allegations came primarily in the previous round, when Guardiola used David Alaba and Philipp Lahm as narrow half-backs for the first time in Europe, against Manchester United, before we'd really understood the full purpose of that move.
In the semi, Bayern lost the first leg in Madrid 1-0 to a Karim Benzema tap-in. It wasn't a great performance, but nor was it a disastrous result.
The return leg, though, was Guardola's first serious humiliation as a manager. The side that had defeated Barcelona 4-0 at the Allianz Arena the previous season were now themselves on the end of a 4-0 at the same ground. It was Bayern's biggest-ever defeat in European competition. Three of the goals came from set pieces: two Sergio Ramos headers and a Cristiano Ronaldo direct free kick. The other was the exact type of counter-attack Guardiola had been desperate to avoid.
His team selection was bold, effectively using four attackers — Arjen Robben, Thomas Muller, Mario Mandzukic and Franck Ribery. It's largely the way Bayern had played under Jupp Heynckes, but Guardiola considered it too risky for much of the campaign. Here, with that system, they were overrun on the break and unable to create clear chances in attack.
“I spent the whole season refusing to use a 4-2-4,” Guardiola told Marti Perarnau in his book, Pep Confidential. “The whole season. And I decided to do it tonight, the most important night of the year. A complete fuck-up.”
(Photo: John MacDougall/AFP via Getty Images)
2014-15
Bayern essentially lost their semi-final against Barcelona with a 3-0 first-leg loss on Guardiola's first return to the Camp Nou.
Guardiola's attempted solution for nullifying Neymar, Luis Suarez and Leo Messi was, surprisingly, switching to a three-man defence, playing man-to-man and relying on Manuel Neuer to act as the spare man. This produced a shambolic first 15 minutes and Bayern were fortunate to keep it at 0-0. Only Neuer's outstretched leg prevented Suarez from scoring a one-on-one and that chance was the signal for Guardiola to revert to a back four.
From then, Bayern looked more comfortable. They dominated the ball (only the second time in over 400 games that Barca had recorded less than 50% of possession) and created chances. They were undone late on when Manuel Neuer conceded possession too cheaply, then later on the counter. And also, in fairness, by the genius of Messi, who memorably turned past Jerome Boateng and dinked past Neuer.
Guardiola's tactical approach didn't cost Bayern in terms of conceding goals, but it did look highly risky on paper and caused Bayern serious problems in the opening period. He had the humility to backtrack, but it was a tactical failure on his part.
2015-16
A narrow defeat to Atletico Madrid on away goals, with a relatively typical shape from Guardiola, who concentrated on width in an attempt to stretch an ultra-narrow Atletico side. However, he was criticised for omitting Thomas Muller, whose aerial presence would have been useful, for the first leg away in Madrid. He opted for a third central midfielder, Thiago Alcantara, in a bid for more control. Ironically, Bayern's midfield looked flimsy as Saul Niguez ran through them for the opener.
Bayern won the second leg 2-1, with Muller back in the side and a switch from 4-3-3 to 4-2-3-1. Muller missed a penalty and Bayern had enough chances to progress.
This was the least obvious failure of Guardiola's three Champions League semi-final eliminations with Bayern, but also the most damning. He accepted that his time in Germany would be judged according to whether he won the European Cup, with this elimination ensuring he would not.
Part Three: Manchester City
After seven full seasons in management when Guardiola reached at least the semi-finals of the Champions League, he somehow managed to not reach that stage in any of his first four seasons at City. Some surprising selections for big games, especially now he was working in a country not traditionally fond of tactical tinkering, became the main criticism of Guardiola.
2016-17
Having been 5-3 up from the first leg, City blew it in the return game in Monaco, losing 3-1 and going out on away goals. But it wasn't about Guardiola overthinking things. He used his default system — 4-3-3 with flying wingers and Kevin De Bruyne and David Silva as 'free 8s', the same approach that had won the first leg so convincingly.
In the first leg, he'd used Fernandinho as a makeshift full-back, with Yaya Toure as the holding midfielder. In the second leg, Fernandinho wasn't needed in defence, so played the holding role. In hindsight, considering City were overpowered in the centre of midfield, maybe Guardiola could have used Fernandinho and Toure together to better protect City's first-leg lead.
“All managers make mistakes, but I don't think it was down to a tactical mistake,” said Guardiola afterwards. “I tried to convince them in all the meetings we had to come here, try to attack and score. My mistake was being not able to convince them to do that.”
In other words, this was old-school Guardiola, who fundamentally believed in his Plan A and attributed the defeat to not carrying out Plan A effectively enough.
2017-18
City lost the quarter-final against Liverpool in the first leg, going 3-0 down inside half an hour at Anfield.
Guardiola broadly stuck with his 4-3-3 but used newcomer Aymeric Laporte at left-back in both legs. This was something he only did once in the Premier League all season, just before this tie against Everton, probably as preparation for this task of stopping Mohamed Salah. Laporte struggled, but would Guardiola's regular Premier League options, Fabian Delph and Oleksandr Zinchenko, have fared any better against Salah?
Raheem Sterling, then in great form, was surprisingly left out, with Ilkay Gundogan coming in to play from the right, so City focused almost all their attacking energy on Trent Alexander-Arnold with the speed of Leroy Sane.
Alexander-Arnold coped excellently, however, and City were blown away by the ferocious pressing of Liverpool, who were about ready to peak under Jurgen Klopp. That, as much as overthinking, cost City — but Guardiola had notably altered his side significantly more than in the previous season's elimination.
2018-19
Dramatic late VAR drama cost Manchester City in the quarter-final stage against Tottenham, but there were some odd decisions here.
For the first leg, Guardiola switched to 4-2-3-1 having generally played 4-3-3 in the league and omitted Kevin De Bruyne, seemingly because of general rotation rather than a specific fitness concern. Again, left-back was a problem — this time Delph played there and struggled badly against Son Heung-min.
In the second leg, Guardiola moved to 4-3-3 and elected to use Gundogan as his holding midfielder — not for the last time in a Champions League defeat. City were largely excellent on the ball but lacked control at times and ultimately a 4-3 win wasn't enough. It was, though, another Guardiola defeat on away goals, like in 2017, 2016 and, in effect, 2012 (as Fernando Torres' late goal for Chelsea at the Camp Nou to make it 3-2 on aggregate was only scored as Barca were pushing forward, knowing at 2-2 they were going on out on away goals).
(Photo: Marc Atkins/Getty Images)
2019-20
Probably Guardiola's biggest tactical misstep in the Champions League. If Guardiola has “overthought” in the Champions League, it's often because he's been too attack-minded.
But this was the opposite. Presumably spooked by Lyon's counter-attacking strike duo or the unusual one-legged nature of the tie, Guardiola named a 3-5-2 system to match Lyon's formation. It felt overwhelmingly defensive: three centre-backs, a slightly pedestrian midfield, Kyle Walker and Joao Cancelo both looking uncomfortable as wing-backs and Raheem Sterling and Gabriel Jesus up front offering speed but little else.
Guardiola left out David Silva, Bernardo Silva, Phil Foden and Riyad Mahrez and City played with no cohesion or fluidity. It felt like the starting XI Jose Mourinho or Antonio Conte would have selected.
Walker, a wing-back, dropped back behind the centre-backs and played Lyon's forwards onside for the opener, which showed the problems with the system. When Guardiola needed to make a change to get back into the game, he sacrificed Fernandinho, who had endured a poor game at right-sided centre-back against the speed of Memphis Depay and reverted to a back four.
Things could have been different. Sterling missed an open goal at 2-1 down. City had chances, but ultimately they played far too defensively against a side that had finished seventh in the fifth-best league in Europe. Four seasons in, Guardiola was yet to progress past the quarter-final stage with City.
2020-21
Guardiola's team selection in a 1-0 final defeat against Chelsea is generally held as the ultimate example of him overthinking things because of his decision to omit Rodri (or Fernandinho) and instead play Gundogan in the holding role, at the end of a campaign when the German midfielder was City's top goalscorer.
It was a surprise decision and City didn't play well and lost the game. But it's difficult to be sure of causality and be certain that this specific decision was the ultimate factor in City's defeat. Suggestions that Rodri would definitely have been in a position to cut out Mason Mount's through-ball to Kai Havertz for the winner, for example, are nothing more than speculative.
But so far, it's the defining move of Guardiola's Champions League experience with City. Sam Lee and Raphael Honigstein explained that “sources close to him say there were two main reasons why Gundogan was moved backwards: first, neither of Fernandinho and Rodri was in his best form at the time. Second, it was calculated that City would have more of the ball in the game than Chelsea and that Gundogan, who had played holding midfield so well on the title-winning 2018-19 run-in, was the best option to help them capitalise on their possession”.
City's real problem on the night was their inability to cope with diagonal balls out to Chelsea's left-wing-back Ben Chilwell, which was interesting because they'd had the same problem in their FA Cup semi-final defeat to Thomas Tuchel's Chelsea, too. Guardiola presumably would have been aware of that issue but wasn't able to solve it. That, as much as the identity of the holding midfielder, cost City.
2021-22
Last season, Guardiola's side were victims of a typical logic-defying flurry from Real Madrid. With City 5-3 up on aggregate heading into stoppage time in the second leg at the Bernabeu, Rodrygo suddenly scored two goals in two minutes, with Karim Benzema completing the comeback in extra time.
It's difficult to find fault with Guardiola's approach here. He used a typical 4-3-3 in the first leg and a similar shape in the second, with Gabriel Jesus through the middle as a conventional centre-forward in both games. His substitutions in Madrid largely worked well — Jack Grealish, on for Jesus late on, twice nearly won the game before Real's unthinkable late comeback.
At a push, you could suggest Guardiola went overly defensive, taking off De Bruyne, Jesus and Mahrez in a bid to protect a two-goal advantage, which meant City couldn't then attack when required in extra time. But that's hindsight bias. City were the better side for the majority of the tie and if there was a late collapse, it wasn't because of Guardiola's tactics.
Overall, it's a mixed bag. In several of these defeats, Guardiola's side created more than enough chances to win the game — although that doesn't automatically justify his selection decisions. After all, Guardiola's side have been favourites going into pretty much each of these crucial games.
There have been a couple of erroneous decisions to use a back three, although with Bayern in 2015, it was too bold, and with City in 2020, too cautious. In 2019 and 2021, Guardiola maybe changed his side too much, but in 2010 and 2017, maybe he didn't change it enough. His two Champions League triumphs, in 2009 and 2011, came with a largely expected approach.
This time around, Guardiola surely won't meddle. The presence of Erling Haaland means he's less likely to overcomplicate things in attack. The defensive solidity, at times almost using four centre-backs with Rodri just in front, means he shouldn't feel the need to beef up that section of the side. The complexity will come from how City shift from a back four into a back three in possession, probably with John Stones stepping forward, but that's become City's default approach.
A semi-final against Real Madrid is never a foregone conclusion and anything can happen in a one-off final. But Guardiola's usual approach should be enough for City to win this season's European Cup.