Champions League: esthete Pep Guardiola finally rewarded with City

After 2009 and 2011, King Pep Guardiola finally regains his crown! At 52, the Spanish coach closes a long parenthesis of disappointment on the European scene with the success of Manchester City over Inter Milan on Saturday (1-0), an anomaly for the one who has piled up eleven national titles in fourteen seasons of championship with Barcelona, ​​Bayern then the Citizens. So yes, the quest for a new C1 had become a “dream” and an “obsession” for him at the same time. “To achieve things, you always have to have the right proportion of obsession, of desire. Obsession is a positive word,” he admitted on the eve of the final in Istanbul.

The Catalan, considered one of the best coaches of his generation, has long broken his teeth on the Cup with big ears, enough to fuel criticism in England, a country which likes to rebuff him at the slightest misstep. His tactical choices were singled out after his three consecutive failures with Bayern in the last four, then the five years he spent in the quarters with City. The lost final in 2021 against Chelsea also darkened the picture. Against the Blues, "people say my picks were bad." Faced with Inter Milan, "it will be the same, I have a plan, and if we win it will be good," he laughed.

If he has sometimes "gamberged" in C1, his ability to innovate, surprise, adapt is nevertheless undoubtedly one of the secrets of his incredible longevity at the highest level. True or false modesty, he replied on Friday that the key to success was more prosaic: “Having good players. Having Messi in the past, and now Haaland. And I'm not kidding, it's the truth," he replied at a press conference.

Since his induction into City in 2016, his Sky Blues have shown very different faces: the team with wisps Leroy Sané and Raheem Sterling on the wings and the 'killer' Sergio Agüero in the centre, then the one with Bernardo Silva, Phil Foden, even Ilkay Gündogan in "false-nine", when Agüero's injuries and the failure to recruit Harry Kane, in the summer of 2021, left him without a center forward. And if Erling Haaland, who filled this gap last summer, was a player at odds with the sought-after aesthetic, the Norwegian's 52 goals in his first season are further proof of the Catalan's unique "football IQ".

“Pep makes you understand that football is easier than you think,” Fernandinho, former emblematic captain of the Citizens, recently explained in an interview with Alan Shearer for the site The Athletic. "He has this power to convince you, to show you, to demonstrate to you daily in his training sessions, during talks and especially during matches, that everything he tells you is going to happen," continued the Brazilian. .

Jack Grealish went further on Saturday after winning the final. "He's a genius," the England winger told BT Sports. "I went to see him to say: thank you, you made all this possible for me, you showed me so much confidence after buying me so expensive (115 million euros, record for a English player at the time). Even last year, when I was playing really badly, he stayed by my side, talking to me and this year he gave me this space to perform, so I wanted to thank him.

The technician has been able to develop his training without ever denying his principles. And City have consistently been the team with the most ball possession, the least long passes, the fewest shots, and have always been, or nearly are, the best attack at the same time as the best defense. "Fundamentally nothing" has changed over the years, even claimed Guardiola last week. "I can't remember a game where I didn't tell my players not to rush when the opponent has the ball, and I can't remember a day when we didn't try to build our actions as best as possible. The fundamentals have always been rigorously the same from the first day to today,” he insisted. By offering the first Champions League in its history to City, he has just won twelve major trophies in seven seasons in Manchester.