Pep Guardiola knew the question was coming and deflected it with a familiar, playful sarcasm. “You’re right, I have to win six Champions Leagues to be recognised in that? Yeah, yeah for sure,” the Manchester City manager quipped after his side’s 5-1 aggregate last-16 defeat by Real Madrid, a smile enveloping his face.
He had just been asked whether, come the end of his reign at City, one Champions League title would be enough, given the wealth of talent he has had at his disposal over the past decade.
Guardiola suggested that he had set the bar so high by winning six trophies in his first season at Barcelona that anything less than serial success in all competitions each season would always be characterised as failure.
That has often been the approach Guardiola has adopted in public to such questions. But if this season is to be his last at City – he joked here about “everybody wanting to fire me” after fielding several questions about his future, all of which he carefully sidestepped to add to the intrigue – it is fair to wonder if he takes a slightly different view in private.
Given the extent of their domestic dominance, Sir Alex Ferguson felt Manchester United underachieved in Europe and particularly rued those seasons, like 1997 and 2002 and the semi-final defeats by Borussia Dortmund and Bayer Leverkusen, when he felt the Champions League got away.