The five lowest points of Pep Guardiola's managerial career

Pep Guardiola is perhaps the greatest manager of all-time.

Since his debut season with Barcelona in 2008/09, Pep Guardiola has been a dominant force. He has won 12 out of the 15 league titles that he has contested.

Only Jose Mourinho in 2011/12, Antonio Conte in 2016/17 and Jurgen Klopp in 2019/20 have beaten Pep across an entire league season.

Well, this season it looks like there will be a fourth name added to that list (whether it is Arne Slot, Enzo Maresca or Mikel Arteta remains to be seen).

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This leaves the question lingering; with title defeat looming and one win in 10, is this one of the lowest points of Pep Guardiola's managerial career?

Let's have a look:

1. The fourth year collapse at Barcelona

The first nadir of Pep's career comes in his fourth year as a coach. To this point he had enjoyed near unprecedented success with Barcelona.

He won his first three La Ligas and only failed to win two trophies; the 2010 Champions League (thanks to an ash cloud and a dodgy ref call) and the 2011 Copa del Rey (thanks to some very lenient officiating for Real Madrid's violence).

He didn't really know what failure was. He had built this incredible Barcelona team playing with an incredible 3-1-4-2 system that was truly poetry in motion.

Then David Villa got injured. Losing his only true no. 9 coupled with the disruptive influence of Cesc Fabregas tanked Barcelona's momentum and structure.

Guardiola then began having issues with Gerard Piqué, and dropped him for the first-leg of the Champions League semi-finals with Chelsea. Without Piqué they defended like amateurs for Didier Drogba's goal and, when Piqué was restored to the line-up for the second-leg Victor Valdes accidentally knocked him out of the game with a flying knee.

Once again they defended terribly in key moments without Piqué, Leo Messi somehow missed a penalty in a season where he scored 73 goals, and Barcelona were eliminated by a truly risible Chelsea side instead of being the first team since AC Milan to defend their Champions League title.

All this in a season where they also played so inconsistently that they threw away La Liga as well. Guardiola's world-changing run as Barcelona boss ended on a very low ebb.

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2. Personal tragedy and Madrid humiliation

After a year's sabbatical, Guardiola took charge of Bayern Munich. Despite claims otherwise, he made Bayern better. They had not won three titles in a row since the mid-80's and not only did Pep do that but he set the stage for the relentless dominance that saw them win 11 straight.

Regardless, at the end of his first season they were facing Real Madrid in the Champions League semi-finals. They had barely lost the first leg 1-0, but as he was planning for the second-leg tragedy struck and Guardiola's former assistant (and then Barcelona manager) Tito Vilanova died after a long battle with throat cancer.

Understandably distracted, Guardiola made a series of bad decisions in the lead-up to the second-leg, including his now fateful decision to let his players try and play their old style of football. It backfired and Madrid destroyed them 4-0, leaving Guardiola's reputation in tatters.

3. Getting Spurs'd

After his Bayern spell, Pep took over at Man City and thanks to the infinite money available to him with the Cityzens, he assembled a monstrous side.

Pep's Man City were genuinely tremendous, and while they had a claim in 2017/18 by 2018/19 there was no question that they were the best team in the world, and by some distance too. Jurgen Klopp's Liverpool could match them for points collected but in terms of the quality of football being played it wasn't even close.

So when they met the distinctly average Tottenham in the Champions League quarter-final, one expected City to brush their opponents aside and march on to win the whole damn thing.

Instead they lost the first-leg 1-0. And in the second-leg at home they somehow conceded three times, including once from a corner that was a handball that was somehow missed by the VAR referee Cuneyt Cakir.

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Luckily for City they had already scored four by the time Llorente's goal went in, which meant they needed just one more.to qualify. Unluckily for City, when they scored it in stoppage time through Raheem Sterling, the VAR which had been sleeping on Llorente's goal woke up and ruled it out for offside.

Man City won every other trophy available to them that season. A domestic quadruple. But they failed to win the biggest prize. Because of Spurs.

4. The 2021 Champions League Final

After winning the Champions League with quite possibly the greatest team ever in Barcelona 2011, Guardiola had never made it back to another European final.

He had come close, as you can read about above, but always fallen short. Not so in 2021, when City powered their way into the showpiece against a hard-working defensively rugged Chelsea side led by Thomas Tuchel.

Still, Man City were favourites and would win handily, right? Tuchel had masterminded two straight wins over City, no way he'd make it a third right?

Wrong.

City didn't start Rodri and came out trepidatious against Chelsea and if Tammy Abraham had started over Timo Werner or Kai Havertz it would have been 2 or 3-0 by the 20 minute mark.

Turns out it was still 0-0. And Antonio Rudiger's brutally physical challenge on Kevin de Bruyne left Man City's talisman concussed and while he tried to power on, he simply couldn't and had to go off on the hour mark.

Without De Bruyne, City had nothing. They fell behind and stayed behind, losing the final. Everything City had worked for and built towards, everything Guardiola needed to justify himself in Europe, gone in a puff of smoke.

It made his eventual triumph in 2023 all the sweeter, but this was a low moment. Real low.

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5. The End of Manchester City

Champions League agony has always been at the heart of Pep's lowest moments because his style of play almost guarantees domestic dominance.

Not so in 2023/24.

Man City's current slump absolutely makes it into his lowest ever moments.

Pep has never lost five straight matches before, Pep has never had a seven match winless run before, Pep has never had a spell of 10 games where his team won just one. One!

Man City are horrendous right now. It's genuinely horrifying how bad they are, how bad they look and how little ability Guardiola seems to have to turn things around.

This is the end of Man City, is it also the end of Pep Guardiola?