The 5 most damaging defeats of Pep Guardiola’s career – & what happened next
Pep Guardiola is undoubtedly one of the best managers to grace world football, and will go down as a legend of the game once he lays down his clipboard.
The achievement of more than 40 trophies across three clubs, and three world’s best club coach accolades, prove his juggernaut status within the game, but it has not always been plain sailing for the current Manchester City boss.
We’ve looked into five times Guardiola suffered a damaging defeat, and where they left him.
Barcelona v Chelsea – Champions League, 2011-12
Barcelona had dropped just two points in the group stage in the 2011-12 Champions League, and looked a safe bet to continue riding the wave from the year prior, when they had won the competition for the second time under Guardiola.
They had decimated Bayer Leverkusen 10-2 on aggregate in the round of 16, and eased past AC Milan in a 3-1 victory in the quarters, before meeting Chelsea in the semi-final.
The Blues stunned Guardiola’s men with a 1-0 victory in the first leg, and held on for a 2-2 draw in the second – courtesy partially of an iconic Fernando Torres solo goal.
It ended Guardiola’s hopes of finishing his reign at Barcelona with a second successive Champions League crown, after he announced his desire to depart a few months earlier.
Barcelona v Real Madrid – La Liga, 2011-12
In the same 2011-12 season, between the two legs of the deflating Champions League tie with Chelsea, Guardiola’s Barcelona side faced title rivals Real Madrid in La Liga.
With only three games left in the season beyond that point, and with Madrid coming into the game with a four-point cushion, Barca desperately needed victory to cling onto their title hopes.
But they came crumbling down when Cristiano Ronaldo capped off Madrid’s 2-1 win in the 73rd minute, putting seven points between the two sides.
Madrid’s parting gift to Guardiola and his Barca career was a title win by nine points in the end.
Man City v Chelsea – Champions League, 2020-21
Already beginning to form a dynasty in the Premier League under Guardiola by 2020-21, Manchester City mounted a push towards an elusive European crown, having smashed in 13 goals in the group stage and 12 more in the six legs of football leading up to the final.
There, they faced a Chelsea side who were way off the pace in England, but despite being favourites to win their first-ever Champions League trophy, City were toothless, managing just a single shot on target in a ropy game.
They were stunned by a Kai Havertz strike late in the first half, and Guardiola was forced to watch on in agony as Chelsea – who finished 19 points below his side in the Premier League that season – lifted the trophy which would have made him an unprecedented success with City.
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Man City v Tottenham – Premier League, 2024-45
The 2024-25 campaign has been the absolute worst of Guardiola’s career.
Things got so bad at one point that there were suggestions he could be sacked, or walk from the City job he’s held since 2016.
The worst point in the season came between October and November 2024, when Guardiola set an unwanted personal record of losing five games on the bounce.
He was beaten by Bournemouth, Brighton, hammered 4-1 by Sporting CP and the run was bookended by losses to Tottenham in the League Cup and then Premier League.
The latter of those games was the worst of Guardiola’s worst, City battered 4-0 by Spurs just days after the boss had penned a new deal, immediately seeming that he may have backed himself into a corner he could not wiggle out of.
Real Madrid v Man City – Champions League, 2024-25
If City needed a sign their status as one of the world’s best was at least on hold, if they’d not already been handed it, Real Madrid made sure they knew.
A 3-2 loss in the first leg of the Champions League knockout saw City show fight during a promising encounter in which they were only beaten in stoppage time.
In the second leg, though, they were on the wrong end of a thumping with Kylian Mbappe knocking in a hat-trick in just over an hour of the 3-1 victory for his side, making City’s defence look second-rate at best.
After the game, Guardiola named three sides that could stop Real, but his City outfit failed to look like one of them.