Twelve years ago, Pep Guardiola won his first league title as a manager. The circumstances were similar to those around his ninth. The nearest challenger, Real Madrid, lost on the 35th match day by a single goal, making any catch-up mathematically impossible. Watching on television, Barcelona’s players were Liga champions with three matches to spare.
For Barca in mid-May 2009, read Manchester City in mid-May 2021. Listen to the echoes in the words of the victorious coach, who was then in his first season in a top division, having been boldly promoted at the age of 37.
“We have to keep our feet on the ground,” said the new champion, “and the players have to leave aside being told how great we have been. We have to prepare for a very big game.” Precocious Pep was focusing on the next target, with a European Cup final ahead.
Guardiola won three La Ligas in four seasons as Barca manager. He won three in three at Bayern Munich. He has just collected his third in four years at City, which frames his dazzling career with an impressive symmetry. La Liga, the Bundesliga and the Premier League have been the strongest domestic competitions of his era. He has triumphed, and kept triumphing, in each.
There are common factors to all his league wins. With Guardiola, a coach of firm beliefs, values and dogmas, that is to be expected.
Title No 1 with Barcelona – who went on to beat Manchester United in the 2009 Champions League final – featured a record-breaking run of form: 21 games unbeaten, with only two draws. Title No 9 has featured a 19-match sequence without defeat, equalling City’s best ever.
The 2020-21 title does stand out, though. This sporting year, played almost entirely behind-closed-doors, shadowed by Covid-19, will forever be an outlier.
Guardiola talked of “resilience” as a foundation of City’s latest success, and at times a brake has been carefully applied. Unless there are some surreal scorelines in the remaining three games, Guardiola will oversee a championship seized with his most modest number of goals yet from a 38-game league.
Gallery: 10 key games in City's title march
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Man City 1-0 Arsenal (October 17). The start to the season was inauspicious, with City thumped 5-2 at home to Leicester, followed by a draw away to Leeds United. The former represented the first time a Guardiola side had conceded five. What’s more, City had to stew over those results for two weeks during the international break. So the narrow win against Arsenal, victors in July’s FA Cup semi-final and managed by former assistant Mikel Arteta, was just the tonic. Raheem Sterling grabbed the winner in the first half. Getty Images -
Tottenham Hotspur 2-0 Man City (November 21). Not that the scoreline necessarily reflected the match, but Jose Mourinho did another job on Pep Guardiola at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. Goals from Heung-min Son and Giovani Lo Celso consigned City to only a second defeat of the campaign, but it left them, almost unthinkably, in the bottom half of the table. From eight matches, they had gleaned 12 points - Guardiola’s worst-ever start as manager to a club season. It took some time, and a change in formation, for things to come good. Getty Images -
Man City 1-1 West Brom (December 15). Shared spoils at home to relegation-threatened rivals only deepened the malaise. Ilkay Gundogan had headed the hosts into a first-half lead, but once more they failed to build on their superiority. West Brom equaliser, through Ruben Dias’ own goal, and then hung on for dear life. The point couldn’t even spare Slaven Bilic his job. It prompted change at City, too: Guardiola’s men, then in sixth and six points off the summit, won 15 on the bounce in the league, and 21 consecutive in all competitions. Getty Images -
Chelsea 1-3 Man City (January 3) A stunning blitz precipitated a seismic result in the race for the title. City blew mooted championship rivals away during 18 first-half minutes at Stamford Bridge, with Gundogan, Phil Foden and Kevin De Bruyne all on the scoresheet. The first two goals, in particular, were brilliant team moves. Chelsea pulled one back with the last kick of the game, but City’s title credentials were cemented. They climbed to fifth, although were only four points off the lead – with a game in hand. Getty Images -
Liverpool 1-4 Man City (February 7) City had two wins at Anfield in 65 years, but the challengers entered the match against the disjointed champions in rude health. Thus, they thumped Liverpool in emphatic fashion. After a goalless first half, City took the lead through Gundogan, then rebounded from Mohamed Salah’s equaliser to run riot: Gundogan scored again, then Sterling and the electric Foden. With a first win at Anfield in 18 years, City went five points clear of United at the summit, and 10 from Liverpool. They’d still a game hand on both. Getty Images -
Arsenal 0-1 Man City (February 21) A potentially tricky eight-day spell concluded with the double over Arsenal - and nine points from a possible nine. City followed a home win against Spurs and an away victory at Everton with a gritty success at the Emirates Stadium. Sterling headed home on two minutes, leaving City to hold on for a club-record 11th consecutive away win. Since that November defeat to Spurs, they’d gone 25 unbeaten, winning 22, scoring 59 goals and conceding only seven. Their 10-point lead in the standings was reasserted. Getty Images -
Man City 4-1 Wolves (March 2) City kept the Wolves very much at the door to equal a club record. Guardiola’s men struck three times with 10 minutes of normal time remaining, thanks to a Gabriel Jesus double and a strike from Riyad Mahrez. Thus, City stayed unbeaten for a 28th successive match, matching their impenetrable run from May-December 2017. In sealing a 15th straight Premier League win (21 in all competitions), the champions-elect sailed 15 points clear at the top. No other top-flight team had won more than four in a row. Getty Images -
Man City 0-2 Man United (March 7) United clinched a double delight in the derby. Not only did they earn local bragging rights, but they brought both City’s win streak and unbeaten run to a shuddering halt. Bruno Fernandes and Luke Shaw scored at the beginning of either half at the Etihad Stadium, reducing the gap at the summit to 11 points with 10 games left. Although City were still clear favourites, the defeat was a reminder against any complacency. On the same day, Liverpool lost a sixth consecutive home match to effectively relinquish the title. Getty Images -
Leicester City 0-2 Man City (April 3) A victory at third-placed Leicester lifted City a whopping 17 points clear of their cross-city rivals, United, in second. Guardiola labelled his side “brilliant” after second-half goals from Benjamin Mendy and Jesus eventually broke down their resolute hosts. While at the same time avenging the humbling in the reverse fixture earlier in the season, it meant City required only four wins from their remaining seven matches to be crowned champions. Guardiola even conceded afterwards that the Premier League trophy “very close”. Getty Images -
Crystal Palace 0-2 Man City (May 1) City overcame an obdurate Palace to move to within two points of the Premier League crown. Record scorer Sergio Aguero struck his 258th goal for the club to break the deadlock 12 minutes into the second half at Selhurst Park; two minutes later, the result was secured by Ferran Torres’ low curler. The second brought up 700 goals for City during Guardiola’s time in charge. Extending their advantage to 13 points, City departed knowing a United defeat to Liverpool the following day would clinch the title. Getty Images
The 18-club Bundesliga has fewer fixtures, but, even there, Guardiola’s Bayern never registered less than 80 in the Goals For column. City are on 72 goals so far.
His Barcelona, armed with Lionel Messi, would regularly aspire to 100-goal campaigns. His first Premier League with City, in 2017-18, was achieved with the magic numbers of 106 goals, and 100 points.
His leading marksmen, title by title, include some of the most admired centre-forwards of this century: Samuel Eto’o, Mario Mandzukic, Robert Lewandowski, Sergio Aguero. And, of course, Messi, who supplied more than 30 goals per campaign towards two of the Barcelona Ligas under Guardiola.
In this company, Ilkay Gundogan, a footballer sometimes classified as an anchor midfielder, cannot help but look like the odd man out.
The German’s 12 league goals are currently two more than the only other player who has registered in double-figures for City in this Premier League, Raheem Sterling. Aguero has been injured more than he has been fit and the packed fixture-schedule prioritised rest and rotation.
“A Premier League title like no other,” Guardiola called his latest, “and the hardest one.” None of his other league titles featured such a rocky start – City notched a mere three wins from their opening eight games – although, as he turns his thoughts to how to win his third European Cup as a coach, and then his 10th league title, it is worth remembering that the entire Guardiola odyssey took off from a bumpy beginning.
Here’s a flavour of how it all began, 441 league matches ago. On the day the novice Guardiola took charge of his first ever top-division fixture, it was a dreary anti-climax.
The Guardiola debut was deemed "predictable," "worrying", and "cautious". Those are not terms readily associated with Pep the brilliant visionary, the great innovator and inspirer. But those were the words in the pro-Barcelona newspaper El Mundo Deportivo's match report on September 1, 2008, the verdict on the new, young Barca manager's opening day.
The team had lost 1-0 at Numancia. Three years and three Spanish titles later, Guardiola had fashioned a side widely considered the finest club team of the 21st century. He’s still aiming that high. Add a European Cup to his City portfolio, and his resilient English champions will step closer to that podium.
