Real Madrid inflicted two more negative records on Guardiola

There was a time when Pep Guardiola was Real Madrid's bogey coach, but it has been years since that historic Barca team that at times embarrassed their rivals until they took off their blindfolds at the Bernabeu and began to look him in the eye. Since then, every duel has been a one-on-one wherever the man from Santpedor was. In them, he alternated joys and bitter disappointments.
On board Manchester City, his balance in the four previous knockout rounds they played was two for one side (2020 and 2023) and two for the other (2022 and 2024). Now it is Real Madrid who will take the first notch in the tie-breaker. On Wednesday, Carlo Ancelotti's men managed to come from behind at the Etihad Stadium to pull off an all-important win.
Seen from the Sky Blues point of view, it is true that there is still a lot to be said at the Santiago Bernabeu, but the defeat is a drama. Although Erling Haaland managed to put City ahead twice, the last in the 80th minute, the Spanish team managed to turn it around through Brahim in the 86th minute and Jude Bellingham in the 92nd minute. A script that, as Guardiola himself acknowledged to the press, is by no means new. This is the fifth time the Cityzens have suffered a comeback this season.
“After 2-1, what has happened to us so many times this season happened to us. It's not the first time, unfortunately, and it's difficult like that. We have to know that mistakes in the penalty area penalize you. It's difficult to manage, but it has happened to us many times,” explained Pep, for whom this extended a new negative record in his career.
It is the first time that Guardiola's team has lost five times after taking the lead in the same season. In fact, the maximum number was three, something that happened with FC Barcelona in the 2010-11 season and with Manchester City in the 2017-18, 2018-19 and 2020-21 campaigns. With Bayern Munich it only happened to him three times in three sporting years, once in 2013-14 and twice in 2014-15.
The first stumble was back in November, with the team mired in a dire run. On the 5th, Manchester City arrived in Lisbon and took the lead within four minutes with a Phil Foden goal. However, Sporting CP, still coached by Ruben Amorim, got their claws in and thrashed them 4-1 with a hat trick from Viktor Gyökeres. Just four days later that same weekend, the Cityzens lost 2-1 at Brighton after Erling Haaland had opened the scoring in the first half.
A month later, when City were trying to recover, came another tremendous blow: the Manchester derby. Josko Gvardiol made it 1-0 at the Etihad Stadium after half an hour and in the final stretch, with the game relatively under control, the Sky Blues condemned themselves with two tremendous defensive errors. Matheus Nunes gave away a penalty that Bruno Fernandes converted in the 88th minute and Amad Diallo took advantage of another mistake to make it 1-2 in the 90th minute.

Back in 2025, Manchester City were on the verge of immolating themselves in the Champions League after their defeat in Paris. In their direct duel against Luis Enrique's PSG, Guardiola's team started the second half in style, taking a 2-0 lead thanks to goals from Jack Grealish and Erling Haaland, but quickly fell apart and in the 56th and 60th minutes came the Parisian side's equaliser through Ousmane Dembele and Bradley Barcola. In the 78th minute, Joao Neves made it 3-2 and Goncalo Ramos put the icing on the cake in the 93rd minute.
The last one is against Real Madrid. In total, the coach from Santpedor has been beaten 28 times in official matches in his entire career. This season can easily be described as the worst of his career: he is in serious danger of running out of titles and has already set several negative records. For example, the most consecutive defeats (5) and the most matches without a win (7). On Wednesday he also equaled another record: the most games lost in a season (12).
You have to go back to the 2019-20 campaign, that of the pandemic, to find Guardiola's other 12 defeats. Then, Manchester City succumbed a Premier League for the last time against a Liverpool that took 18 points from them. That team lost two Manchester derbies, several direct duels and was eliminated in the FA Cup semifinals by Arsenal and in the quarterfinals of the Champions League by Olympique Lyon.
The thing is that that year, the Cityzens added their twelfth defeat in 59 matches they played. In this 2024-25 campaign, they have 12 defeats in 38 matches. The rest have resulted in 18 wins and eight draws. Barring a miracle, Pep Guardiola will soon add a new negative record to his collection.