Pep Guardiola hasn’t tasted much defeat during his time in management and it is even rarer to see him lose by more than a few goals. So Everton’s 4-0 victory over Guardiola’s Manchester City at Goodison Park yesterday came as a considerable surprise – it was the Spaniard’s joint heaviest defeat as a manager.
City supporters might feel a little alarmed but Guardiola’s stints at Barcelona and at Bayern Munich suggest that heavy defeats are generally blips and do not get in the way of long-term success, at least in domestic competition.
Inter Milan 3 Barcelona 1, Champions League semi-final first leg (April 20, 2010)
Barcelona had been dominant in La Liga – they eventually won the title, losing just once – and they were expected to complete back-to-back triumphs in the Champions League, but they were undone by José Mourinho’s Inter side at the semi-final stage.
Wesley Sneijder, Maicon and Diego Milito were all on target in the 3-1 win, and Barcelona could only muster a 1-0 victory in the second leg, meaning Inter went on to the final, where they beat Bayern Munich 2-0.
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Guardiola, meanwhile, ended the season with the La Liga, Super Cup, Club World Cup and Supercopa de España titles.
Bayern Munich 0-3 Borussia Dortmund, Bundesliga (April 12, 2014)
Bayern were already champions by the time they faced Dortmund but Guardiola would have been livid with the way his side capitulated in front of their own fans.
Henrikh Mkhitaryan, Marco Reus and Jonas Hofmann scored for Dortmund as Bayern suffered successive losses in the Bundesliga for the first time in two and a half years (they had lost 1-0 against Augsburg previously). They were the final dropped points for Bayern that season as they won their last four games before picking up the trophy. Bayern then won the German Cup a week later.
Bayern Munich 0-4 Real Madrid, Champions League semi-final second leg (April 29, 2014)
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Guardiola described this loss as the worst of his career. Already 1-0 down on aggregate after the first leg, Bayern, who were the reigning champions having triumphed under Jupp Heynckes the season before, went into the interval 3-0 down following a brace from Sergio Ramos and a strike from Cristiano Ronaldo.
Ronaldo added a fourth late on to complete a 5-0 aggregate triumph and make Guardiola’s humiliation complete. Real Madrid went on to win the Champions League, while Guardiola’s choice of tactics were heavily scrutinised, especially given that this was a second heavy defeat in three weeks (see above).
Wolfsburg 4-1 Bayern Munich, Bundesliga (January 30, 2015)
Bayern’s first meaningful loss in more than two years came at the hands of Wolfsburg following a six-week winter break, with Bas Dost and Kevin De Bruyne both scoring twice. The defeat didn’t seem to affect Bayern too much initially - they scored 21 goals in their next five league games as they went on to win the title - but only reaching the semi-finals of the DFB-Pokal and Champions League was seen as a failure by Guardiola’s high standards before he departed for City.
Barcelona 4-0 Manchester City, Champions League (October 19, 2016)
City had enjoyed a good start to the season but a 2-0 defeat to Tottenham Hotspur two weeks prior to their clash against Barcelona seemed to rattle them and it showed at the Etihad Stadium as Lionel Messi scored a hat-trick, with Neymar scoring a fourth.
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City won the reverse fixture in Barcelona 3-1 but their league form since the initial defeat has been poor, culminating in the defeat against Everton yesterday. City are now fifth in the Premier League table, ten points behind leaders Chelsea.