Pep Guardiola’s staggering record in domestic cup finals
When Pep Guardiola embarked upon senior management in 2008, he warned fans: „I don’t know if we’ll win, but we’ll persist. Put on your seatbelts, because we’re going to have fun.“
After a decade and a half strapped in alongside – if not ahead of – the game’s elite, Guardiola’s hesitancy was misplaced. Across three different countries – admittedly with the best resources at his disposal – the Catalan coach has piled up mountains of trophies.
While the superior quality of Guardiola’s plans and players is invariably borne out over the nine months of a league season, the obsessive coach routinely comes out on top even when success is decided over 90 minutes. Guardiola has won nine of the ten domestic cup finals in his managerial career.
Here is how he achieved such a staggering record.
|
Date |
Result |
|---|---|
|
13/05/2009 |
Barcelona 4-1 Athletic Club |
|
20/04/2011 |
Barcelona 0-1 Real Madrid |
|
25/05/2012 |
Barcelona 3-0 Athletic Club |
Guardiola’s first and last final as Barcelona manager came in the Copa del Rey against Athletic Club – both showpieces ended in comfortable victories.
By the time Guardiola signed off at Barcelona in 2012, Marcelo Bielsa had taken the helm of the Basque giants. After a first-half dismantling, the revered Argentine coach gave Guardiola his pre-match research. Guardiola parsed through the flood of information and said: „You know more about Barcelona than me.“
There was no whisper of mutual respect between Jose Mourinho and Guardiola when the pair met in the 2011 Copa del Rey final. The second of four gruelling and grizzly Clasicos played out in 18 brutal days, Real Madrid may have claimed the cup but lost out to Barcelona in the league and Champions League that year.
|
Date |
Result |
|---|---|
|
17/05/2014 |
Borussia Dortmund 0-2 Bayern Munich |
|
21/05/2016 |
Bayern Munich 0-0 Borussia Dortmund (4-3 on pens) |
Guardiola won 16 of the 17 DFB Pokal matches he took charge of during his three years at Bayern Munich.
The only blot on his copybook was a 3-1 reverse against Borussia Dortmund in the 2015 semi-finals but Guardiola defeated the Black and Yellows in both finals he reached.
Dortmund, managed by Jurgen Klopp in 2014 and Thomas Tuchel two years later, kept Bayern goalless across 90 minutes in both showpieces. However, Guardiola – who considers extra time a mental, rather than physical, challenge – saw his side score twice after the 100th minute in 2014. Tuchel’s BVB managed to take the 2016 final to penalties but also emerged empty-handed – as is so often the case when Guardiola gets to the last game of a tournament.
|
Date |
Result |
|---|---|
|
25/02/2018 |
Arsenal 0-3 Man City |
|
24/02/2019 |
Chelsea 0-0 Man City (3-4 on pens) |
|
01/03/2020 |
Aston Villa 1-2 Man City |
|
25/04/2021 |
Man City 1-0 Tottenham |
No manager of the modern era has treated the League Cup, England’s decidedly secondary cup competition, with as much respect as Guardiola.
Arsene Wenger brought countless innovations to the Premier League upon his arrival – „from Japan?!“, as Sir Alex Ferguson exclaimed at the time – in 1996. Alongside streamlined training sessions and the discovery of broccoli, Wenger quickly deprioritised the League Cup as a setting for blooding young talents.
Fittingly, Guardiola’s first League Cup final was against Wenger’s Arsenal – at a time when the Gunners didn’t have the luxury of writing off any competition. Subsequent triumphs against Chelsea (on penalties), Aston Villa and Tottenham ensured that Guardiola became the first manager in history to win four consecutive League Cups.
|
Date |
Result |
|---|---|
|
18/05/2019 |
Man City 6-0 Watford |
Guardiola had spent the night before the 1992 European Cup final arguing with his Barcelona teammate Andoni Zubizarreta how many steps it was to collect the trophy at the old Wembley Stadium. The pair found out the next day thanks to Ronald Koeman’s goal and Guardiola got to map out the staircase of the new stadium when he won the trophy at the same venue as a manager in 2011.
It wouldn’t be until 2019 – at the end of his third season with Manchester City – that Guardiola ascended the famous steps to lift the FA Cup for the first time.
Beaten in no fewer than four semi-finals, when Guardiola did reach the showpiece, his City side ravaged Watford to the tune of 6-0 – the joint-largest final victory in the history of the competition.