No coach, factually, won more Champions League than Carlo Ancelotti. No coach has probably had more impact on the development of modern football than Pep Guardiola. The Italian and the Spanish will star on Tuesday in a duel of kings of the benches of substitutes when their teams, Real Madrid and Manchester City, open the semifinal series for the Orejona, where they face each other for the second consecutive season.
Real Madrid is the defender of a title it won on May 28 in Paris against Liverpool. A 1-0 that made Ancelotti the most successful coach of the maximum club competition in Europe – with four – and that came after overcoming City in the third consecutive comeback in direct crosses, and the most unlikely of all.
Photo: Paul ELLIS / AFP.
It is that in the first leg, the white team survived a 2-0 in 11 minutes of the English team. It went 3-1 and 4-2 down, but ended with a 4-3 that gave the madridistas hope for the second leg, relying on the factor of their Santiago Bernabeu stadium.
However, for 90 minutes it was a mirage. A memory of what happened, without more. Even shortly before the 90th minute, with 0-1 on the scoreboard, there were 'white' fans who went home, while silence reigned in the Real Madrid fiefdom. Until Rodrygo appeared.
Photo: GABRIEL BOUYS / AFP.
Double in the span of a minute to force an extra time in which Karim Benzema, in the 95, was responsible, penalty, to turn the series around and leave Guardiola with a face of disbelief and impotence on his bench. Reflection of what Mauricio Pochettino had felt at PSG and Thomas Tuchel at Chelsea before, but it seemed that he was not going to live.
A bad recent memory in 'Champions' against Real Madrid that adds to the previous one, when the Spanish coach was managing Bayern Munich.
In 2014, both coaches met in the semifinals. The 1-0 at the Bernabeu, the work of Benzema, left everything open for a return in which, as Guardiola acknowledged in the book 'Herr Pep', he made his big mistake.
Photo: AP/Paul White
"The 0-4 against Madrid in 'Champions' is my worst shit as a coach," he said in relation to a match in which, according to his words, he decided to be guided by the impetus of external agents and not by his own ideas.
And it is that the Champions is territory 'Carletto' in direct confrontations, with full of victories in two face to face in the semifinals, although in the aggregate of duels it loses.
Guardiola has six victories, against Ancelotti's three. Of course, Pep's five, in addition to the first leg of 'Champions' last season, were when the Italian directed an Everton with objectives and ambitions lower than those of City in the Premier.
Nine direct duels in which, curiously, there has been no draw between them. With 21 goals in favor for Guardiola and 14 for Ancelotti's teams.
A duel of height
Photo: REUTERS/Marcelo del Pozo
The duel on the benches will be high. With a Carlo Ancelotti who accumulates four trophies (2003 and 2007 with Milan; 2014 and 2022 with Real Madrid), more than any other coach after beating in Paris the English Bob Paisley (1977, 1978 and 1981, with Liverpool) and the French Zinedine Zidane (2016, 2017 and 2018, with Real Madrid), the only one to win 'Champions', with the current format, consecutively.
La Orejona, within the extensive record of Guardiola with ten of the 13 leagues he has played coming out victorious, resists him.
Photo: REUTERS/Susana Vera
Pep has not won the Champions League since 2011, his second, after 2009, both with Barcelona of Spain. Since then, he has only reached the final once, the 2021 one he lost to Chelsea (0-1), his first defeat in an international definition in his career as a manager.
However, the Spanish coach is the one who took his teams to the semifinals the most times: 10. From 2008 to 2012 with Barcelona, from 2013 to 2016 with Bayer Munich and from 2020 to 2023 with Manchester City.
Behind in this historic list appears, precisely, Ancelotti, with nine, and the Portuguese José Mourinho with eight.
All the duels of a rich history
2013–14 Champions League Semifinals: Real Madrid v Bayern Munich (first leg) 1-0; Carlo Ancelotti
2013–14 Champions League Semifinals: Bayern Munich v Real Madrid (second leg) 0–4; Carlo Ancelotti
Photo: AFP / MIGUEL RIOPA
Premier League 2019-20: Everton - Manchester City 1-3; Pep Guardiola
Premier League 2019-20: Manchester City v Everton 2-1; Pep Guardiola
Premier League 2020-21: Everton - Manchester City 1-3; Pep Guardiola
FA Cup 2020-2021 Everton - Manchester City (quarters) 0-2; Pep Guardiola
Premier League 2020-21: Manchester City v Everton 5-0; Pep Guardiola
2021-22 Champions League Semi-Finals: Manchester City v Real Madrid (first leg) 4-3; Pep Guardiola
Champions League semifinals: Real Madrid v Manchester City (second leg) 3-1; Carlo Ancelotti
With information from EFE
See also
