Pep Guardiola has been a successful manager wherever he’s been, starting off at Barcelona, followed by Bayern Munich and latterly at Man City.
The Catalan has often been talked up as the best coach of his generation, but the fact remains that the Champions League has eluded him ever since he left Barca.
The premier European competition was won on two occasions with Pep at the helm at Camp Nou, however, try as he might since then, he’s not been able to get his hands back on the cup with the big ears.
That’s despite spending hundreds of millions of pounds in his quest to do so.
Now, Felix Magath has suggested that, in fact, it was Lionel Messi rather than Guardiola who won those cups and that Pep’s style is boring.
“Messi won the titles, not Guardiola,” he’s quoted as saying by the Daily Mirror.
“Without Messi, this system has never worked as successfully for Guardiola, otherwise he would have won the Champions League with Bayern or Manchester City long ago.
“Tiki-taka only works if you have players who are technically superior to their opponents. For the spectator, holding the ball, as I call it, is just boring and a top team doesn’t really need it.
”In my opinion, Guardiola generally too often gets lost in trying to win a game in advance. That tactic often ends in wrong decisions, which prevent success.”
Into his fifth campaign with the Citizens, longer than he spent at both Barca and Bayern, the pressure is really on Pep to deliver the big one this season.