Manchester City embracing the challenge of going one better

Pep Guardiola’s side swept all before them last season winning virtually every game right up until the very last one. Now they set off to try and right that wrong

Pep Guardiola is yet to win the Champions League with Man City (Manchester City FC via Getty Images)

Manchester City swept all before them last season winning virtually every game that mattered along the way. Right up until the last one.

The runaway Premier League champions saw their dreams of a first European Cup dashed by Chelsea in Porto to end what was an otherwise outstanding season on the sourest of notes.

The biggest trophy of all has always been the hardest for City to win and while other accolades have mounted up in recent times - three Premier League titles in the last four years and four consecutive League Cups - the ominous space left in an otherwise packed trophy cabinet has remained unfilled.

City begin their 11th successive season in Europe's premier competition this week but have only reached the semi-finals twice, despite boasting one of the finest squads in the game and with one of the most revered managers of his generation in charge of them.

Pep Guardiola was hired to win the Champions League but remains - quite rightly - proud of what his side achieved a year ago even if it ended ultimately in disappointment.

"Every year it is the same," he said on the eve of this year's competition beginning. "If I win the Champions League I'll be happy for the club but if we are not going to do it we are not going to do it.

"You have to judge the success or not of my period. I try to do my best every single day and people can judge my job like I judge my players on how incredible they have done. The people can say Manchester City was a failure. OK, that's your opinion.

"But it was an incredible achievement we did last season - of 13 games, we won 11, drew one and lost one unfortunately, the last one."

That last one came against Chelsea, a game where opposite number Thomas Tuchel's gameplan - and the perplexing one of Guardiola's own - saw the Blues run out deserved winners back in May.

The next tilt at the title begins with RB Leipzig at home on Wednesday, part of what could well be a tricky group stage alongside Paris Saint-Germain and Club Brugge.

"Sport is always a new challenge," he added. "What happened in the past is the past. We have experience - but that doesn't mean it is going to be well for this season. It's the start of a new competition.

"We're fortunate to be involved. We try to win the first game of many. All group stages are difficult, this is not an exception.”

How teams respond to adversity is a huge part of any manager's job, even for a team that suffers such a relative lack of it as City do.

Not much goes wrong for City these days but Guardiola believes his players can use this latest disappointment to their advantage, just as they did a year ago in bouncing back from the quarter-final loss to Lyon in 2020 to get all the way to the final.

"I'm pretty sure (of that)," he added. "The players have feelings and soul and you know it hurts when you cannot achieve.

"For them now it's a new, new challenge to try. When these guys win three Premier Leagues in the last four years, and every year we have the feeling that we can do better - we reached the final of the Champions League - yes, it's a motor. They want it."