Pep Guardiola still waiting for Manchester City’s ‘wow’ moment
The next chapter in City's hunt for an unprecedented quadruple comes with an FA Cup semi-final at Wembley against Brighton and Hove Albion on Saturday
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Your support makes all the difference.Pep Guardiola believes every great team has a moment where they realise they are about to make history but that moment is yet to arrive for Manchester City.
The next chapter in City's hunt for an unprecedented quadruple comes with an FA Cup semi-final at Wembley against Brighton and Hove Albion on Saturday.
With first place regained in the Premier League and a Champions League quarter-final next week, they are on course to be the first English club to win four major honours in a single season.
City are in relentless form too. Including the EFL Cup final penalty shoot-out victory over Chelsea, they have won 13 of their last 13 games in all competitions, last suffering defeat in late January.
And yet, Guardiola does not currently feel as though that his side are in any way destined to make history.
The Catalan has experience of total domination, with a clean sweep of major trophies in his treble-winning first season in charge of Barcelona.
“There is a moment where you realise: 'Wow, we can get it,'" Guardiola said on Friday, harking back to that 2008-09 campaign at the Nou Camp, adding: "Not yet this season.
“In Barcelona, for example, the treble, we qualified for the final of the cup with 10 men against 11,” he said, remembering a Copa del Rey semi-final against Mallorca.
“Our goalkeeper Pinto, with us 1-0 down, saved a penalty. After that, Messi came on from the bench to score and make it 1-1.
“People remember the way we won at Stamford Bridge [in a Champions League semi-final against Chelsea], when a lot of things happened in the game.
“We scored in the last minute. We had one shot on target, and we scored in the 93rd minute to make it 1-1.
“We were 12 points in front [in La Liga] and I remember at Christmas time, Madrid played one competition, we played all the competitions.
“Madrid 12 [points], 10, nine, six, four. And we should go to the Bernabeu to win. If we don’t win, then we don’t win the league. We won there and it was incredible, and we won La Liga.
“Always there are moments where it happens. I think for all the teams that have won the treble, it has happened.”
Guardiola displayed an intimate knowledge of Manchester United’s treble-winning 1998-98 campaign earlier this week and admits to looking to history for examples his side can follow.
“I’m quite curious about the teams that achieved something good, for the reason why and what they have done,” he said.
“It’s clear that winning the treble is not easy. It happened in Germany, I went there the year after Jupp Heynckes got it. I like to know the way they did it.
“And every time, when I look at these kind of big, big issues, always it’s tough.
“There are always moments where you be lucky, and having personalities in the big moments can help the team to achieve.
“But I cannot compare us with what United have done. They have done what we haven’t.”
Sergio Aguero missed Wednesday’s league win over Cardiff City with a muscle injury, but Guardiola confirmed the striker is now “almost fit” and will travel for the Wembley semi-final.
With left-back Oleksandr Zinchenko becoming City’s latest injury concern, Benjamin Mendy could make his second only appearance for the club since November.
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