It’s to be amazed. Pep Guardiola, one of the best coaches on the planet, perhaps the best, lost four games in a row.
This is leading the powerful Manchester City, current four-time champion of the Premier League (the English Championship).
It is something unprecedented in the 53-year-old Spanish coach’s career, which began 16 years ago at Barcelona. A landmark. Case for analysis and attempt to understand.
Man City lost to Tottenham 2-1 on October 31, in London, being eliminated from the English League Cup. This month, on the 2nd, in Bournemouth, for the English side, they fell to the city’s team, 2-1; on the 5th, he was beaten (4-1) by Sporting, in Lisbon, in the Champions League; On the 9th, in Brighton and Hove, Brighton was defeated (2-1) by the English.
Surprising. Top coaches, and being at top clubs, very rarely lose three consecutive matches. Four is an aberration.
I cite examples.
Carlo Ancelotti, 65, from Real Madrid, who has been a coach since 1996 and is the current holder of the Ballon d’Or for best coach in the world, has never been in this situation. Not even when he managed less prominent teams, such as the Italian teams Reggiana and Parma.
Italian Carletto’s worst streaks (three defeats in a series) were with Milan, once (2002), and with Everton, in England, twice (once in 2020, another in 2021).
At Real Madrid (2013 to 2015 and since 2021), never; at Juventus (1999 to 2001), never; at Chelsea (2009 to 2011), never; at Paris Saint-Germain (2013 to 2015), never; at Bayern Munich (2016 and 2017), never; at Napoli (2018 and 2019), never. At most, two falls in a row.
German Jürgen Klopp, 57, very successful at Liverpool and taking a break from his career of more than two decades, experienced three losing streaks for the Reds three times (in 2017, 2021 and 2023) and once, in 2010, for Borussia Dortmund.
In his early days with the drawing board, in little Mainz, he lost seven matches in a row. That was almost 20 years ago.
In Brazil, the most respected coach is Abel Ferreira, 45, from Palmeiras. Did the Portuguese lose four games in a row? Yes, once. For the Braga B team, in 2016.
In São Paulo, the negative record, recorded only once, is three consecutive defeats (Fluminense, São Paulo and Fortaleza), in November 2021, for the Brazilian Championship.
The statistics in this text consider matches valid for championships – friendlies do not count – and the results of normal time and extra time – penalty shootouts do not count.
Is it possible to establish reasons for Guardiola’s terrible moment with Man City? Yes, two: injuries and technical inefficiency.
There is the absence of some players due to injury, such as Rodri, De Bruyne, Grealish, Stones, Akanji, Rúben Dias, Aké.
The Spaniard Rodri is the best midfielder in the world, and the Belgian De Bruyne, one of the best midfielders, a great ball handler and finisher, king of assists. The other four, all national team players, are defenders, taking turns in the starting lineup.
Allied to this, the attack lost strength: it scored just one goal in each of the defeats – the team’s average in English is two per match and in the Champions League, 2.5. Center forward Haaland, the company’s star, wasted chances, including a penalty against Sporting.
Finally, the defense was failing: it was intact in the Champions League until the defeat in Portugal and, nationally, conceding two goals per match is a high number for the efficiency standard of the Citizens’ rearguard.
Guardiola’s negative record of setbacks means, in practice, elimination from a World Cup, current tenth place in the new Champions League (among 36 participants) and a gap of five points behind leaders Liverpool (28 to 23) in the Premier League.
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