According to Champions League: Nothing is for eternity: does City need a fresh start?

Pep Guardiola expressed what no one wanted to admit at Manchester City for a long time. “Nothing is for eternity,” said the star coach of the English football champion. After years of high flight, the sky blue have finally returned on the ground of the facts.

Early ending in the Champions League against Real Madrid was a new low point of the already completely screwed up city season. The question arises more than ever: Does the former title machine really get going again on its own? Does she just need a few updates or possibly a complete restart?

New Champions League season without City?

“We have time to think about it,” said Guardiola after the 1: 3 (0: 2) defeat in the playoff second leg at the defending champion. Immediately after the royal class ko, which is as painful as it is deserved, the coach did not want to look too far into the future. However, it could look bleak for City.

The goal must now be to qualify for the Champions League again, said Guardiola. What seemed naturally seemed to be a big challenge for the Skyblues for years. They are currently fourth in the local league. That would be enough for the royal class.

Guardiola and Co. are also waiting for a judgment of the Premier League, which accuses Club 115 violations of the financial rules of the league. Everything seems possible from a fine to a point deduction to an exclusion. Maybe there are no consequences at all. Either way, you are inclined to say: Guardiola sometimes hardly knows how it happens to him.

Real shows how the transition works

Among other things, six championships and 2023 The Champions League has won the former coach of FC Bayern Munich since he took office in Manchester almost eight and a half years ago. In the eternal striving for success and football perfection, there seemed to be almost no limits for City during this time. Hardly an opponent was too big, hardly any player too expensive.

But – and this shows the unprecedented crash this season – the club has probably not thought far enough. While the long-time strategists Toni Kroos and Luka Modric gradually passed on the scepter in the flowing transition to younger ones like Jude Bellingham or Federico Valverde, the Ü30 faction still swings the cycle in the city middle field.

Since the end of August, the ex-captain of the German national team, Ilkay Gündogan, has returned from FC Barcelona. A world-class player, no question. But nobody with too much perspective.

Winter transfer for more than 200 million

Injuries such as those of the service provider Kevin de Bruyne or Rodri, even more games through the reform of the Champions League – there are many reasons that contribute to the city crisis. In the meantime, Guardiola himself flirted with a farewell before extending his contract again until 2027. Maybe the relationship between the trainer and his increasingly exhausted team has also worn out a bit.

In winter, the club again paid a good 200 million euros for new players such as the striker Omar Marmoush won by Eintracht Frankfurt. However, more than an investment in the future was probably the attempt to save what can still be saved in this catastrophic season that is hardly possible. Or rather: Was. Now there is only a real title chance – in the FA Cup.

“Act of sporting cruelty” in Madrid

That it is not City, but real the measure of things in European club football – not only did Guardiola have to recognize that after rubbing down in Bernabéu on Wednesday. Unlike in previous years, in which one had also failed on the Madrilenen, they were better this time than his own team, the 54-year-old admitted. That has to be accepted.

The English media was much more difficult. The defeat was “miserably”, it said. City “destroyed” triple scorer Kylian Mbappé. In the case of an “act of sporting cruelty”, you could see how the real professionals “slowly tear out the wings of an aubergine butterfly,” commented the “Guardian”. City’s top team is officially over.

You have to learn and continue from this evening, said Guardiola. But what he saw himself: nothing is for eternity.