£1 billion spent and still no Champions League - Has Pep been worth the money for Man City?

Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola has admitted that his team will need a couple of days to recover from the manner of their defeat to Real Madrid on Thursday night. In which the Spanish side came from behind to win the second leg of their Champions League tie 3-1 on the night. “We need one or two days but we will rise, we will come up,” Guardiola said after the match. “We will have do so, with our people. We did everything we could. We were really, really close but in the end we could not do it.”

When asked whether the comeback was the toughest defeat he’d experienced as a manager, Guardiola replied: “I have had bad defeats in the Champions League before. [Such as] Barcelona against Chelsea when we played two exceptional games and couldn’t make the final. But, yeah, it’s tough. We can’t deny it. We were so close to reaching a Champions League final. We didn’t play that good in the first half but we were much better in the second half, we controlled the game and we found the goal. Unfortunately, we could not finish [it] when we were close.”

Indeed, high-profile knock outs are now almost synonymous with the Spanish manager than his illustrious record as one of European football’s most celebrated and successful tacticians in the modern era of the sport. The defeat to Madrid now means that Guardiola has only reached one Champions League final in 10 seasons and hasn’t won the competition since 2011. Despite spending a huge amount of money at successive clubs. 

Blank cheques and big stars - Pep has no trouble spending money 

Having brought unprecedented success to Barcelona and Bayern Munich prior to his move to Man City in 2016, Guardiola has not only coached at the highest level since his first season as a manager but has also controlled the purse strings of some of Europe’s wealthiest clubs. And when we look throughout his career to date that certainly shows. 

Indeed, over the course of his three coaching spells, Guardiola has signed no less than 52 players for Barca, Bayern and Man City and along the way his clubs have spent a remarkable sum of £1.19 billion as a result. Which is not only a crazy amount in its own right, but also far more than any other manager has spent over the course of their career in the history of the sport. Intriguingly, in second place is none other than one of Guardiola’s adversaries in José Mourinho, who has spent £959m at four clubs, while Massimiliano Allegri comes in third after spending £894m during his two spells at Juventus. Diego Simeone, the esteemed Atlético Madrid head coach, comes in fourth with a sum of £882m from his time in the Spanish capital. 

However, while some may baulk at such numbers and question whether Guardiola is worth that sum of money, the Spaniard has certainly made a decent return on the investments. Over the course of his time as a manager, Guardiola has won 21 titles with Barca, Bayern and now Man City. Which is more than any top flight manager in the game today. Even if he is still chasing that elusive, third Champions League title.