MADRID, May 2. (EUROPE PRESS) –
The manager of Manchester City, Pep Guardiola, will try this Wednesday to demonstrate his ability again at the Santiago Bernabéu, a fiefdom that in his career as coach has not been able to ‘intimidate’ him, since he has not only won in six of his nine visits but has only lost once.
The venue will try to recreate a ‘magical’ atmosphere so that Real Madrid come back from 4-3 a week ago in the first leg of the Champions League semifinals against the English champion, although the Santpedor player already knows the atmosphere and the mystique that resides in this scenario in which their teams have usually come out on top, although perhaps they have never had to manage the added pressure that the ticket to the Paris final is at stake.
The Catalan coach’s statistics are optimal at the Concha Espina Coliseum, where he was already the winner on his last visit, in the first leg of the Champions League round of 16 for the 2019-2020 season. Then, City came from behind a goal from Isco in the final stages with goals from Gabriel Jesus and Kevin de Bruyne from a penalty to sentence in the second leg, held months later due to the pandemic, with the same score at the Etihad Stadium.
Guardiola thus removed the thorn from what until then was his last step through the Bernabéu. And it is that before that appointment two years ago, the ‘citizen’ coach had not set foot on the green of the Madrid stadium for six years. Then, in the first leg of the semifinals of the highest continental competition and directing Bayern Munich, he added his only defeat, 1-0, with a goal by Karim Benzema and with Carlo Ancelotti also on the bench. In the second leg, the 13-time European champion would show off at the Allianz Arena with a devastating 0-4 and would go on to the final in Lisbon, where he would win the ‘Décima’ against Atlético.
Guardiola made his debut as coach at the Santiago Bernabéu in the 2008/09 season, when he achieved his best result in the historic 2-6, which precisely marks the 13th anniversary of this Monday and which ended up putting the Catalans on track for the League title. The following year he also won in the capital of Spain (0-2) and in 2010-2011 he tied for one of the four Clásicos that took place in just one month.
All these results were in the League because in the Champions League, in 2011, they won 0-2 in that game marked by the controversy between Pepe and Dani Alves, and that same summer they tied (2-2) in the Spanish Super Cup. His last league visit with Barça was on December 10, 2011 and ended with a 1-3 victory. In January 2012, in the Copa del Rey, he played his last duel at the Bernabéu against Real Madrid as coach of FC Barcelona, and he also won 1-2.
