Compared to the extremes of many in the world of football, Pep Guardiola isn’t an overly superstitious individual.
There is the obligatory hug with trusted advisor Manuel Estiarte before every match, a statue of Johan Cruyff in his office and a specific seating pattern in the dressing room. Michael Scott would call him a little superstitious.
Yet, he may have cause to lean upon one widely-held belief he came across during his time in Italy. The ‘curse of the ex’ is a stigma that looms over a club hosting a former player or manager, wary of suffering the double blow of losing at the hands of a past employee.
Across a trophy-laden career at some of Europe’s elite clubs, Guardiola has had the chance to test this illusion on a number of occasions on the continent’s biggest stage: the Champions League. Here’s how Guardiola has fared on his various returns.
Guardiola’s ties to Barcelona, as a club and a city, are indelibly ingrained into the very fibre of his being. Growing up a fan, graduating from ball boy to academy player and then first-team captain, Guardiola coached the B team and, most successfully, the senior side to unparalleled success.
Three years after an emotional departure, Guardiola returned to Camp Nou with his Bayern Munich side. It was not a pleasant visit. In one of the original examples of Guardiola’s much-debated ‘overthinking’, an injury-riddled Bayern pivoted to a completely different approach, going man-for-man at the back against Barcelona’s front-three of Lionel Messi, Luis Suarez and Neymar.
The Catalans romped to a 3-0 win in the first leg of the 2015 Champions League semi-final. Guardiola’s Bayern won the return fixture 3-2, falling to an aggregate defeat. It was the second of three successive Champions League exits in the semi-finals for Guardiola at Bayern after winning the trophy in two of his first three seasons of senior management.
Guardiola was back in Catalonia in 2016 but in charge of a new team. It went even worse. Leaving Sergio Aguero on the bench for the group-stage encounter, Messi plundered a hat-trick as Manchester City fell to a 4-0 thumping. Claudio Bravo was also making his return to Barcelona but City’s keeper was in the changing rooms within an hour after receiving a second-half red card.
In the return fixture at the Etihad, Messi again opened the scoring as Barcelona flew…
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at 90min EN…