Image: Cosmin katatonia82, Bigstockphoto
Football has seen countless amazing managers over the years, from obvious picks such as Scottish quartet Sir Alex Ferguson, Jock Stein, Sir Matt Busby and Bill Shankly, to less well-known figures such as Argentine great Guillermo Stábile, who led his nation to six Copas América between 1941 and 1957. Then of course we have the likes of Brian Clough, the father of Total Football, Rinus Michels, and more recently Carlo Ancelotti, who boasts two Champions League titles as a player and five more as a coach.
Ancelotti is 65 and may yet add to that tally but in the pantheon of modern managerial greats, many experts would point to Pep Guardiola as the best of the best. The Catalan legend was, like Ancelotti, a top-class player but his managerial career has surpassed what he achieved as a midfielder for Barcelona. As a manager, he won two Champions League titles and three La Ligas with Barca, and has added multiple trophies with Bayern Munich, plus six Premier League crowns and a further CL with City. He has also won the FIFA Club World Cup with all three teams he has managed, accumulating four in all.
However, as any football fan will know, Pep’s City side have endured a horrendous run of results in the 2024/25 campaign. Given the success they have enjoyed over the past decade and more, any loss is a slight surprise, whilst going three games without a win counts as a minor catastrophe. But, hard though it may be to believe, Guardiola oversaw a run of seven games without a win.
Pep’s Worst Run Ever
That terrible sequence included six defeats and a draw and even the draw was a shocker as they somehow contrived to throw away a 3-0 lead, at home, with just 15 minutes of the match against Feyenoord remaining. The full details of the seven-game nightmare can be seen below:
| No. | Date | Opponent | Tournament | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 30th Oct | Tottenham | EFL Cup | 2-1 Loss |
| 2 | 2nd Nov | Bournemouth | Premier League | 2-1 Loss |
| 3 | 5th Nov | Sporting CP | Champions League | 4-1 Loss |
| 4 | 9th Nov | Brighton | Premier League | 2-1 Loss |
| 5 | 23rd Nov | Tottenham | Premier League | 4-0 Loss |
| 6 | 26th Nov | Feynoord | Champions League | 3-3 Draw |
| 7 | 1st Dec | Liverpool | Premier League | 2-0 Loss |
City and Pep finally ended their winless sequence by beating Nottingham Forest 3-0 on home soil in the Premier League on 4th December 2024. It was a much-needed victory that showed signs of the previously ruthless Man City that has dominated English football for many seasons.
Their poor run can be attributed to several factors, with many pundits an journalists highlighting the absence of their key man Rodri, who may be out for the season. Others suggest time is catching up with an ageing squad, whilst bad luck has also played its part. It is notable that the first four of the games without a win were on the road, as were five of the total seven. Once the defeats started to stack up, confidence was undoubtedly a factor, with injury to Rodri and his significance to the side perhaps further playing on the squad’s collective mind.
No matter what the explanation is, it was a run of results that nobody would have predicted. It is a very long time since City last experienced such a horrific run, but how does it compare to the worst sequence of results Pep has had to endure during his career as a manager?
Previous Worst with City
Prior to this seven-match winless streak, we would have to go back some way in order to find anything approaching a really bad run in competitive fixtures for Pep’s Man City. At a similar time last year, they drew two, won one, drew again and then lost. However, the last time they actually failed to win more than two games running was back in April 2022. Even then, there were two games against Liverpool and a 0-0 draw with Atletico Madrid, the latter of which was sufficient to see them advance in the Champions League.
That really puts the recent terrible run into perspective and we have to go all the way back to spring 2017 to find a worse sequence. Back in March and April of that year, they lost to Monaco, then drew with Liverpool and Arsenal, before losing to Chelsea. However, his worst run at City, previously, came a little earlier, in September and October 2016. They went six games and failed to win, drawing three times (Celtic, Everton and Southampton) and alternating those with three defeats to Spurs, Barca and Man United.
Worst Run with Bayern Munich
German football is probably less competitive than the PL, with Bayern dominating the top-tier landscape in a way no English club has. There is also less strength at the bottom of the Bundesliga, compared to the Premier League, so whilst, of course, anyone can beat anyone else on their day, big upsets are less common in Germany than in England.
As such, it should be no huge surprise that whilst managing FC Hollywood, Guardiola was able to avoid any really shockingly bad runs. His first season at the club saw long runs of consecutive wins and he never went more than three games without delivering. However, as has often been the case, his worst run came in the spring, at the business end of competitions.
Bayern lost three Bundesliga games in a row, although the league was all but won by then. After the first of those they also went down 3-0 to Pep’s former side, Barcelona, in the Champions League. In addition, prior to their league defeats, they also failed to win against Borussia Dortmund in the semis of the German Cup. They drew 1-1 and lost on penalties, meaning he suffered a five-game winless run with Bayern.
And Before all of That … Barca
Pep came through the ranks at Barcelona’s La Masia academy, played almost 400 games for the first team, then took charge of Barcelona B before becoming the head coach of the first team in 2008. Over almost 250 games in the dugout, there were far more wins (179) than not but even so, and even with a peak-era Lionel Messi in the team, Barcelona suffered some bad days, and even weeks and months.
Pep’s worst winless run with the first club he managed came in February and March 2009. In the league they drew at Betis, lost at home in the Barcelona derby against Espanyol, and then went down 4-3 at Atletico Madrid. In among those results they also drew 1-1 at Lyon in the Champions League and then drew by the same score at Mallorca in the Copa del Rey. Once again, a five-match run with no wins.