Pep Guardiola tore up his own playbook against Real Madrid – it could be his biggest mistake

When it was put to Pep Guardiola on Tuesday night that Alvaro Arbeloa had predicted the Manchester City manager to spring a surprise or two, he grinned, nodded his head and said, sarcastically — or so it seemed — “a lot of surprises”.

Well, he was not being sarcastic, was he? Twenty-four hours later, a somewhat unfancied Real Madrid beat Manchester City 3-0 after Guardiola ripped up his plans from recent weeks, and arguably a foundation of his entire approach as manager.

Defensive mistakes were a huge part of the story, the kind that cannot really be legislated for no matter the line-up, but Guardiola’s attack-minded team lost their early energy after Madrid’s first goal. They were not built to shuffle the ball around solemnly, which happened because Madrid tore through them, sapping their enthusiasm.

The starting line-up, owing to Guardiola’s longstanding reputation for ‘overthinking’, had become the biggest story.

“I would be very surprised if he doesn’t change any structure on how the team plays or attacks,” Arbeloa had said of Guardiola at his pre-match press conference. “He thinks a lot.”

Some eyebrows were raised before kick-off when Guardiola duly named a considerably different team from recent weeks, although it did not, at the time, feel like a major misstep. It did by the end.

That said, Guardiola disputes the idea that he actually made that many changes at all.

Erling Haaland after a missed chance in Madrid (Angel Martinez/Getty Images)

“There were not many changes,” he said at the start of his answer. “Rotation we have done in Newcastle, I played nine different players,” he said at the end of it.

In recent weeks, City have generally played with a 4-2-2-2 — a ‘box’ in midfield, with two at the base and two at the tip. Sometimes it can look more like a diamond, but it is narrow in nature, with the width provided by the full-backs.

Nico O’Reilly has been a key part of the midfield set-up, Rayan Ait-Nouri has replaced him at left back and Matheus Nunes has done the same width-providing job on the other side, as he has all season.

O’Reilly’s presence in midfield has complemented Bernardo Silva and Rodri, and between them, they have formed an impressive unit. The fourth midfielder has changed a bit, but Jeremy Doku and Rayan Cherki have done well in the middle, behind Erling Haaland and Antoine Semenyo up front, usually.

On Wednesday night, there was little of that. Nunes was out entirely, as was Ait-Nouri. O’Reilly was back at left-back and Guardiola brought back his wingers, but also stuck with Semenyo and Haaland up front. Bernardo and Rodri looked exposed.

“How many times has Nico O’Reilly played left-back this season, how many times?” Guardiola asked back, referring to his decision to move the 20-year-old back to a role he has played many times over the past year. “The only thing we adjusted was (Abdukodir) Khusanov in that area because with Vinicius Junior in that area, we want a guy who can control that.

“Savinho played incredibly well against Newcastle, Jeremy (Doku) is always an incredible threat, people arrived, experience from Bernardo and Rodri, we have runners with Nico and Antoine in the centre of the goal, the set pieces, that was the idea.

“Rotation we have done in Newcastle, I played nine different players. Understand what I’m saying, but the target is wingers to try to drop them, people in the middle, in the pockets to arrive close to the box, control to the second striker with experienced players, fast players behind, that was the idea.”

When Guardiola speaks like that, listing his logic, it is hard to sit there and disagree, but while the victory at Newcastle in the FA Cup on Saturday augured well, it seemed to persuade him to go for something ambitious at the Bernabeu.

The performance at St James’ Park was brilliant; the wingers were bright, having returned from injury recently, and City did well with a back three in possession, rather than sending their full-backs wide. When Guardiola was asked to define what his team is all about, he referenced the way they had played at Newcastle.

Whatever people thought of the line-up before kick-off, in favour or not, it felt like City were going for a big win. This was a Madrid team that have lost a few games recently and are without star names, including Kylian Mbappe, Jude Bellingham and Rodrygo.

Marc Guehi reacts at the end of City’s heavy defeat in Spain (Oscar Del Pozo/Getty Images)

It is tempting to believe that Guardiola smelled blood and wanted to put his old rivals to the sword in their own backyard, but that is not especially Guardiola-like. For him to make surprising changes in big games, usually Champions League games, can probably be expected. For him to try to blow a team out of the water in the first leg, at the risk of being undone on the counter-attack and leaving the second leg close to a lost cause, is not like him at all.

There is a long list of Guardiola brainwaves over the years, and an even longer one of the times he has thrown in a curveball but nobody remembers it because they won. One of their greatest nights, the 2-1 victory over Liverpool in 2019, felt a bit weird, with Danilo at right-back and Aymeric Laporte at left-back. There was uproar in 2023 when he picked what seemed to be a possession-focused side against RB Leipzig.

“Like the Twitter guys or like all the people, I have more info,” Guardiola said after that one. “I am sorry. I’m right, today I’m right.” City had won 7-0.

Those were the days when Guardiola would face a Champions League game looking to keep things tight and under control, something he would essentially always do in big matches away from home.

He actually did that in the first leg against Leipzig, a dull 1-1 draw that paved the way for the second leg annihilation. They did that against Madrid two rounds later, securing a 1-1 draw before a historic 4-0 trouncing. They drew five of their away games in the season they won it, and they did not make many changes to their line-up throughout the knockout stages either.

Nor did they on the way to the 2021 final, which was the first season he had done that. And then in the final he did not pick either Rodri or Fernandinho, the one decision that will often be brought up in late-night conversations among City fans forevermore (that said, neither of those players were in their prime, and the biggest mistake, one that many say Guardiola and his staff regretted most, was bringing in Raheem Sterling, who had been out of the line-up for weeks).

No matter the identity of the players, the goal has usually been the same. Control. Keep things tight. Do not do anything stupid.

That is what makes Wednesday night’s defeat, and the backstory to it, so surprising. Keeping things tight away from home is a fundamental part of the Guardiola playbook. During his time at Bayern Munich, he said his decision to listen to his players and go all-out attack against Real Madrid, rather than do things his possession-focused way, was “the biggest f***-up of my career”.

Maybe Wednesday night’s defeat is too fresh in the memory but he seemed to make a similar decision for the game at the Bernabeu and the mistake could be deemed equally sized.

We may only get the full context in time. On Tuesday night, he was talking about the need for City to believe in themselves. “We have to visualise, ‘Oh, we are able to do good things, we can arrive in good stages’ and be aware that we can do it. Otherwise, it will be a next step and next season we will be back and we will do it again.”

If he is at City next season and he has — at least — one more attempt to win the Champions League, there is always the chance for redemption, but if he left this summer, and possibly stepped away from club management for good, this could be his last game at the Bernabeu and his last attempt to win the European Cup. It could also be the third year in a row that City have been knocked out by Madrid since they won it in 2023.

Whenever Guardiola leaves City, he will be feted, rightly, as one of the greatest coaches in football history, and nights like these will be a footnote, but the latest defeat in Madrid feels so careless.