Fresh-faced as he is, Alvaro Arbeloa felt old. Earlier in the week, he had mentioned Groundhog Day to his Real Madrid players. None had seen the film. Raul Asencio pointed out that it came out a decade before he was born.
Come Wednesday evening, Pep Guardiola had rather greater problems with Groundhog Day. He seemed stuck in it. Real, who had knocked his Bayern team out of the Champions League in 2014 and his City in 2022, 2024 and 2025, are on the brink of doing it again in 2026. No one else has eliminated City from Europe since Chelsea in the 2021 final, and, for another year, probably no one else will need to.
Guardiola had called it his birthday; his 50th game, he calculated, against Real as either player or manager. It was an unhappy birthday for him: a 3-0 defeat was his heaviest loss with City. It was Groundhog Day, but worse. Sometimes Real need penalties or injury-time goals to see off City. This time, they might have done by half-time in the first leg; Fede Valverde’s 23-minute trio may have meant that City’s quest for a quadruple this season is down to a treble.
It was the sort of defeat that takes Guardiola nearer the end. He is a three-time Champions League winner, but, more than anyone else, Real have ensured there likely will not be a fourth and perhaps never will be. Carlo Ancelotti remains the nonpareil in this competition; Guardiola, who sometimes feels an outsider, may believe that in particular about the institutional power of Real Madrid.
During City’s long wait to win the Champions League, he presented an inferiority complex in such fixtures. And yet it was tempting to wonder if a superiority complex was part of his undoing on Wednesday. Real were hit by injuries and managed by a rookie. City had already won in the Spanish capital this season. Maybe Guardiola thought they were there for the taking.
His team selection was unexpectedly bold. Too bold, it soon transpired. Guardiola picked three wingers when he really needed a third central midfielder, went with 4-2-3-1 when 4-3-3 would have been more advisable. He needed more balance and more ballast. The manager with a famous love of midfielders had too few: Guardiola has become more interested in transitions. He has signed more physical footballers. He probably required more of a technical, tactical presence in the centre of the pitch. When Savinho went off at half-time, and Tijjani Reijnders came on, it was an admission that the starting 11 was wrong. Either Reijnders should have been the third man in midfield, or Rayan Cherki should, or Nico Gonzalez should or Nico O’Reilly.
Instead, the young Mancunian operated at left-back and was exposed for Valverde’s opener. “We’d put some emphasis on training the long ball from goal kicks,” the Uruguayan said. “City like to press high. They like to go one-v-one, and that meant we might have space in behind them to exploit.” In particular, Real noted that there is space behind City’s fullbacks. Thibaut Courtois turned playmaker for the breakthrough.
City played into Real’s hands, allowing them to counterattack. Meanwhile, even with the trio of wingers behind him, Erling Haaland only had 10 touches. In a match without Kylian Mbappe, there was hardly any sign of Haaland either. His recent return stands at four goals in 18 games.
The makeup of the respective squads can make each feel crucial in different ways. City have more depth. But Real, perhaps favouring a policy of quality over quantity, have more world-class players and one of them, Valverde, proved decisive. Other comparisons do not flatter this newer City generation: They are fine players but some of their predecessors – Kevin de Bruyne, Ilkay Gundogan, Kyle Walker and co – were world-class at their best.
And, while it is only Real who have halted them, are City really among the continent’s best any more? Since their 2023 treble, they have only won one Champions League knockout tie, and that was against FC Copenhagen. Such statistics are influenced by their torrid spell last season, but they have now lost eight of their last 16 European games.
Guardiola has a reputation for overthinking big Champions League matches. Against Real, as in the home defeat to Bayer Leverkusen, it may have been a simpler case of just picking the wrong team; in each case, he might have felt his players were better than they are.
Certainly, this evolving City side are less consistent than their predecessors. They are also less liable to blow opponents away. They are 3-0 down to Real. They have only beaten three teams by at least four goals this season: Wolves and Burnley, the Premier League’s bottom two, and Exeter. Now they need a comeback of the scale Liverpool produced against Barcelona in 2019. But that always had the feel of a one-off and this, for City, is all too familiar. It is Groundhog Day.
