“It’s not what we wanted,” Txiki Begiristain admitted. Manchester City’s director of football was in Zurich for the Champions League draw, where he could not get a reception on his phone. There was no way of telling his manager the news: “Pep, we’re going back.” But by the time he realised, Guardiola was surely already aware and he probably always suspected as much anyway. On the morning of the draw back in Catalonia some of those closest to him had already predicted this; it was, they had said, inevitable.
This is nothing new, for Begiristain or for Guardiola. This will be the third time City have been to the Camp Nou in four seasons. The last time they were there, so was Guardiola. He was not yet City’s manager but he was still a Barcelona soci: up in the stand, he hid his face behind a scarf, delighting in the disbelief as LionelMessi nutmegged James Milner. A few weeks later he was back again as Bayern Munich manager, his reaction down on the touchline rather different as Messi snapped Jérôme Boateng’s hips in half.
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