Pep Guardiola and the Ones That Got Away

One of soccer’s most successful coaches hasn’t been to the Champions League final in a decade. But as Manchester City meets Chelsea, he has a chance to reclaim the trophy he values most.

Alex Ferguson could, when the mood took him, be gracious in defeat. Often, that was when he was at his most ruminative, his most considered, his most obliging in his praise of an opponent. In all his years at Manchester United, though, he was never quite so effusive as he was deep inside Wembley Stadium exactly a decade ago. The Barcelona team that had just beaten his United side in the Champions League final — for the second time in three years — was the best he had ever faced, Ferguson said. He had been “mesmerized” by the patterns painted by Andres Iniesta, Xavi Hernández, Lionel Messi and the rest. Barcelona ranked, without question, as the best team in Europe. “No one,” Ferguson said, “has given us a hiding like that.” His paean was interrupted only by one brief note of warning. Pep Guardiola, the architect of his defeat, was rumored to be thinking of leaving Barcelona, exhausted by the intensity of the work that had gone into his masterpiece. Ferguson — perhaps wanting to give the younger Guardiola the benefit of his wisdom — cautioned against it.