Pep Guardiola’s head looked so scratched, as if he was desperately fighting his way through a dense thorn forest in search of a way out. This crazy 3-3 draw after a 3-0 lead probably felt pretty painful for the Manchester City coach. Things had largely looked good up until the 75th minute in the Champions League home game against Feyenoord Rotterdam on Wednesday evening, but then his team collapsed in astonishing fashion and the City misery continued: The draw was an encore to the previous five competitive defeats , a negative run like Guardiola had never experienced before.
There were reddened streaks and spots all over his scalp, and he also had a bleeding cut on his nose. But the wounds, which could have been the result of a bar fight with beer bottles, were actually self-inflicted, as he freely admitted after the game.
He reported tearing his skin with his fingernails. During his description, Guardiola imitated the hand gesture in question and also imitated the horrifying noise. “I want to harm myself,” he said with a pained smile: I want to hurt myself. Then he left the press conference. The statement was probably meant to be sarcastic – although some commentators in England would certainly trust him, due to his perfectionism, to take the crisis so personally that he castigated himself for it. Guardiola and his team have now been waiting for success for more than a month.
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The draw against Feyenoord at least stopped the club’s long series of defeats. But apparently the Citizens are so used to constantly losing that even winning a point “felt like a failure” for defender Nathan Aké. City’s appearance was reminiscent of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde: As usual, the team dominated the match for years with goals from Erling Haaland (44th minute/penalty, 53rd) and Ilkay Gündogan (50th), but then the catastrophic failures of the previous games were repeated Feyenoord’s Anis Hadj Moussa (75th), Santiago Gimenez (82nd) and David Hancko (89th) scored a sensational equalizer. This made the Dutch the first club ever to overturn a three-goal deficit in the Champions League in the last quarter of an hour.
For City, the final phase was like a horror film that the FSK would probably only allow for ages 21 and up. Guardiola and his players seemed almost apathetic and remote-controlled, like actors in their own game who were following a mean script. When the first goal was conceded, the last man, Josko Gvardiol, passed the ball into the opponent’s path, then goalkeeper Ederson let a cross pass from an impossible angle – and shortly afterwards dived past the ball well in front of his goal. In stoppage time, Jack Grealish hit the crossbar, Guardiola smiled on the sideline and striker Haaland’s mouth was open.
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The scenes seemed so surreal, as if City were going through the same fate as almost all of their competitors in recent years. When the score was 3-0, he “couldn’t see any danger,” said Guardiola, justifying his completely naive triple substitution in the 68th minute, which tipped the match. He took the regulars Gündogan, Phil Foden and Aké off the pitch in order to rest them for the Premier League away game at league leaders Liverpool on Sunday. In addition to Kevin De Bruyne, he brought in the talents Jahmai Simpson-Pusey, 19, and James McAtee, 22. This meant that their own stability was lost and the players from then on acted nervously and insecurely.
For the first time in their own history, City have now conceded at least two goals in six games in a row. The club was pushed back in the premier class table and actually has to worry about the play-offs for the round of 16. The next games will be away against Juventus Turin and Paris St.-Germain. The situation was “inexplicable,” said Gündogan. Guardiola also admitted that the team is currently performing “fragile”. A mental thing? He didn’t know that, he said, perplexed. A week ago he extended his contract with Manchester City until 2027 – a fairly unique event in the football business after four bankruptcies in a row. Pep Guardiola absolutely wants to overcome the misery himself. But until then he will probably still have a few scratches.
