The Spanish head coach says his clashes with Liverpool were tougher than those against Los Blancos
Pep Guardiola has claimed the greatest challenge of his managerial career was Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool rather than Real Madrid, despite his Manchester City side being knocked out of the Champions League by the Spanish club for the third consecutive season.
Madrid eliminated City 5-1 on aggregate in the last-16, Federico Valverde’s hat-trick giving the LaLiga side a 3-0 win at the Bernabeu in the first leg before Vinicius Junior struck twice in Manchester to seal a 2-1 win in the second.
Speaking at his post-match press conference, Guardiola pushed back when asked whether Madrid represented his toughest rivals. “No, my biggest challenge was Jurgen Klopp with Liverpool, in these years here. You were in Spain, you didn’t realise what that competition was.”
The City manager also reflected on his club’s broader relationship with European football’s most decorated side. “It’s been a good learning experience for the club, because this is a club that 12 or 13 years ago was never in Europe.
“Playing so many times against Real Madrid, with the generation we’ve had, we’ve done it. They’ve won, we’ve won. The numbers are similar, they’ve knocked us out more than we have them. But they know how we’ve played.”
Record against Madrid
Guardiola has faced Real Madrid 30 times throughout his career, first during his four years with Barcelona in La Liga, and then in European competition with Bayern Munich and City. His overall record reads 14 wins, six draws and ten losses.
In recent years however, the balance has shifted heavily in Madrid’s favour. City have been eliminated by the Spanish side in 2022, 2024, 2025 and now 2026, the one exception being 2023, when Guardiola’s side beat Madrid in the semi-finals on their way to completing a historic treble.
His head-to-head record against Klopp, by contrast, was far more evenly contested. In the Bundesliga they met eight times, with Guardiola winning four, Klopp three and one drawn.
In the Premier League, Klopp narrowly came out on top with eight wins to Guardiola’s six, and eight draws. In terms of trophies during their concurrent tenures at City and Liverpool, however, Guardiola won six titles to Klopp’s one.
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