Pep Guardiola will play the Atlético team that sparked his worries once more
Pep Guardiola is often regarded as the greatest impediment to Pep Guardiola winning another Champions League. It's impossible to watch a Manchester City Champions League quarterfinal tie without hearing about his proclivity for overthinking.
The most dramatic moment of last season's Final came an hour before kickoff, when neither Rodri nor Fernandinho were named to the starting lineup.
This is what sets Guardiola apart from the pack: he's not just a wonderful manager, but also a flawed hero. He's Faustus, Oedipus, and Charles Foster Kane, all rolled into one.
That wasn't always the case. He has been a Champions League winner in the past. There was no deception when Lionel Messi and Samuel Eto'o were switched a few minutes into the 2009 Champions League Final where Barcelona beat Manchester United.
His team came out with a swagger and outplayed United, just as they had done all season. These inexplicable tweaks have only recently become a habit.
Pep Guardiola overthinks Champions League knockout games
Three midfielders against Liverpool in the 2018 quarter-finals and the adoption of a back three against Lyon in the 2020 quarter-finals. The absence of a holding midfielder against Chelsea in last season's Final.
Perhaps this is the other side of the experience. He understands what may go wrong. But in attempting to avoid it, he ends up upsetting the structures and systems that make his team strong, which are the reasons they should win.
That is why the opening leg of this season's quarterfinals between City and Atlético Madrid is so important. No defeat in the Champions League has haunted Pep Guardiola as much as Bayern's semi-final elimination against Atlético Madrid in 2016.
No defeat has made him more determined to eliminate as much risk from the game as possible. Pep Guardiola had kept Thomas Müller out of the first leg in Spain, causing confusion and possibly adding to the strain.
Bayern fell behind to a brilliant Salguez goal early on. But they were still the better team until Guardiola substituted Thiago Alcântara for Müller with 20 minutes remaining.
Bayern lost momentum and lost control in the middle and were fortunate to escape with a 1-0 defeat after Fernando Torres hit the post. This was the final straw.
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Bayern were on the verge of winning their third consecutive Bundesliga title under Guardiola, but they always won the Bundesliga.
In the previous two seasons, they had lost in the Champions League semi-finals. In 2014, they were caught on the break by Carlo Ancelotti's Real Madrid, and in 2015, they were blown away in the first leg by Luis Enrique's Barcelona. Winning the Champions League was the main goal.
Since Diego Simeone's concept of football is so directly opposed to that, he realized this was a direct evaluation of him and his principles. Atlético Madrid's left-back Filipe Luis and Atlético Madrid's left-sided centre-back Stefan Savic were both vulnerable, according to Pep Guardiola.
Koke normally guarded that channel, but Pep Guardiola thought Philipp Lahm might be utilized to pull him away, allowing Müller to take advantage.
He also expected that, despite settling back into their normal low block, Atlético would press aggressively from the outset in an attempt to score an early away goal.
He decided to go long to Robert Lewandowski, moving to a more traditional possession-based strategy once Atlético slowed down. He was absolutely correct. His strategy came close to working. It was supposed to work.
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Before halftime in the second leg, Bayern took the lead thanks to a free-kick from Xabi Alonso, and Müller missed a penalty shortly after. However, Atlético Madrid found themselves on the break nine minutes into the second half, with Torres sending in Antoine Griezmann to equalize.
With 16 minutes remaining, Lewandowski leveled the aggregate scores, and Torres missed a penalty, but Atlético advanced on away goals.
In the second leg, Bayern had 73 percent possession and 33 shots to Atlético's seven. They held the upper hand for all but around 25 minutes of the 180, scoring the same number of goals as Atlético. And then they were gone.
Guardiola's travails in the Champions League
Pep Guardiola has been through it before. In the semi-finals of the 2010 and 2012 Champions Leagues, his Barcelona had improbably lost to Internazionale and Chelsea.
But there is a new level of disappointment and annoyance here. How could this possibly continue?
Pep Guardiola had already been eliminated from the Champions League five times at that point. Bayern's defeat to Barcelona in 2015 was easy to explain: Barça were the superior team.
Guardiola gambled on shocking and disturbing them by pressing high and using a back three in the Camp Nou, which failed miserably.
However, after being almost embarrassingly dominant, his squad was undone on the break in the other four games.
Guardiola's teams are known for their high press. They leave a lot of room behind them. It's a problem in the system, but calling it a flaw is misleading because it's what makes them great.
It's possible that better sides are less frightened by the press and are therefore better able to exploit that weakness. It's easy to understand Guardiola's efforts to reduce the risk. It will be tough for a coach as interventionist as Guardiola to dismiss defeats as a result of bad luck.
Consider the alternative: imagine the ridicule if he continued to send out his sides in the same manner and they were caught on the counter.
But it's hard to imagine that if the 2010 semi-finals, 2012 semi-finals, and 2016 finals were played again, Pep Guardiola would not have won most of them.
Now it's Atlético Madrid's turn, and for the first time since 2016, Pep Guardiola will play the squad that has caused so much controversy. This isn't a particularly good Atlético.
From a purely footballing standpoint, City should be able to win rather handily. However, this isn't just about football. It's a huge psychological test for Pep Guardiola.