Top 10 Matches of the Pep Guardiola Era

Amar Zukancic

Ever since Pep Guardiola came to the club in the summer of 2016 there has been no shortage of great matches, iconic moments, and box office events. The Etihad has become the home of premier European matches, and City has been involved in some of the sport's best and biggest ever matches. In this list I’m going to try and dwindle the list down to the Top 10 Matches in the Pep Guardiola era. The parameters are pretty simple: the level of football being played, the storylines going in and around the match, and just the feeling you get when thinking about it. (And no, I'm not going to be neutral; there will be no city losses here. No 4-3 vs Liverpool in 17/18, no Madrid collapse, and DEFINITELY no 2nd Leg vs Tottenham in 2018/19.)

Honorable Mentions: 

            City 2-0 Manchester United; April 24th, 2019.

This is one of my personal favorite matches ever, and a very high level and crucial one in the 2018/19 title race. After our terrible December form that season we knew we had to win out the rest of the season to beat Liverpool out to the title. This match was one of the hardest and most important in that 14 match winning streak to win the league and came at a very important time. We were only a week removed from the biggest heartbreak in UCL history against Tottenham, and were also only a few days removed from playing them again on the weekend. We had a 3 match span of Tottenham (H), Tottenham (H), and then Man Utd (A). Just as he was all season Bernardo was the engine of that team and opened the scoring in the second half sneaking his shot past De Gea’s near post. Then Sterling got the ball from Kompany in his own half and carried it all the way up the pitch and laid it off to Sane who blasted it into the back of the net to secure the win (A move and goal eerily similar to Sane’s winner vs Liverpool a few months earlier). This was a statement win that let the scousers know we wouldn't crumble after the UCL loss like we did the year prior to United, and it helped us get those 98 points and Domestic Quadruple.

City 2-1 Real Madrid; February 26th, 2020.

This was just a classic Pep performance, and a game we definitely should not have won. We were in terrible form that winter and were dropping points left and right. Whether it was Wolves, United, or Palace we couldn't defend to save our lives because of Laporte’s ACL injury and were such an inconsistent team. When we drew Madrid in the Round of 16 we were all worried, but Pep had a plan for the Bernabeu. Gabriel Jesus put in his best performance in a City shirt on that left wing, Bernardo at striker and Mahrez on the right ran their tails off, and De Bruyne showed up Modric and Kroos for the first time… (he’d go on to do it many more times). Isco put them 1-0 up but it didn't matter much. In the last quarter Sterling came on for Mahrez and the game changed. He played in De Bruyne who on a half turn dinked it into the box for Jesus to head home the equalizer. Then a few minutes later Sterling made a surging run into the box and was taken down by Carvajal to win a penalty, and after all of the penalty issues we had that season De Bruyne slotted it past Courtois to secure the away win. It gave us new life that season and really made us think that we could have a successful UCL run since we’d known the Premier League was Liverpool’s, and was a huge statement win on a major European away night.

City 2-1 Manchester United; June 3rd, 2023.

Treble on the line, rags at Wembley, first ever Manchester Derby FA Cup Final. The stakes were at an all time high and it was a must win match. This wasn't our best performance in the Pep Era, as a matter of fact we actually didn't play well at all, but there was no way it could be left off of the list. 13 seconds in, Captain Ilkay rockets it past the rags. Then after a terrible handball call on Grealish, Bruno Fernandes scored a penalty as always. Then at the end of a Kevin De Bruyne cross was who else but Ilkay Gundogan whose left footed volley crept into the back of the net. We split the two derbies in the league that season, winning at The Etihad and losing at Old Trafford so it was great that we handled this game in such a manner. That match showed just who the biggest club in Manchester was and was extra sweet to complete part of our treble against them of all teams. It checked off the 2nd box on route to the treble, and on top of that it was very sweet to see those 35,000 bucket hats left in the stadium as Gundo was lifting up the trophy.

Top 10 Matches of the Pep Era:

10. City 3-1 FC Barcelona; November 1st, 2016.

The first iconic match of the Pep Guardiola Era at Manchester City was of course against his former club FC Barcelona, and was never not going to make the list. The first few months under Pep started so well and it looked like we would cruise to our first Premier League title in 3 years, but then things took a turn. We started dropping some points we didn't need to and questions started to rise about whether Pep was up to the task of being in the Prem. Messi, Suarez, and Neymar came to the Etihad as the heavy favorites and opened the scoring early. A few minutes later Gundogan was at the end of a Raheem Sterling pass to equalize. Then swiftly after the half time break we got a freekick at the edge of the box, and who else but Ginger Pele himself Kevin De Bruyne dipped it over the wall and past Ter Stegen. Then a late Gundogan dagger off of a pass from Aguero’s chest sealed the game for us. It was a statement win from Pep in his early days and showed that he was ready to insert us in the European elite. We played good football despite our shaky defense, had big game moments from players who would continue to always come in the clutch for us in the future, and took down a European giant who was visiting the Etihad. 

9. City 2-2 Liverpool; 2021/22 Premier League

Here is a bit of a cheat, but it’ll be both of the 2-2 Premier League draws against Liverpool in the 2021/22 season. This was another intense Citypool title race, and some of the highest levels of football the Prem has ever seen. Solo goals from Salah, tidy finishes from Foden, and of course Kevin De Bruyne domination. De Bruyne and Salah were the stars of these two matches, and they were both 4-goal thrillers. It's hard to pick one over the other as they were both equally as good, so I decided to put them together. They kept us in the title race and eventually won us the Premier league for the second year running, and fourth time in the last five seasons.

It also reasserted that Kevin De Bruyne was the best player in the Premier League and it should've won him the PFA Player of The Year and if a result in the Spanish capital went different, maybe even a Ballon d’Or. It's the height of what I liked to call the “Kevin De Bruyne and 10 other Idiots” Era for City. It seemed like every big game Kevin was always being let down, and there was some sort of Ederson, Laporte, Sterling, or Cancelo bozo moment, and he managed to single handedly keep us in the title race that season. These two matches are a relic of its time, and perfectly represent this era of the Premier League.

8. City 4-1 Tottenham; December 16th, 2017.

This was one of the best matches of football that have ever been played by a club. We had a Big 6 matchup on a Saturday night at the Etihad. We were missing our maestro David Silva due to personal issues, and were in the midst of a 18 match win streak in the Premier League. Utter domination was the best way to put what we did to them that night. Gundogan headed home a Sane corner, De Bruyne scored a wonder goal on his left foot, and Sterling got himself a brace at the end of the match (including a filthy nutmeg past Lloris). It was one of the best performances I’ve ever seen from Kevin De Bruyne who asserted himself as the best player in the Premier League, and gave us the boost we needed to continue our win streak, a week coming off of a massive Derby win at Old Trafford. Every City fan knows just how great this performance was, and is one of the defining performances of the Centurions. Our wingers paced up and down the wings, De Bruyne pulled strings in the middle of the park, Fernandinho cleaned everything up, and we did that while missing multiple club legends in David Silva and Vincent Kompany.

7. City 4-1 Arsenal; April 26th, 2023. 

Big game statement wins were what the treble season was all about, and this was arguably the biggest. We were in a situation where if we beat Arsenal here, we would jump them for the first time since the beginning of the season and then the title was then in our control… and that's just what we did. From the first kick of the match you knew who was going to prevail, and after that surging run from De Bruyne and a low driven shot into the bottom right hand corner, the match was over. Domination is the best way to describe this performance, and the reaction and effort after De Bruyne’s second goal showed just that. The Gooners were jogging back with their heads down when Haaland and De Bruyne went on the counter attack and just accepted their fate. Haaland also let his hair down and scored his 33rd goal of the season to break the goalscoring record in a 38 match Premier League season. This match won us the league, and probably helped us win the league the next season as well as the domination at The Etihad scared Arsenal and forced them to play for a draw the following season.  We knew we had very big matches with FA Cup Semi Finals at Wembley and Champions League Semi Finals at the Bernabeu coming up, and many of us believed that this was the match we may lose in that hectic span. Vibes within the club were at an all time high, and this win in late April made us truly believe that the Treble was within reach.

6. City 1-0 Chelsea; Sep 30th, 2017.

The importance of this win can’t be overstated as it showed that we were about business and ready to compete for the Premier League Title. After a disappointing debut season for Pep pressure was at an all time high, and many people had already written him off as not being able to do it in England. The 2017/18 season started amazing and after going the first month and a half unbeaten with a dramatic late win at Bournemouth and a 5-0 thrashing of Liverpool, City’s first big test of the season came at Stamford Bridge. City walked into London and absolutely dominated the champions. With 62% possession, 17 shots, 653 passes, and a Kevin De Bruyne weak footed wonder striker from outside of the box, City asserted themselves as genuine contenders for the Premier League Title.

This was probably the match that started our era of domination, ever since De Bruyne’s shot hit the back of the net we've been the team to beat not just in England, but in the whole of Europe. This match was so important because it was the turning point of our belief in ourselves that we could dominate England. Since this moment we’ve won 6 Premier Leagues, a Treble, and another dozen trophies, and it all happened because we went to the house of the Champions who embarrassed us the season before and dominated them. This was also an amazing homecoming for De Bruyne as he went to his old stomping grounds, and put in the dagger that gave us the three points. Everything that season went to the next level in this match, and the butterfly effect that it has caused is the reason it ranks so high on this list. Yes we’ve Premier Leagues on the final day, got to 100 points, won FA Cup and Carabao Cup Finals, and massive Champions League Knockout matches, but none of it happens without this.

5. City 2-0 PSG; May 4th, 2021.

This is my personal second favorite match ever, but I can still only put it so high. Other than the Champions League Final win and the QPR match, this might be the single most relieving and best feeling win ever. We finally did it, we finally qualified for the UCL Final, and we did it in one of the most impressive fashions ever. I remember every part of that day and match like it was yesterday. The week before we had that amazing comeback win at the Parc de Princes, and this week we knew we had to take care of business. We had been on fire in the Champions League that season only conceding 4 goals in the whole tournament up to that point and we'd easily taken care of the likes of Borussia Monchengladbach and Borussia Dortmund, but you still couldn't shake off the feelings of Lyon, Tottenham, Monaco, and Liverpool from the years before. In classic Manchester fashion it was snowing in May and the match almost got abandoned, but luckily for all of our own stresses it went on. From the first moment we were on the front foot, but then a penalty was given to PSG from a Oleksandr Zinchenko handball. Luckily VAR overturned it, and from that on it was all us. A beautiful Ederson longball to the Ukrainian fullback made its way to De Bruyne who set up Mahrez to open the scoring. Then a  beautiful counter attack was finished off by the Algerian to double his account and kill off the game. Fernandinho put in arguably his best ever performance for us on his 36th birthday, blocking everything, cleaning everything up, and getting Di Maria sent off.

The defense stole the show that night. Ruben Dias put in the single greatest center half performance I’ve ever seen winning man of the match, John Stones showed everyone just how good he really was, and our back up left back Zinchenko earned himself a starting spot in the Final over the electric Joao Cancelo. The attackers were also amazing as Mahrez got himself a brace, De Bruyne shined as always, and our very own little old Phil ran circles around Neymar and was the best winger on the pitch. That Champions League run by Foden was something else as before the season he wasn't seen as a world class player but rather just as a talent, but then he went into Haaland and Mbappe's backyards and was the best player on the pitch. This was one of the best feelings we've ever had as City fans as we were by far the best team in the world and we finally proved it, we were on our way to Istanbul (eventually Porto) to finally bring home old big ears.

4. City 1-0 Inter Milan; June 10th, 2023.

This was always going to be towards the top of the list, it was the crowning point of Pep’s career at City and the club’s history. We finally did it, we finally won the Champions League. Returning to the final two years after we lost in embarrassing fashion to Chelsea, we were never going to lose this game. The treble was on the line, and all season we had been on fire. We dominated Arsenal, United, and Liverpool in the league, and then we ran through Leipzig, Bayern, and Madrid in the knockouts winning on a combined aggregate of 18-3. We were the best team in the world, and one of the best teams ever and nobody was going to stop us. We met up against City cult hero Edin Dzeko and Inter Milan in Istanbul, and it was one of the most stressful and intense games we've ever played in. We started off alright, but 30 minutes in history repeated itself and Kevin De Bruyne left the game injured. It was a match very much played in the middle of the park until the 68th minute when the ball fell to the top of the box and who else but Rodri met it and curled it past Onana. From then on we were on defense mode and everyone came to play. Ake recovered everything, Stones controlled the game, Dias defended like his life depended on it, and on the last kick of the game Ederson parried out an Inter Milan header to win us our first ever Champions League title. 

15 years after the takeover, billions of pounds in signings, heartbreak after heartbreak, and it had all finally come to a close… City were the Champions of Europe. The Treble was complete and Pep had finally brought that trophy to Manchester and won his first one since 2011. It was the performance of a lifetime, and players who had historically not played too well in these big matches like Ederson or Walker finally stepped up, and every domino fell in our favor. It was the crowning point in every player and the club’s history and was the most relieving and best feeling win we’ll ever see.

3. City 3-2 Aston Villa; May 22nd, 2022.

This had to be in the top 3, it is the second greatest moment in Premier League history. After another amazing head to head title race with Liverpool, we found ourselves in a do or die match. We beat Villa, we win the prem, we lost and Liverpool probably cruise to a Treble. Nothing was going our way that match, and after Philippe Coutinho of all players made it 2-0 to the visitors, all hope was lost. But then Sterling who was on his way out took on the fullback and sent a cross to the back post where Ilkay Gundogan headed the first goal home, and then the next 5 minutes were history. Two minutes later Zinchenko pulled the ball back to Rodri who beautifully side footed in his 7th Premier League goal of the season to bring the match level, but that wasn't enough for us to win the title. Then our greatest ever player Kevin De Bruyne picked up the ball and drove in to send a low driven pass to the back post to who else but Ilkay Gundogan. As Arlo White called it, “Its a title winner, its Ilaky Gundogan”. Mr Whippy had brought his form back from last season and won us our fourth premier league title in five years, snatching it away from the scousers. 

    The scenes were terrific, and it was just another day of final day drama for us. We all know what happened in 2011/12 vs QPR, in 2013/14 Nasri and Vinny won us the prem on the final day, in 2017/18 Gabriel Jesus scored with the last kick of the season to make us centurions, and then we came back from 1-0 down to win 4-1 at the Amex three years prior at the end of the 2018/19 season. It was another cinematic moment for us, and one of the truest feelings of pure euphoria we could ever have. Our biggest of big game players put their stamps on the game as Gundogan asserted himself as a club legend, De Bruyne gave us another reason as to why we could possibly be our greatest ever player, and Rodri started to build a bit of reputation for himself as a big game player which he would later go on a prove to be true. This was such an important match and one of the highlights in club history, after all we couldn't have won four-in-a-row if we didn't win it back-to-back first.

2. City 4-0 Real Madrid; May 17th, 2023. 

The most dominant performance in our history, the most dominant performance in Champions League history, and the best 90 minutes of football we have ever produced as a football club. After 15 minutes we had the Champions of Europe defeated, given up, and crestfallen. From the very first kick you knew we were going to win. Within the first 10 minutes Haaland should have already had a brace, but Courtois made two of the greatest saves you’ll ever see and was looking to repeat what he had done in the previous year’s final. But that all came to an end when De Bruyne played in Bernardo Silva who rocketed it past the near post to open the scoring. Limbs were everywhere and the Etihad was booming like never before, and the sound was deafening. From that moment on it was wave after wave of attack from us. We dominated them like a championship side, and their performance better reflected a non league side rather than the Champions of Europe. After another goal from Bernardo Silva, Manuel Akanji’s first city goal (of course it was another De Bruyne assist), and a tidy Alvarez finish from a Foden through ball, we were on our way to Istanbul. 

    It can't be understated just how dominant this performance was. We played with them like it was nothing, dominated them in every facet of the game, and genuinely made them give up. Watching the match you saw Vinicious, Modric, Kroos, and Benzema waving their hands and yelling at each other in defeat while sky blue shirts ran around and celebrated around them. We had overcome the demons from the year prior and not folded in the 2nd leg against Los Blancos. This was yet another statement win in our treble winning season and confirmed that we really were the best team in the world. We had taken care of powerhouses like Arsenal and Liverpool in the league, and embarrassed Bayern and Madrid in the quarterfinals and semifinals. We had one of the hardest ever runs to a UCL Final and Premier League title, and we handled it like it was nothing. We were a well oiled machine playing some of the best football ever, and we gave ourselves the confidence to go win that FA Cup and Champions League Final.

1. City 2-1 Liverpool; January 3rd, 2019.

The greatest match in Premier League History. It was the two best teams in the world, at their best, playing each other with the highest stakes of all. If we lose, Liverpool go 10 points clear and their first ever Premier League title is theirs, if we win it's a 4 point gap and may pull off one of the greatest feats in Premier League history. While yes, I am biased as this is my favorite match ever, favorite season ever, and favorite team, I am completely neutral when I say this is our best ever match. These are the two best teams in Premier League history going face to face in their primes. The match was played at such a high level of football, that it is something we will never see again. 
From the get go you could see the speed, precision, and ability of both teams. After a few rough early challenges from Henderson and Kompany, Sadio Mane got through to goal. His shot hit off the post and trying to clear it, John Stones smashed the ball into Ederson’s face and was going to put himself 1-0. But as the ball was 11 millimeters from crossing the goal line, John Stones saved himself and cleared the ball out. Next came a Bernardo Silva cross to the near post where Sergio Aguero stepped ahead of Lovren and on the turn on his weak foot hit the sweetest half volley of his career into the top corner; a classic Sergio Aguero finish. Then with 20 minutes left Danilo played the ball into Raheem Sterling. Sterling proceeded to drive up the pitch past Robertson and the Liverpool midfield and laid it off beautifully to Leroy Sane. Sane then proceeded to perfectly place a shot to the back post which hit off the post and went in and gave City the lead. After the final whistle blew everyone knew City now had momentum in the title race and we were now the aggressors. One of the best parts of this match was how unique and innovative it was. Pep decided that Kompany needed to start, so to make sure he still had Laporte and Stones on the pitch he decided to play Aymeric Laporte at Left Back. He also made another bold move by starting Brazilian Danilo at Right Back ahead of PFA TOTY member Kyle Walker. 

    The atmosphere this night was like no other, and from what I’ve heard is the best in City history. It was a Thursday night in early January in Manchester and the Etihad was bouncing. Bernardo Silva cemented himself as our eventual Etihad Player of the Season by covering over 13km, getting an assist, and putting in one of the greatest performances in Manchester City history. It was a big match so of course Captain Vinny put in a masterclass, Laporte looked to adopt the left hand side as his own, Fernandinho single handedly controlled Liverpool's entire midfield himself, and the front three of Sterling, Sane, and Aguero were as sharp as ever. It was the peak of the Centurion and Fourmidable era, and in my opinion was our best ever team. It set us up to win the title that season, end a possible Liverpool Invincible season, and complete the Domestic Treble which Baconface said was impossible, and also amass Back-To-Back Premier League titles with 198 points.