Man City have passed Pep Guardiola's Barcelona challenge five years ahead of schedule

In 2016, when Pep Guardiola arrived at Manchester City, Barcelona were still the envy of Europe and Germany were reigning World Champions and European semi-finalists.

Having arrived from Bayern Munich, who have such an influence on the German national team, Guardiola's fingerprints were all over the two best teams in the world. Fast forward seven years, and those two teams have struggled the longer that Guardiola's influence has been absent from their organisation. City, meanwhile, have gone from strength to strength.

Bayern are still dominating the Bundesliga, but not so much in Europe since their 2020 Champions League win, while Germany have exited the last two World Cups at the group stage and lost to England in the last 16 of Euro 2020. Barcelona have played more Europa League football than Champions League recently, with a La Liga title to their name but many financial concerns.

Both sides are looking to return to former glories, and they know they can't get Guardiola - at least for another two years. So their solution? Do what Guardiola would do.

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Barcelona have signed Eric Garcia, Ferran Torres, Sergio Aguero, Ilkay Gundogan and Joao Cancelo from City in the last few years, with Gundogan the most eye-catching of the group having guided the Blues to the treble in the summer. Cancelo's signing gives them the option of playing a traditional right-back or the inverted full-back role that Cancelo pioneered (and others took to a new level).

They have appointed a Guardiola disciple - Xavi - as manager, who combines the Barcelona heritage and forward-thinking tactics that is as close a combination to Guardiola that is possible