'Ogre of the Bernabeu' Pep Guardiola aims to guide Man City past his old foes Real Madrid

On a March night 21 years ago, Pep Guardiola made what turned out to be his last appearance as a player at the Santiago Bernabeu. They had to drag him away – away, that is, from the match officials. A feisty clasico between Real Madrid and the Barcelona team Guardiola was captaining finished with outrage from the visitors at an offside decision that ruled out a potential winning goal from the Brazilian Rivaldo. Had it been allowed, Barcelona would have won 3-2.

Guardiola was 31 at the time, and, according to the referee’s report from that evening, already had the full range of gestures that now animate his work as a coach on the touchline. Referee Jose Losantos Omar wrote that, after the final whistle, Guardiola “raised his arms in disagreement about a decision, and ran 30 metres from the technical area to where the assistant referee was.”

Few people with as long an association with Barcelona as Guardiola has can enter the Bernabeu without feeling a range of emotions. Hostility towards and from Real Madrid is one, a heightened sense of motivation another.

For the current manager of Manchester City, there is a vivid mosaic of memories: The anger at the officiating of that 2-2 draw in 2001; the embarrassment, as a precocious 24-year-old, of being substituted by his coach and mentor Johan Cruyff at half-time in a Bernabeu clasico. Madrid were winning 3-0. They ended up 5-0 victors in a match still celebrated by madridistas of a certain age.

The stadium where Guardiola will patrol the technical area this evening, arms raised and whirling, urging his City to take care of their 4-3 lead from the first leg of the Champions League semi-final and to extend that lead, is much changed since his visits as a player, and since he was