Pep Guardiola has hugely underachieved with Man City in Europe, despite changing English football forever

Pep Guardiola and Manchester City in Europe; it was not supposed to be this way.

The defining images of these years should have been shots of footballers in sky blue shirts wearing beaming grins and lauding a gorgeous two-handled shiny silver trophy around an enormous stadium on the continent in front of adoring fans, throwing their superhero coach into the air amid the confetti, the fireworks and the champagne.

It should have been Guardiola as the vanguard of the world’s most talented squad, football’s Harlem Globetrotters, marching them towards glory by maiming the historic battalions who had gatekept the European Cup for too long.

Instead, six years down the line, all that Manchester City have to show for playing in Europe is a flipbook reel of long lens photos with Guardiola rendered prostrate, head-in-hands, mouth agape, pleading towards the heavens without any of the answers.

With only stoppage-time left to play at the Estadio Santiago Bernabeu on Wednesday evening, Guardiola and City had ruthlessly executed their gameplan, and earned themselves a shot at beating Liverpool in a Parisian final which this era of football has been building up to for years.

Six minutes later and Manchester City had been turned over, again, conspiring to throw all their hard work and efficiency away against an objectively inferior football team in six minutes of self-inflicted chaos.

Real Madrid had once again managed what had brought them so far in the competition already — unleashing the very best of their quality, harnessing the power of their home crowd, and the sheer irrepressible energy of the world’s greatest footballer right now, Karim Benzema, to turn a seemingly impossible dream into reality.

If this were a one-off for the away side,