Manchester City and Liverpool meet again in Saturday’s FA Cup semi-final, with managers Pep Guardiola and Jurgen Klopp seeking the chance to add another trophy to their respective CVs.
After success with their current and former clubs, the PA news agency analyses their semi-final records.
Pep Guardiola
Winner of 31 major trophies with Barcelona, Bayern and City, the Spaniard is accustomed to challenging for glory.
In 25 semi-finals across the Champions League, domestic cups and Club World Cup in his career, Guardiola has won 16 and lost nine.
His Barca side won the Champions League in both 2009 and 2011, with Manchester United the beaten finalists on each occasion.
The first came after a semi-final win over Chelsea thanks to a last-minute away goal from Andres Iniesta, despite the earlier sending-off of Eric Abidal, while bitter rivals Real Madrid were vanquished to reach the 2011 showpiece.
His other two seasons at the club brought semi-final exits to Inter Milan in 2010 and Chelsea in 2012, when it was the Blues’ turn to score a last-minute winner with 10 men.
Barca also beat Mallorca, Almeria and Valencia to reach three Copa del Rey finals, winning two, and won two Club World Cups before he added a third with Bayern.
He also won two DFB-Pokals but lost a third semi-final, on penalties to Klopp’s Borussia Dortmund, while in Europe he suffered Champions League semi-final defeat for three years running against Real, Barca and then Atletico Madrid.
His City side had dominated the League Cup until this season, winning four in a row. They saw off surprise semi-finalists Bristol City in 2018 and Burton the following year, winning the first leg of the latter tie 9-0, before successive last-four wins over United.
His only win in four FA Cup semi-finals, though, came against Brighton in 2019 before hammering Watford 6-0 in the final, and City beat Paris St Germain to reach the Champions League final last season, only to lose to Chelsea.
Jurgen Klopp
Klopp began his managerial career in the German second tier with Mainz, winning promotion but never threatening the last four of a cup competition, but experienced success with Borussia Dortmund.
Victory over Greuther Furth earned a DFB-Pokal final in 2012, where they beat Bayern to seal a league and cup double. They lost to Bayern in the 2014 final and though they gained revenge on penalties in the following season’s semi-final, they were beaten by Wolfsburg in the final.
A Champions League semi-final win over Real in 2013 set up another Bayern showdown, which Guardiola’s team won 2-1.
Klopp’s record in the English cups was poor until this season, never reaching this stage of the FA Cup while in the League Cup, Liverpool beat Stoke on penalties to reach the 2016 final – losing to City – and Southampton inflicted Klopp’s only semi-final loss in 2017. They beat Arsenal this season followed by Chelsea in the final.
In Europe, they won dramatic semi-finals 7-6 on aggregate against Roma in 2018 and 4-3 against Barca 12 months later, recovering from a 3-0 first-leg deficit as Divock Origi memorably swept home Trent Alexander-Arnold’s quick corner. Villarreal await this year, with a 6-4 quarter-final aggregate win against Benfica hinting at more of the same.
They also won the 2019 Club World Cup, beating Monterrey in the semi-final and Flamengo in the final.
Comparison
That gives Klopp nine wins and one loss in semi-finals so while Guardiola has more experience and more overall wins on that stage, the Liverpool boss has much the better win percentage.
He also won their only head-to-head meeting in a semi-final, the aforementioned DFB-Pokal tie in 2015.
That saw the teams draw 1-1, Robert Lewandowski’s opener cancelled out by Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, before Dortmund won 2-0 on penalties. Philipp Lahm, Xabi Alonso, Mario Gotze and keeper Manuel Neuer all missed for Bayern, with goals from current City midfielder Ilkay Gundogan and Sebastian Kehl enough for Dortmund.
