Yeah I think this is a good point. To me he’s obviously a success, and being able to win the league with overwhelming resources one time is easy, but consistently is hard. He obviously earns respect from the very best players and challenges them to reach that level over and over again. We’ve seen Mourinho teams fall apart in the way Guardiola doesn’t, seemingly because he’s a bit of a psycho who’s able to just place relentless demands on himself and his team.
At the same time, you can see his fingerprints all over the CL losses. It’s really not about luck when he consistently makes bold decisions that backfire. He overthinks those games somehow, maybe because he’s realised his way of playing in the league doesn’t translate well to cup football against the very best, or maybe just because he just loses his nerve.
I don’t think a cup winner is any more impressive than a league winner, and it’s obvious some managers are better at one or the other. Sir Alex was not a good cup manager.
At the end of the day Guardiola is the ideal manager to get for a league team with strong foundations in place. He will win more trophies, more consistently than anyone else. He might not be as good at getting challengers to temporarily rise above their station (Klopp), or build a dynasty (Sir Alex), or rule cup football (Ancelotti), but the idea that you can easily place a value on those elements seems a bit silly to me. Guardiola is the best at what he does.