Only miracle or disaster can stop Pep Guardiola from defending his Champions League crown

It is the task that awaits Copenhagen now. Perhaps it will be the challenge for one or more of the European giants – Bayern Munich or Barcelona, Real Madrid or Internazionale, Paris Saint-Germain or Arsenal – in a quarter-final, a semi-final or a final. How do you stop Pep Guardiola from retaining the Champions League? Because so far in his career, it has taken a volcano and a footballing miracle.

For much of the last seven years, the focus was on whether and when’s first Champions League and how, amid a series of disappointments, contributed to their inability to do so. Yet put Guardiola in the position of defending champion and it has required the remarkable to halt him. In the years after his two previous European glories, he was not undone by his own errors as much as by greater forces.