Pep Guardiola used pain of Houston defeat against Manchester United to spark incredible league run
Spaniard's wise words kick-started a record-breaking run which will extend to 19 straight league wins if they beat Crystal Palace on Sunday
THE site of the greatest comeback in Super Bowl history was also where Manchester City’s amazing run started.
In July, Houston’s NRG Stadium was the unlikely venue where Pep Guardiola lit the spark that has seen them go half the Premier League season unbeaten.
Metallica had played a month before and earlier in the year New England Patriots fought back from 25 points down against Atlanta Falcons to win American Football’s greatest prize.
And in the away dressing room — usually home to the opponents of Houston Texans — City boss Guardiola dished out a pre-season rollicking.
His side, who laboured to a third-place Prem finish after his first season in charge, had just been beaten 2-0 by Manchester United.
It was only a friendly but, according to star midfielder Kevin De Bruyne, Pep saw something he did not like.
The Belgian ace has played a key role in City winning 19 out of 20 as they have dropped points just once this season.
De Bruyne said: “After we lost to United, the manager told us we need the feeling to win every game and from that moment on that’s what we’ve tried to do.
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“We take it game by game and try to win each one but mentally that is tough and can be draining.
“When everything is going well, there are occasions when you want to take things a little more easily — but we can’t afford to take our foot off the gas.”
The defeat to United in pre-season saw doubts emerge over new keeper Ederson — after a rash decision let Romelu Lukaku score. But the Brazilian has not put a glove wrong since.
And from that defeat to United, Guardiola’s team went on to beat Real Madrid and Tottenham convincingly in their other US tour fixtures.
If they win at Crystal Palace today, the 19 straight Premier League wins will match Pep’s record with Bayern Munich in the 2013-14 Bundesliga.
And it all started when Guardiola took his team to America on a whistle-stop tour.
They spent five days in Los Angeles and travelled to matches but the Spaniard wanted the trip as short as possible to get back to the Etihad Campus to prepare for the campaign.
Guardiola said: “The games against Tottenham and Madrid, when we won 3-0 and 4-1, they were good.
“Especially against Madrid when they played with eight or nine players who won the Champions League a couple of months earlier.
“We were able to say ‘Wow, we can compete against them’.
“The players have to be themselves on the pitch against top teams and think we can compete against them. Of course, it was pre-season and nothing counts but there we started to see that we can build something.
“And give continuity from the first season. The way we trained and the ideas we tried on and off the pitch, the way we want to live and how we want to be between each other — that was the same from the first day.”
The previous summer City had a gruelling trip to China including a scrapped friendly against United when the pitch at Beijing’s Bird’s Nest Stadium was unfit to use.
They were also working on deals for Leroy Sane, John Stones and Claudio Bravo well into August as they prepared for Pep’s rookie year in England.
But the tour to America for the International Champions Cup had a different atmosphere.
Ederson and Bernardo Silva signed early in the window, Kyle Walker arrived in time to tour, while Benjamin Mendy and Danilo were signed while they were Stateside.
It gave Guardiola more time to work with his entire squad — more than his title rivals.
And he also let go certain factions within the squad — Aleksandar Kolarov was allowed to leave the tour and go back home to sort out a deal to Roma.
Pep said: “The players who play regularly are exceptional human beings and you cannot create something when people who are not playing regularly are creating problems.
“Bad faces, bad behaviour from the guys who aren’t playing — when that happens, forget it.
“You cannot stay there. But the guys who didn’t play regularly and are now playing more, they are exceptional. Without that, you can’t do it.
“The important thing is that we adjusted, we had new players with new energy and faces and enthusiasm.”
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It is no wonder City are likely to play in the ICC tournament again next year, given how important it was to their success this term.
Pep said: “The intention was the same in the first pre-season. All of the intention of managers in pre-season is like that but the difference is we knew each other better than the previous season.”
He will know his squad even better by then — a frightening thought for the rest of the Premier League.