The Champions League is an obsession that drives, and unites, Pep Guardiola and Carlo Ancelotti

Between them, Genuine Madrid chief Carlo Ancelotti and Manchester City manager Kick Guardiola have lifted the European Cup as player or mentor a surprising multiple times. At the point when this most noteworthy contest throughout the entire existence of club football arrives at its 70th birthday celebration in three seasons' time, the profiles of the Italian and the Catalan - - each brought into the world in small networks whose joined populace wouldn't fill 33% of the Santiago Bernabeu - - will be composed into Champions Association history books as the best the opposition has at any point seen.

Ancelotti, despite the fact that he could one day be surpassed by Zinedine Zidane or Guardiola himself, has won more European Cup finals (four) than some other mentor. Ever. Guardiola will be on that pantheon in three years' time since it's his Barcelona side of 2011 that is generally hailed as having created the most brilliantly complete execution in any Heroes Association last - - albeit some who saw Madrid's 7-3 loss of Eintracht Frankfurt in 1960 could contend in any case.

In spite of this, the ones who meet in Tuesday's elimination round first leg (and afterward again in the return leg in eight days' time) likewise have a profoundly unrealistic, tension ridden and excruciating relationship with the opposition. For their purposes, this prize is the meaning of an adoration disdain relationship; can't live with it, can't survive without it.

For instance: Guardiola was accountable for Bayern Munich when, in the 2014 elimination rounds, they experienced their heaviest-at any point home loss throughout the entire existence of the opposition. Unintentionally, it was to Carlo Ancelotti's Madrid.

As a player, he'd have had the option to add one more title to the nine he and the Italian have, were it not for the misery of the equivalent greatest whipping any group have taken in an European Cup last. Johan Cruyff's Barcelona were in their subsequent European Cup last in two years, and a probably under-strength Milan - - missing a grasp of stars - - crushed the Catalans 4-0 in Athens, proclaiming the finish of the Fantasy Group time and foretelling Cruyff's takeoff two years after the fact.

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Guardiola has trained six losing elimination round groups in his 15-year administrative profession. It is a totally heavenly record as far as "you can't win it except if you're in the blend in the conclusive stages," however ultra difficult in the "almost, but not quite" stakes.

Similarly, his groups' disposals in the last four have frequently been momentous, verging on the odd.

There was that 4-0 home loss to Genuine Madrid quite a while back, which he actually calls the best strategic error of his profession. Beaten by the possible champs.

Then there was the volcanic emission in 2010 that implied his Barcelona group needed to embrace the excursion from Catalunya to Milan by transport since flights were grounded. Bury Milan hopefully managed with a 3-2 total triumph, with 10 men in the subsequent leg. Beaten by the possible victors.

Barcelona missed a punishment (indeed, Lionel Messi missed a punishment, to be more exact) to go 3-2 up on total against 10-man Chelsea in the 2012 elimination rounds. Beaten by the possible victors.

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Then, at that point, the mother, everything being equal: last season, Man City were driving 5-4 in Madrid with 91 minutes of the elimination round second leg played, they actually got taken out. You know the result: beaten by the possible victors. Once more.

Individuals make a great deal out of this. Some decide to feature these staggers at the penultimate obstacle as opposed to, first, recognizing that Guardiola is as of now, obviously, one of the unequaled extraordinary mentors. He has been a progressive, game-evolving, moving, fruitful mentor across three extremely particular footballing societies.

He's had a totally different issue to either Ancelotti or, to be sure, any Genuine Madrid mentor.

Guardiola, over the course of his time at City, has effectively needed to attempt to persuade the English players, specifically, that the Bosses Association matters so a lot, while possibly not more, than winning the Head Association. Kevin De Bruyne expressed as of late that being boss of Britain made a difference more to him. Indeed, even Guardiola himself said a year prior that assuming he needed to "sign at the present time" for one of the two prizes, it'd be the Chief Association.

That is not the situation at Madrid, nor has it been meaningful of Ancelotti's profession.

His two chief homes, Milan and Madrid, are the two clubs that have won the European Cup most frequently: multiple times and seven, separately. At each club they view the prize as a feature of their inheritance, Madrid especially so. Ruling the uproarious neighbors - - winning Serie An or LaLiga, to the detriment of Entomb and Atletico Madrid - - still matters without a doubt, however sitting on the European high position and reigning over a mainland is something Ancelotti has flourished upon at the two clubs.

Pep Guardiola and Carlo Ancelotti have both appreciated amazing outcome in the Heroes Association, while additionally experiencing anguishing deplorability. Jose Breton/Pics Activity/NurPhoto by means of Getty Pictures

Multiple times he's well used that crown: as a midfielder for the Rossoneri in 1989 and 1990, as their mentor in 2003 and 2007, and afterward responsible for Los Blancos in 2014 and 2022. It's a triumph curve that is extended across 33 years. Really noteworthy.

Notwithstanding that, he also has been harmed, disappointed and provoked by this opposition and the famous prize that everybody longs to possess - - regardless of whether just for a brief time.

Ancelotti's most memorable experience of how impetuous football's sacred goal can be was sitting in Rome's Stadio Olimpico, harmed, having helped steer AS Roma to the 1984 last, just to see Liverpool win on punishments.

In 1991 he remained to win a sequential full go-around of European Cup finals on the off chance that Milan could beat Marseille in the elimination round. Losing 2-1 on total in the end minutes of the subsequent leg, the State Velodrome floodlights cut out. After fifteen minutes they erupted once again into life yet Milan's President, Adriano Galliani, would not allow his group to play the rest of the match and engaged UEFA to hand the bind to the Rossoneri. He, his fans and Ancelotti were upset to observe that it was they, all things considered, who were removed from the opposition by the overseeing body.

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Ancelotti's most renowned evening of fear came in Istanbul, at a similar Ataturk Arena where this season's last will happen, when the 2005 last was lost to Liverpool (them once more!) notwithstanding his group driving 3-0 at half-time. Correcting that off-base turned into a fixation for the Italian, with the end goal that he owns up to supporting two groups (Liverpool and Milan) in 2007, in the intense expectation they'd meet in the last again that season. They did indeed. He won.

In any case, this opposition is so tricky, hazardous and requesting that it's not just in a definitive knockout stages that it can wound you.

Ancelotti wrote in his book "Calm Authority" that in December 2012, with his Paris Holy person Germain side second in the title pursue (they'd eventually drift to Ligue 1 triumph) and with their Bosses Association bunch previously won, "... the president [Nasser Al-Khelaifi] and [director of football and previous Milan player under Ancelotti] Leonardo came to tell me: 'on the off chance that you don't beat Porto in the following game, you will be sacked. Once more, they came back, the day preceding the match, and both told me: 'Win tomorrow or the sack.' We won, played well, beating Porto 2-1, so I wasn't sacked ... however, they'd made my position unsound so I told Leonardo, who I'd believed was a companion, that toward the finish of the time I would go. It ought to never happen like that in football."

They are various appearances of a similar coin, Ancelotti and Guardiola.

The Italian is lord of all he reviews: Spanish, European and best on the planet at the present time. He is the outright expert of man-the executives, the player whisperer, and somebody who cheerfully concedes that his decision of playing style and strategies ought to be "like a tailor-made suit - - made to quantify for the players available to you."

The Catalan is crown ruler, very nearly handling the mythical high pitch (winning the association, the homegrown cup and the European Cup), and in the process would turn into the main mentor ever to accomplish it two times with two distinct clubs. He is a strategic virtuoso however not really dependent on arm-around-the-shoulder player murmuring, somebody for whom the playing style and strategies are fundamental, for whom the players should adjust and change.

Neither of them will discuss fixation this week. Neither of them will look back to the merciless, restless, anguishing evenings the journey for this prize has given them. In any case, presently you figure out their dim feelings of trepidation and their trying dreams. Also, oh well, business as usual.