‘Guardiola’s voodoo will end Man City’s hoodoo’

Pep Guardiola and Noel Gallagher celebrate City's Carabao Cup win at Wembley in 2020

You can listen to live coverage of the Champions League final on BBC Radio 5 Live and the BBC Sport website, with coverage starting at 18:30 BST on Saturday. Kick-off is at 20:00 BST.

Even if Manchester City win the Champions League on Saturday to complete the Treble, Pep Guardiola won’t be totally happy – and it’s Noel Gallagher’s fault.

“Pep is always trying to get me to bring a guitar to a big game, so I can play in the dressing room afterwards,” Gallagher explained to BBC Sport.

“I went into see him after the Real Madrid game [in the semi-finals] and told him I couldn’t be at the FA Cup final or the Champions League final and, honestly, he gave me a look of utter disgust.

“It was with real contempt, as if to say ‘well what the hell are you doing instead then?’. I said ‘I am on tour’ and he said “cancel it!'”.

“I said ‘I can’t, I’ve sold the tickets now’, and he was like ‘ahh, get out’ and he almost launched me out of his office. He probably treated me the same way he did Joao Cancelo when he got rid of him in January.”

‘An error of admin’

Gallagher, whose High Flying Birds released their latest album, Council Skies, on Friday, is away touring in the United States when City play Inter Milan in Istanbul and he has already missed the club’s first two victory celebrations of what has become a sensational season.

“I wasn’t at the Etihad for the Premier League trophy lift either,” he added.

“I’d made plans I couldn’t get out of for the Sunday of the Chelsea game and then, when Arsenal lost at Nottingham Forest the day before, I was like ‘wouldn’t you just know it… Arsenal, I can’t rely on you for anything!’.

“We started our tour last week so I missed the FA Cup final too. Everyone has been asking ‘are you going to be in Istanbul?’ and I have to reply: ‘no, there has been a mistake’, or an error of admin as they put it.

“My management are told never to book any gigs anywhere in the world around the Champions League final, in case City get there.

“It usually falls around my birthday, at the end of May, so when this tour was put in front of me, and it’s down to start in the US on 2 June, I am thinking great, push the button, it’s done.

“But then a few months back I suddenly thought oh no, I forgot to factor in the World Cup and how that has pushed everything back. I saw the Champions League final was 10 June – it’s never been held that late before – and I couldn’t believe it.

“Then you think well, we are not going to get there anyway, so who cares – we will probably go out in the quarter-finals again – but then we kept winning. We were getting closer and closer and I was thinking ‘oh no!’.

“To be honest though, I’ve been there to see us win so much now that I don’t care too much about not being at this one, as long as we win it.”

What would define greatness?

Noel and Pep celebrate City's Premier League title triumph at Etihad Stadium in 2018, at the end of his second season in charge

Gallagher has seen City lift plenty of silverware since Guardiola took charge in 2016, with his side collecting five Premier League titles, two FA Cups and four League Cups in the space of those seven seasons.

So far, the Champions League is the only major prize to elude the Spaniard during his time at Etihad Stadium – but Gallagher says it is nonsense to label him as a failure if he doesn’t change that on Saturday, or in the future.

He explained: “I always put it this way; if the Champions League or European Cup defines greatness then are Steaua Bucharest [who won it in 1986] a great team?

“And Porto [who won it in 2004], are they European elite? Are they heck – they won a cup competition. Good luck to them and all that, but that’s what this is.

“The best teams don’t always win cups, do they? Arsenal are lauded as one of the great British clubs of all time, and their Invincibles are called one of the best ever teams, but they never won the Champions League and no-one says Arsene Wenger was a failure, right?

“As well as what Pep has won, when you look at how he’s done it, and the influence he has had on our game, then for anyone to even suggest that he has failed in English football if he doesn’t pick up the Champions League is an idiot, a total idiot.

“I go and watch my kids play football a lot and when you wander around the pitches on a Sunday morning when there are loads of games going on, every young coach has their teams playing out from the back.

“Knock it long and get it in the mixer? There is none of that. Pep has influenced every young football coach and therefore they have influenced every young child who plays football, and that’s just a fact.

“That in itself is a much greater legacy than the Champions League, even though he will win it with us, hopefully on Saturday.

“Inter will give us a tougher game than Manchester United did at Wembley and I am expecting it to be a long night, but I do think we will beat them.”