The simple answer is no, he doesn’t. He has already won the trophy twice with Barcelona so it isn’t one which is missing from his cv.

It would be a useful addition however, if he wants to prove he can win it with more than one club. Having failed at Bayern Münich he has only once reached the quarter finals with City so it must be a trophy he would like to win again.

This year, for some reason, City have been installed as favourites to win the competition. This despite the presence of Real Madrid who have won it for the last three years. Maybe the bookies think that Gareth Bale is not a suitable replacement for Cristiano Ronaldo and the team will falter now he’s gone.

Barcelona are looking good again and they still have the world’s other best player so they cannot be ruled out.

Juventus, having signed Ronaldo from Real Madrid, probably fancy their chances more than before and also cannot be ruled out.

Bayern Münich are currently an unknown quantity as are Manchester United. Both are capable of beating anybody on their day but “their day” doesn’t seem to come around as often as it used to, so there shouldn’t be any fears if City were to meet either of these two.

The draw Guardiola will be fearing most though is Liverpool. Assuming they can get through the group stages which, after struggling to beat a very poor PSG, is currently debatable, they will usually improve in the knockout phase.

When they play City they ALWAYS improve for some reason and Jürgen Klopp seems to have worked out how to play against them.

Having reached the final last season they will now be confident they can do so again and they have nobody to fear having proven that they can beat the best with the exception of Real Madrid who, as we have said, are already considerably weakened by the departure of Ronaldo, so even they should hold no fears if they were to meet again.

So no, Pep Guardiola doesn’t need to win the Champion’s League and it is not a trophy the fans seem particularly concerned about due to the disdain with which they hold UEFA in general.

It is a trophy the club would like. Txiki Begiristain, Ferran Sorriano, Khaldoon Al Mubarak and, no doubt, Sheikh Mansour would like to add it to their collection for the prestige it brings with it. It is they who want to see City as a top European club and they feel that winning the Champion’s League is a must to realise this ambition.

They are probably right.

Given the result last night however where City suffered a rare home loss to Lyon in their opening Champions League group game, Pep will know just how hard it is to win the competition and it only takes one bad night to make the competition that much tougher as all the other teams are getting more and more competitive all the time.