at.algebraic topology - Functoriality of fundamental group via deck transformations

Problem

I'm trying to understand this with a view towards the etale fundamental group where we can't talk about loops. What I'm missing is how the fundamental group functor should work on morphisms, without mentioning loops.

Naive attempt

Let's say we have a map $X rightarrow Y$ (of topological spaces, schemes, what have you). Let's say $tilde Y$ is $Y$'s universal cover (in the case of schemes, this only exists as a pro-object, and only in some cases, but for simplicity assume it exists) and $tilde X$ is $X$'s fundamental group.

My first, naive, approach was the following: take $X times_Y tilde Y$. This is a cover of $X$ (etale is invariant to base change. Again $tilde Y$ isn't really etale over $Y$ because it's not finite, but once we have the topological case down, ironing out the arithmetic details should be easy). So we have a map $tilde X$ to $X times_Y tilde Y$.

Now, since $tilde Y$ to $Y$ was Galois (- normal for the topologists; with group of deck transformations $pi_1(Y, y)$) then so is $X times_Y tilde Y$ over $X$. With what group? It seems (and correct me if I'm wrong) that this will always be some quotient of $pi_1(Y,y)$ (meaning that the group action of $pi_1(Y,y)$ on $X times_Y tilde Y$ as a map $pi_1(Y,y) times X times_Y tilde Y rightarrow (X times_Y tilde Y) times_X (X times_Y tilde Y)$ is surjective but not nec. an immersion).

Since $tilde X$ maps to $X times_Y tilde Y$, we get a natural map $pi_1(X,x) twoheadrightarrow Aut_X(X times_Y tilde Y)$, where, as we said, $Aut_X(X times_Y tilde Y)$ is a quotient of $pi_1(Y,y)$.

This is not going to work. What is the right definition of how the fundamental group functor acts on morphisms, via a deck-transformations approach?