The ManicaPost
A YEAR ago, Pep Guardiola arrived at a pivotal moment with Manchester City. It was a crossroads he had experienced before.
Towards the end of his tenure with Barcelona, the Spaniard found himself in something of a quandary.
Barca had won 14 trophies in his four seasons in charge, becoming the best club side in the world. But he felt cracks were beginning to show. He spoke to Sir Alex Ferguson and Rafael Benitez and asked them for their views on how to handle such a situation. Renew the squad or leave? Both men were unequivocal in their advice. Stick to your beliefs, stay and renew the squad. Ferguson, a master of that approach, summed it up succinctly: “Recycle your squad, or before you know it you’ll find they have recycled you.” Not for the first time Guardiola chose to disregard the advice given to him.
By the end of the 2011-12 season – his fourth at the club – an exhausted and thoroughly frustrated Guardiola realised he could no longer get what was needed from players who for so long had hung on his every word.
Enough was enough and, to the shock of everyone at Barcelona, he walked away to recharge his batteries with a one-year sabbatical in the United States.
Suitably refreshed, he returned a year later to take the reins at Bayern Munich but, despite three Bundesliga titles and two German Cups during his three-season spell at the club, he felt the movers and shakers did not fully understand what he was trying to do.
So to City – and more success.
But, with the Covid-19-ravaged 2019-20 season concluded and the Premier League title transferred to Liverpool, Guardiola had a decision to make about his contract.
And at that point the words of Benitez and Ferguson made a lot more sense than they had done almost a decade earlier.
As it transpired, Guardiola signed a new contract and the mutual faith of both parties has been rewarded with a third Premier League title across his five years with City.
The deal, if he so wishes, could keep him at City for seven years, a sure sign there was never any sense the Spaniard was beginning to overstay his welcome.
From his perspective, he never remotely considered any of the overtures from Paris St-Germain. Nor will he ever go to the French club, not least because the Abu Dhabi owners of City would consider a move to a Qatar-owned club like PSG as nothing short of treachery.
City never forced him to accept an offer that was negotiated in fewer than 24 hours but had been on the table for the previous few months.
In fact, all they asked of Guardiola was that if he decided to leave, the club should be given plenty of notice. The key moment in that period came on a trip Guardiola took to the Maldives in October to meet up with City chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak, who convinced him to stay. “We have to keep going,” Guardiola was told.
“We will keep winning, we will do what is required to continue competing at this level. You have to stay.” The consistency of the message from his bosses, plus the fact he is comfortable and surrounded by people he trusts, did the rest of the job.
His agreement to continue with the club obliged them to think about renewing the squad.
At the end of last season and the beginning of the current one it became clear that changes were needed. -BBC Sports
