Another side of Pep Guardiola that embodies Man City’s legacy

When other coaches are asked about Pep Guardiola, and almost invariably they describe him as the game’s greatest manager, there is usually one common compliment. The Catalans made them think about things they did not expect. He came up with games and tricks that they could not imagine.

All in all, in perhaps Guardiola’s best eulogy, he turned football thinking on its head.

Advertisement

And while these types of discussions are arbitrary and capricious, it is clear from all that Guardiola has a claim to being the greatest manager of all time.

First, there are numbers only at Manchester City, to go with what he did at Barcelona and Bayern Munich: six Premier League titles so far, one Champions League, three FA Cups and five Carabao Cups at City, to go with three Spanish titles, three German titles, two more Champions Leagues and four more domestic cups.

And that’s over 15 years strong.

In terms of pure trophies, that has already made him one of the most successful coaches ever, but the most appropriate could be the reason for all of that.

Advertisement

Guardiola has an undeniable claim to being the most powerful manager of all time.

Football is played the way it is played in 2026 largely because of him.

Never has the influence of one coach been so great, not even Rinus Michels or Johan Cruyff. In redefining their principles for the modern era, Guardiola also benefited from all the advantages of the current era to spread his football everywhere.

All modern pressure systems ultimately come from him. Every modern game comes from him.

Guardiola’s position game has changed i tactical hegemony in a way that has not made sense before, and for such a long time.

Advertisement

And so, perhaps his most talked-about triumph when he arrived at City in 2016, is Guardiola’s impact on English football.

Remember “what are tackles?” after another disastrous four-goal defeat, this time at Leicester City, which prompted further questions about whether his football was possible in the Premier League?

What was the concern? Guardiola’s team avoided the ropes, changing English football in two ways.

One is heard in the common refrain now about how everyone plays from the back, and all the other trappings of his “positional game”.

One is to make the notoriously competitive Premier League look something like the Bundesliga or Ligue 1. With feats such as 100-point campaigns, four successive titles and a domestic treble, Guardiola has achieved a dominance England have never seen – not even Sir Alex Ferguson. Ownership of Abu Dhabi City is more than getting value for money.

Advertisement

And from all that there is – rather rightly – another way of thinking about Guardiola.

Of course his football would be known in England since City responded to the problems of 2016-17 by spending a quarter of a billion.

It forms one footballing caveat to Guardiola’s impressive record. He never had to work anywhere where he had to compromise.

He always works in the country’s great power, be it in terms of the Barcelona team or financially.

That is to his great credit, because he quickly reached the top and stayed there, in a way that even his older peers eventually struggled with. Nobody wins just like that. Therefore, it is not a matter of winning because of the resources but rather the resources that have enhanced his talent. The chief executive has been given the most appropriate settings, everything is up to him.

Advertisement

It also means, however, that he has never had the success of Sir Alex Ferguson winning with Aberdeen or Jose Mourinho with FC Porto. Even those who are yet to join those great managers, such as Mikel Arteta, have brought the club back in a way that Guardiola never had.

And if that makes his career incomplete, because of the lack of promotion of that former manager, it is also important in terms of honing your approach.

Guardiola’s football takes coordinated coordination in depth, but that is very difficult to achieve when you are at a club where your main defender is suddenly out for three months and you have no depth to cover him.

Look at the likes of Luis Enrique in the relative struggle at Celta Vigo and Roma. Would a touch more have allowed Guardiola another Champions League, the only trophy return that seems small on his record?

Looking for an inside line? Sign up for Miguel Delaney’s members-only newsletter

Advertisement

There is also another case for the City, beyond resources. There is politics, a topic that Guardiola himself invited to be discussed.

The city is not only the most funded football project in history, but also a “sports washing” project – a vehicle for showing the power of Abu Dhabi and the United Arab Emirates, and all that, including a questionable human rights record and many evidences now that it supports the Rapid Support Forces in the Sudan campaign that the UN’s mission to find the truth about the genocide was described as “. The human rights organization Fair Square even asked the UK Foreign Office to inquired about the City’s owner Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the UAE’s deputy prime minister. The body did not receive a response from the City or the UAE embassy.

Abu Dhabi has expressed outrage over its lack of responsibility in the wider claims.

It is to all this that Guardiola, one of the most famous footballers in history, has lent his halo; his shining shadow.

Advertisement

And while players and managers are often given these options because of how short their careers are and how complex the industry is off the pitch, there are two differences with Guardiola.

Another way his identity is intertwined with the rest of the work, as if the identity is trying to find a place in football’s most famous genealogy.

Another thing is how prominent he is in politics. Guardiola spoke well about Palestine, but has he considered the role of Abu Dhabi and the UAE in that problem, not in their relationship with Israel?

It was the same as in 2018 when he wore a yellow ribbon in support of the Catalan independence leaders and spoke of political freedom with “humanity”. When asked how he did it thanks to Sheikh Mansour, the leader of a country “criticized for not respecting freedom”, Guardiola gave an ambiguous answer that “every country decides how they want to live”.

Advertisement

That was echoed when he did diplomatic work in Qatar 2022 and said that the kingdom “has all the freedoms of the world, within the framework that the government gives them”.

The broader point is that Guardiola could go anywhere. He chose this.

Whether he knew it or not, he allowed his football reputation to allow a very questionable geopolitical project.

While such explanations often receive storms of backlash, especially at a time when someone is being celebrated, these are big, important themes that the game should absolutely be concerned with.

Near the end of most of Guardiola’s time at the club was the Premier League’s investigation into City – the first ball leak which led to the all-out in November 2018.

Advertisement

Most of the charges are unrelated to his time at the club, but if a charge is proven, the bottom line would be that you can’t cleanly separate one era from another; they are connected.

Obviously, and absurdly in English football, Guardiola’s biggest success came while the biggest investigation was still going on.

Muzi insists that they are innocent.

Whatever the result, Guardiola cannot now discuss it.

Finally he leaves, his football record greatly improved. He did the same with the reputation of the Abu Dhabi football project.

There are, appropriately, two ways of thinking about Guardiola.