Bernardo Silva was counting his medals. “Since I arrived it has been 20, so it is not bad,” said the Manchester City captain. There may yet be a 21st before he departs, with a Premier League title to pursue.
The 20th was the first and last FA Cup Silva will lift as skipper. In the grand litany of things Pep Guardiola has won, it is unlikely to prove the most memorable, the delectable winner from Antoine Semenyo apart. There was a routine feel to it, but then Guardiola has made winning feel part of the routine.
Even those with the most basic grasp of maths can understand he has an average of two trophies per season in his time at City. Indeed, with 20 honours, he drew level with Bob Paisley, who managed Liverpool for nine years and also won six league titles. Paisley’s three European Cups still put him ahead in one respect, but in terms of a total number of trophies, only Sir Alex Ferguson has more in English football than Guardiola.
Different times provide different contexts; different finances, too, and the record £440,000 fee Paisley paid for Kenny Dalglish sounds quaint when compared with the £430m Guardiola has spent in 2025 and 2026 alone.
Yet a common denominator has been an ability to hoover up prizes even in eras when there has been considerable competition. Paisley faced Brian Clough’s Nottingham Forest, Ferguson Arsene Wenger’s Arsenal and Jose Mourinho’s Chelsea. Guardiola helped prevent another genuinely great team, Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool, from winning more. From Antonio Conte’s Chelsea to Mikel Arteta’s Arsenal, there have been worthy rivals. City have not had a monopoly on spending or on fine players. Guardiola has institutionalised winning, in part by warning his charges that it is not guaranteed.
“I always don’t forget but you pretend you are there and then in a few hours you are in the bottom,” he said. “Don’t take it for granted. You start to believe that you are special, you will just win the FA Cup. Special we are not. The moment that we think [that], we will not be in these places.”
There are reasons why City may not forever be in these places: the 115 charges that remain unresolved, the probability that Guardiola will leave, whether this year or next. Managing City, he said on Friday, is “f***ing fun”. On such days, he looks like he is still enjoying it.
The problem for any successor, with Enzo Maresca the likeliest candidate if Guardiola goes now, is that it will be hard to maintain such standards; even with the resources available, the rebuilding job Guardiola has done and the depth of talent that Josko Gvardiol, Rayan Ait-Nouri, Rico Lewis and Nico Gonazalez were not even on the bench on Saturday.
Part of Guardiola’s trophy-gathering habit stems from his commitment to every competition. It is why he has won the Carabao Cup a record five times and reached an unprecedented eight successive FA Cup semi-finals and four finals.
That does not always involve naming his strongest side; it does mean Guardiola can find ways to pick a strong enough side to navigate his way through the majority of ties.
An attitude he instilled in players such as Silva transmits to newer arrivals. “When you have top pros who have won it all essentially, you just learn a lot and it rubs off on you a little bit,” said Semenyo, who arrived in January and scored an FA Cup winner in May.
As Saturday showed, City have the ability or mentality required in tight finals. They have won a Carabao Cup and an FA Cup at Chelsea’s expense, the first on penalties, the second 1-0. Arsenal were arguably marginally superior in the first half of March’s League Cup final; City seized the initiative in the second. That ability to sense an opening or win big moments forms part of the DNA of winners; Ferguson and Paisley would recognise it.
Guardiola is the purist whose sides can show grit. “To stick in there and fight like we did is incredible,” said John Stones, who lifted the trophy with Silva, though he was an unused substitute. But he has been there for all 20 trophies. Under Guardiola, City have won an FA Cup, a Carabao Cup and a European Cup 1-0. There is a skill in just doing enough.
It now means more than Guardiola has done more than anyone else, Ferguson excepted. There are storied clubs a century and a half old who have won less than Guardiola has in the last decade. City have 38 trophies – excluding their seven second-tier titles, anyway – of which 18 came in 136 years before Guardiola and 20 in 10 with him. He has normalised it, but this is not normal.
