Pep Guardiola has said he received huge satisfaction at proving his critics wrong by winning back-to-back titles with Manchester City .
In his first season, the Catalan coach had his methods questioned and even ridiculed, and he was dubbed “Fraudiola” after his team’s possession game led to calamities at Leicester and Everton .
But Guardiola stuck to his guns and bounced back by winning the Premier League with a record 100 points the following season, and then cleaning up all four domestic trophies in the season just finished.
That quietened the snipers who claimed the style of play which boosted him and his Barcelona team to prominence would not be possible in the more physical, more demanding environment of English football.
He faced similar criticism at Bayern Munich, where he won a hat-trick of Bundesliga titles.
In an interview with Catalan newspaper Ara , Guardiola said: "What I like the most is to have argued with those who said that it could not be played like this in Germany, or now in the Premier, with Silva, Bernardo Silva, Sterling, Agüero ....
"And we have done it, conceding few goals and dominating the positional game.
"We are the team that is playing less, playing 40 metres from the area. And the two basic ideas - pushing up and leaving space behind - are the same as we used in the Barça B team that we took to the third division title."
When it was suggested that Guardiola had also proved a point to himself, he replied: “It's very nice for people to tell us that they have never seen football played this way in Germany or England.
“We all have our vanity, and I can not deny that I am very excited to be part of one of the great teams of all time in England - in the end, in life, we want to please and love us.”
