A former colleague of Pep Guardiola’s has expressed concern that something is “wrong” with the Manchester City manager, amid ongoing uncertainty about his future with the club.
Guardiola is in the closing stages of his 10th season with City, having joined in the summer of 2016. He’d never previously spent more than four years in jobs at Barcelona and Bayern Munich.
The 55-year-old Spaniard, who took a 12-month sabbatical out of the sport at the end of the 2011–12 campaign, has a City contract until the end of next season. But plenty have speculated in recent months whether he could walk away a year earlier than that expiry date. Whenever Guardiola leaves City, this year, next year or at some point further down the line, he’s previously hinted at retiring.
Matthias Sammer has doubts about the immediate future.
“We worked together wonderfully for three years—it was very, very good. I think I understood him quite well with his facial expressions, his gestures, his eyes, and his way of speaking,” Sammer, Bayern’s sporting director during Guardiola’s time in Munich, said on his Sky Sport Germany podcast.
“My gut feeling tells me something is wrong when I look at his face. When I see your eyes, when I see your face, and in other ways too, you really don’t need to explain to clueless people what you are and who you are, and that you can’t always win. I would advise him to take a deep breath.”
Guardiola Remains ‘Happy’ at Man City
In the face of speculation that his time at Manchester City is rapidly coming to an end, Guardiola has seemed increasingly determined to state how happy he still is.
“I have a contract. I said a thousand, million times,” he said in January when rumors began that former assistant Enzo Maresca was a consideration to replace him. “It’s 10 years here, I will leave one day but I have a contract. I’m happy. I want to fight with my team.
"The hierarchy respect me, that was proved last season with what happened in this club—we didn’t win one game in two, three months. They supported me. I have one more year’s contract. I like to be here, so we will see, you will see.”
Only a couple of weeks earlier, Guardiola had quipped in response to similar questions he would quit Manchester City at “75 or 76” years of age—another two decades into the future.
Champions League Motivation Could Fuel Guardiola Staying
The end of this season wouldn’t be a ‘walking into the sunset’ kind of moment for Guardiola.
City can still end the campaign by completing the second domestic treble—Premier League, FA Cup, Carabao Cup—of Guardiola’s tenure after a first in 2018–19. The latter trophy is in the bag after last weekend’s triumph, and the FA Cup is eminently winnable, although the Premier League is a much tougher ask given Arsenal’s nine-point lead with only eight games left to play.
A domestic cup, or two—a fairly unremarkable achievement for a club with City’s track record of success over the past 15 years—is the most likely outcome.
The Champions League, the grandest prize of all, is already off the table. Had City, comprehensively knocked out by perennial foe Real Madrid in the round of 16, been crowned European champions for the second time in the space of four seasons, Guardiola calling it a day this summer from the summit of the mountain would have been much easier to envisage.
As it is, he’ll have another go at it next season and will more likely consider his future then instead.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as ‘Something’s Wrong’—Pep Guardiola’s Former Boss Shares Major Concern Over Man City Future.
