Now that we’ve heard it from the horse’s mouth, we can all expect plenty more headlines about Pep Guardiola’s arrival in England in the not-too-distant future.
Many (especially Manchester City supporters) are foaming at the mouth with excitement, and if you quickly glimpse at his managerial CV, who can blame them?
This is a coach that, in just six full seasons as a manager, has only failed to win a league title once. Added to that, he’s bagged a couple of Champions League crowns, three domestic cups and three UEFA Super Cups. Not bad at all.
Most would agree that Guardiola is one of the greatest football managers of his generation, but it seems Yaya Toure’s agent isn’t buying it…
“Pep is a great coach,” said Dimitri Seluk recently. “But he has won the title at Barcelona and Bayern Munich.
“The truth is my grandfather would win the title with Barcelona and Bayern Munich because they are big clubs with great players.”
Although many will be quick to dismiss Seluk’s comments, a quick Twitter search reveals he’s not alone in his assessment of Pep.
https://twitter.com/Raj7vika/status/684648932077645824
https://twitter.com/simondawkins23/status/686145789157060608
Whats the betting that Guardiola comes to city and is a flop. Remember the last time there was this much hype about a manager?? #VanGaal
— The Arsenal View (@TheArsenal13) January 11, 2016
So have the naysayers got a point?
When he took the Barca job, he did indeed have the luxury of fielding a team featuring the likes of Xavi, Andres Iniesta, Thierry Henry and some kid named Lionel Messi (whatever happened to him).
That said, Barcelona had finished 18 points behind champions Real Madrid in the previous season, so the task of overtaking them wasn’t as straightforward as it may now appear.
Barca were helped, of course, by the fact that Real were yet to sign Cristiano Ronaldo, and between their Galactico signing sprees were concluding bizarre loan deals for the likes of former West Ham winger Julien Faubert.
In that first season, Guardiola delivered a treble and finished 2009 with a record six trophies in total. He followed it with more success – the next two La Liga titles and another Champions League crown being the highlights.
But after Jose Mourinho’s Real Madrid won the league title back in 2012, Pep was off – taking a break from football before returning with Bayern Munich at the start of the 2013-14 season.
Yet again, he inherited an impressive squad. Bayern had won a treble of their own under the retiring Jupp Heynckes the season before and were widely tipped to build on that success.
If re-establishing Barca as the dominant half of La Liga’s duopoly had been made simpler by the quality of his players, things were even more straightforward for Guardiola when he arrived in Bavaria.
As entertaining as the Bundesliga is, the title race is virtually always Bayern Munich plus one other. And when Pep took over, that ‘other’ was an impressive Borussia Dortmund.
But Heynckes had already broken the back of the Dortmund challenge, beating them on all three fronts in Bayern’s march to the treble.
Domestically, Guardiola’s task was to keep a well-oiled machine functioning and fend off any further Dortmund threats – made much easier by recruiting two of his leading rival’s better players. Mario Gotze joined in 2013, Robert Lewandowski a year later.
While Bayern have had no trouble reasserting their dominance over a weakened Dortmund side in the Bundesliga, Guardiola has struggled to emulate the heights of Heynckes’ reign in Europe, despite the addition of some high-profile signings.
And it is for this reason that there are still one or two question marks over his credentials to achieve in the Premier League.
Make no mistake about it, everyone should be excited about Guardiola’s Premier League adventure.
Not only does he boast a shed-full of winners medals, he possesses a natural charisma and speaks an array of languages which help him form excellent relationships with all of his players (possibly with the exception of Yaya Toure, given what his agent said).
He also looks absolutely fantastic in a suit.
But, while he will undoubtedly be a high profile arrival at Manchester City in the Premier League, he’s yet to experience a title race in which more than two teams are likely to mount a serious title challenge.
If his next destination is to be the Etihad, he will almost certainly be expected to deliver the European Cup the owners crave. But that is no mean feat, as his thus far unsuccessful challenges with Bayern prove.
For all of the trophies and hype, a move to England will undoubtedly be the biggest challenge Pep has ever faced as a manager. And he will no doubt relish the chance to prove the doubters wrong.
