MANCHESTER, England (AP) — Josep Guardiola acknowledged Manchester City fans Friday. was afraid. The club’s most successful manager steps down, bringing an end to the club’s career. A 10-year spell filled with trophies There he established City as a European powerhouse and changed the face of English football.
Guardiola is He has one year left on his contract with City. But he will take charge in his final Premier League game against Aston Villa on Sunday.
“Don’t ask me why I’m quitting. I don’t have a reason, but deep down I know it’s my time,” he said.
City have announced that Guardiola will be appointed as their global ambassador and that the new stand at the Etihad Stadium will be named after him.
Enzo Maresca, a former Chelsea manager and former assistant to Guardiola at City, is the front-runner for the difficult task of replacing the Catalan after a decade of unprecedented dominance.
Since joining City in the summer of 2016, Guardiola has led the Abu Dhabi-owned side to six Premier League titles and their first Champions League in 2023.
This season they won 17 major trophies, including a domestic double: the English League Cup and the FA Cup. He won 35 major titles during his coaching career, including with Barcelona and Bayern Munich.
City is his longest managerial job to date, having never previously held the position for more than four years.
Guardiola, 55, said: “I’m not going to train for a while.” “I feel like I don’t have the energy I need to get through each day with the expectations of competing for a title.”
Guardiola has set a new standard. In 2018, City became the first team to win four consecutive English league titles and the first team to accumulate 100 points in a single season. The following year, City became the first team to win the domestic league, FA Cup and League Cup in the same season.
His greatest achievement was leading City to the ultimate treble in 2023, winning the Premier League, Champions League and FA Cup, matching Manchester United’s feat more than 20 years earlier in 1999.
He also brought to England a style of football, a possession-based approach that started with flicking the ball away from the goalkeeper and defense, and eventually came to be imitated across the country, from children’s teams at grassroots level to their Premier League rivals.
“Thanks to the unique approach he brings to coaching, he has always been able to challenge the accepted truths of our game. That is why he has not only made Manchester City better, but also made football better over the past 10 years,” said City chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak. He added that it was the “right answer” for Guardiola to step down now.
He will be in another trophy-winning campaign, but it will be the first time in his career that he has not been crowned league champion for two seasons. City have been eliminated from the Champions League before the quarter-finals for the past two years.
City said Guardiola’s new role would be to provide technical advice to clubs in the ownership group.
CEO Ferran Soriano said: “Pep’s achievements have been extraordinary and his true impact will be better appreciated by future Manchester City historians.” “If there’s anything more difficult than winning, it’s winning again. It takes incredible tenacity, resilience and the humility to start over and over again with the same energy, year after year. This is what Pep did.”
Guardiola will go down as one of the greatest managers in Premier League history, rivaling Alex Ferguson, but he still faces more than 100 charges against the club and has had to defend City numerous times from allegations of financial irregularities.
City spent nine years between 2009 and 2018, during which they won three titles and signed some of the world’s best players, including Yaya Toure, Sergio Aguero and Kevin De Bruyne, and were accused of providing misleading information about their finances. One of them was acquired under Guardiola.
The city has always denied wrongdoing. “Absolutely,” Guardiola said. I was convinced that the club was innocent..
“We worked, we suffered, we fought. And we did things our way. Our way,” Guardiola said in a farewell message to fans.
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