Pep Guardiola: Catalan genius who changed football

Manchester City's Spanish manager Pep Guardiola. [AFP]

Pep Guardiola leaves Manchester City with an unparalleled managerial legacy, having reshaped English football over a decade of relentless success.

The club announced on Friday that the Catalan would be leaving Manchester after the final game of the season, a year before the end of his contract.

The 55-year-old arrived in England in 2016 as the most sought-after coach in world football following golden stints at Barcelona and Bayern Munich.

During his 10 years at the Etihad, he has turned City into a ruthless winning machine in the world's richest league, backed by the club's Abu Dhabi owners' bottomless pockets.

Guardiola has collected 20 trophies including six Premier League titles, bagging an unprecedented four in a row from 2021 to 2024.

In 2023 he won the first Champions League trophy in City's history -- the third of his career -- in addition to the Premier League and FA Cup, matching the treble he won at Barcelona.

In doing so City became just the second team in English football history to complete the feat after Manchester United in 1999, ruthlessly underlining the power shift in their own city.

Guardiola's rivalry with Jurgen Klopp, whose Liverpool side pushed City to even greater heights with their own swashbuckling brand of "heavy-metal football", was one of the high points of the Premier League era.

Last week he lifted a third FA Cup at Wembley to go with the League Cup his team won in March.

Legacy

But Guardiola's legacy is about so much more than silverware.

His brand of slick, possession-based football and insistence on building from the back, even under pressure, is now a core element of the English game from grassroots through to the elite level.

And he has been a ceaseless innovator, famously winning the Premier League in 2022 without a recognised centre-forward and using players in unfamiliar and hybrid roles.

Guardiola has also imparted his philosophy to a new generation of coaches.

Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta was given his first senior coaching post as Guardiola's assistant at City and Enzo Maresca, tipped to be his successor, was previously a member of his coaching staff.

Former City captain Vincent Kompany is flourishing in charge of Bayern Munich while newly appointed Chelsea boss Xabi Alonso worked under him at Bayern.

Such has been Guardiola's influence on the English game that he was even linked briefly with taking over as manager of the national team.

The City boss remains a hyperactive figure on the touchline, living every moment of every match.

Off the pitch he is passionately outspoken on political issues, from Catalan independence to the war in Gaza, using his position to "speak up to be a better society".

Guardiola was fined in 2018 after wearing a yellow ribbon in support of jailed Catalan independence leaders, breaking Football Association rules on the wearing of political symbols.

Earlier this year, wearing a keffiyeh, a traditional Middle Eastern headscarf, he gave an emotional speech at a pro-Palestine charity event in Barcelona, urging the world not to turn a blind eye to suffering in Gaza.

Guardiola leaves the Etihad with City still awaiting a verdict on more than 100 charges relating to alleged breaches of Premier League financial rules.

He has vigorously defended City's owners over the issue but will not be in post when a ruling is made.

City were pipped to the Premier League title by Arsenal this season but Guardiola will leave the club as one of the giants of English football history.

His great mentor and inspiration is late Dutch great Johan Cruyff, who built Barcelona's "Dream Team", which featured locally raised defensive midfielder Guardiola.

The former Spanish international himself shies away from the comparison.

"Nobody is like Johan," he said. "It's a big compliment you say that, but nobody is like him, the charisma, personality.

"He changed the mentality of two clubs -- Ajax and Barcelona -- as a player and as a manager with a charisma that's impossible to replicate."

Guardiola may not want to compare himself to Cruyff but he is firmly among a select group of all-time coaching greats.