Pep Guardiola has revealed when he plans to call it a day at the Etihad Stadium.
The Manchester City boss has won countless honours during his time in England and recently extended his stay for another two years. Guardiola is ranked at no.1 in FourFourTwo’s list of the best managers in the world right now.
But with life beyond Pep’s reign still something of an unknown entity, the former Barca boss has candidly revealed his plans for when the time comes to step aside.
Guardiola is far and away the greatest manager Manchester City have ever had, winning 18 trophies so far, and he still has the chance to add one more with the FA Cup later this year.
So what will come next for the ex-Bayern boss, a spell in the US, a trip to the Middle East, his answers leaves plenty to be desired.
“I want people to remember me however they want,” he told ESPN Brasil recently. “After my contract with City, I’m going to stop. I’m sure. I don’t know if I’m going to retire, but I’m going to take a break. How I want to be remembered, I don’t know.
“All coaches want to win so we can have a memorable job, but I believe that the fans of Barcelona, Bayern Munich and City had fun watching my teams play.
“I don’t think we should ever live thinking about whether we’re going to be remembered,” he added. “When we die, our families cry for two or three days and then that’s it – you’re forgotten. In the careers of coaches, there are good and bad ones, the important thing is that the good ones are remembered for longer.
“I’ll tell you that the most important thing is not what people think of you, after all, our lives as footballers have been very good. There are new challenges as a coach, I don’t know what will happen in the future and in the end that doesn’t matter.”
It has been something of a surprise to see Guardiola’s team fall off so badly this season, especially given their dominance in England over the past 5-10 years.
“It was a year of great learning,” reflected the City boss. “There is not just one reason why this year was difficult, there are many details, like wrong decisions made for me. So, it has been a year of great learning for me, personally.
“People think we learn more from defeats than from victories. But I also think I learn from victories. I knew there would be a moment when we would fall, but we fell a lot. We didn’t expect to be so far, but we can’t win them all.
“What we did during 10, nine years was exceptional, but now we have to sit down and learn to try to understand what we need to produce in the future.”
