Pep Guardiola’s legacy goes beyond trophies, Manchester City

Pep Guardiola arrived in Manchester in 2016 to occupy a managerial hot seat. A decade on, he vacated a throne.

Under his reign, Manchester City went from nouveau riche upstarts to England’s bona fide football aristocracy.

He may not have departed with the farewell present of a final Champions League or English Premier League trophy, but his decade of domination has seen silverware fill up the Etihad trophy cabinet and broken records galore.

Ten years, 20 trophies – including a domestic treble of the Premier League, FA Cup and League Cup in 2018-19, and an upgraded treble of the Champions League, Premier League and the FA Cup in 2022-23.

Then there were the records.

City broke the Premier League single-season record for points (100), goals scored (106), wins (32), away points (50), goal difference (+79) and winning margin (19 points). In the FA Cup, they became the first team to reach four consecutive finals.

The 55-year-old did not rule as long as Alex Ferguson did across the city at Old Trafford, but he made the indisputable a legitimate debate.

On the question of who is the best-ever Premier League manager, he has converted former Ferguson acolyte Gary Neville and Jamie Carragher, a partisan of City’s chief rivals Liverpool.

As Guardiola himself said: “I’m pretty sure that Sir Alex will not call us the noisy neighbours again. We are the neighbours. And I’m so happy that he was there to watch us.”

But trophies, records and accolades may not be Guardiola’s most significant legacy in English football.

His impact will be felt long after he leaves centre stage.

And not just because he will have a stand renamed in his honour and a statue reminding visiting teams to the Etihad that they are up against the empire Guardiola built.

Or the fact that eventually there could be some sort of relitigation of the Spaniard’s stint, when City’s 115 charges for alleged breaches of the Premier League’s financial rules eventually reach a resolution.

Even if Guardiola himself is confident in the club’s hierarchy and consequently his legacy “because I trust them... because I spoke with them and I trust how they behave and (what) they did”.

Regardless, when World Cup fever breaks in July and attention turns back to club matters, the 2026-27 Premier League title favourites will still trace their lineage back to Guardiola.

At the helm of reigning champions Arsenal is Mikel Arteta, who learnt at the knee of Guardiola before setting out on his own and ending the Gunners’ 22-year wait for a league title.

Said Arteta of his former mentor: “I’ve learnt from Pep since I was 15, when we first met at Barcelona. Then I had the privilege to work with him and to experience so many incredible moments together. He was a master, in my opinion the best in history. He has revolutionised the game and the way people understand the game.”

In a separate interview, he added: “The way he makes the staff feel, the players feel, and everyone around the club, is unique – I think it is his biggest power. And then his vision.

“His vision, his desire to work, his desire to transmit the messages in a unique way, and when he wanted to implement, he had a dream that he wanted to do what we were taught at Barcelona 20 years ago, he wanted to do it in the Premier League.”

Arteta may not have Guardiola to contend with next term, but his chief challenge is still likely to come from the blue half of Manchester and a fellow Guardiola protege.

Enzo Maresca is all but set to be that man.

The Italian said previously when at Chelsea: “I learnt many things from Pep. If I’m here today, it’s probably because of the amount of things that I have been lucky to learn next to him.

“I’ve had the fortune of working with some of the best in the world – (Carlo) Ancelotti, (Marcello) Lippi, (Manuel) Pellegrini – but Pep is different. I don’t see him as a manager. I see him as a genius because he’s always ahead of the rest.”

For others, Guardiola has opened doors, particularly for his countrymen.

In England, his legacy will be survived by fellow Spanish coaches. Arteta is now the Premier League’s longest-serving manager, Unai Emery led Aston Villa to their first trophy in three decades in last week’s Europa League final while Chelsea are set to welcome Xabi Alonso to Stamford Bridge.

Andoni Iraola, meanwhile, will be linked with the biggest jobs in football after leading Bournemouth to a historic European berth.

“It’s clear that the Spanish influence is growing in England, but it also is elsewhere in Europe,” 2024 Ballon d’Or winner Rodri told AFP.

Iraola’s successor at Rayo Vallecano, Inigo Perez, led the Madrid minnows to the Conference League final while the Champions League showpiece will be contested by Arteta’s Arsenal and Luis Enrique’s Paris Saint-Germain.

On why Spanish coaches are in vogue, Guardiola said: “The secret is (we) work really well from early ages on tactics, on methodologies, to understand the game.”

While that may be true, Spanish coaches were nowhere near as appealing of a prospect pre-Guardiola.

Guardiola’s first chapter at Barcelona from 2008 to 2012, when he forged a team feted as among the greatest of all time, prompted a clamour for the “next Guardiola”.

Enrique, a teammate of his during their playing days who later also coached alongside him, was one of the beneficiaries. Two trebles at Barcelona and PSG later, he still insists “Guardiola is the greatest coach of all time” despite taking his compatriot’s mantle while the former City, Bayern Munich and Barca boss enjoys a sabbatical.

Enrique added: “He is No. 1... He is a model for everyone. Not just because of the trophies, but because he changed the game.”

Arguably nowhere is this more pronounced than in England. A country that was sceptical that Guardiola’s positional, possession-heavy approach would work on their shores and sneeringly queried if his most illustrious charge Lionel Messi “could do it on a cold, rainy night in Stoke”.

A decade ago, Guardiola’s midfield lieutenant at Barca, Xavi Hernandez, prophesised that he would “change the face of English football”.

Ten years on, even Xavi would be surprised at how much Guardiola has transformed it.

Writing in the Guardian, Jonathan Wilson, author of football tactics tome Inverting The Pyramid, noted: “Guardiola revolutionised the English game before it shaped him.

“Go down the divisions, to the ninth and 10th tiers and watch the football being played. This used to be the game in its rawest, least sophisticated form, physical, direct and played in thick mud for half the year. Yet now it’s common, almost the default, for sides to take goal kicks short, to pass out from the back.

“Talk to a coach at that level and they’ll tell you that kids simply grow up playing that way, in part because that’s what they see on television and think football looks like.”

While Guardiola was drastically changing English football in his image, he was also constantly painting over the portrait of what “Pep-ball” looked like.

From championing a modern false No. 9, he pivoted to an old-fashioned archetype of a striker. He has gone from flying fullbacks to inverted fullbacks, to playing centre-backs on both flanks. He once loved nothing more than converting midfielders into centre-backs, before coming full circle by turning his specialist centre-back into an auxiliary midfielder.

Guardiola’s internal evolution was endless, but his external impact may be timeless.