He owned a Bentley back then. Back when Manchester City had only four league titles to their name. Back when navigating the three entrances to their sprawling training ground, encased by green mesh, was all new.
Pep Guardiola arrived on day one ready to work, domination of English football a distant dream, so long ago that David Cameron and Barack Obama were both still in office.
He pulled up to the gates as the most recognisable coach in world football, pioneer of a new wave and a trophy hoarder, but his face alone was not enough for whoever manned the booth at City’s HQ that particular morning.
He gave his name. It wasn’t down, so Guardiola’s not coming in, told to turn the car around and try one of the other two entrances. At least he was on wheels – former Argentina coach Jorge Sampaoli was once made to walk around the lengthy perimeter on a visit – but hardly the welcome he may have anticipated.
The irony of that exchange was that Guardiola had spent weeks learning the names of staff he might encounter in the first-team building, having asked for headshots of them all well in advance of his start date.
When finally striding through the automatic glass doors, he greeted Stacey behind reception by name. These are the people who he’s since gifted his own title-winning bonuses to.
Pep Guardiola at his Manchester City unveiling back in July 2016 – he arrived 15 major trophies into his coaching journey, and has added a further 14 since
Guardiola was in the building, 450 matches and 15 major trophies into his coaching journey. On Sunday, he takes charge of a 550th as City manager and the 1,000th of such a distinguished career – poetically coming against old foes Liverpool – and enters a vaunted, exclusive club populated by those old timers he so reveres.
Of them, Neil Warnock (1,960 games managed) was invited to watch City train last year, spending an hour-and-a-half talking to Guardiola afterwards. Warnock even told the Catalan to sign a new contract and refresh the squad last season, amid a tortuous run of one win in 13.
Go back to 2018 and one colleague of Guardiola’s says he was cooing like a baby at the prospect of pitting his wits against Everton boss Sam Allardyce (1,064 games) at Goodison Park, one of his favourite arenas.
He’s there with them now, in the pantheon of longevity, and at 54 is one of the youngest ever to achieve the feat. ‘Pep’s always been lord of the manor here,’ one City source says. ‘Txiki (Begiristain, former director of football) set it up like that.’
Legend has it that the Bentley that Guardiola was driving on day one was later damaged by a mischievous bollard. Guardiola moved first into a more functional Nissan Leaf and then a Ford Capri. During the pandemic, staff giggled at their huge electronic gates opening to unveil a middle-aged man on a pushbike arriving for work.
The flashier car has gone, the snappy suits are less regularly worn. Guardiola’s not gone full grizzle yet but, over his decade here, he has morphed into a sage, someone who casts a more despairing eye at the game’s changing culture.
Someone who complains to friends that humour has vanished at the highest level, that data is taking over. And someone, despite popular opinion, whose old-school values are becoming more evident by the year. At one dinner, after a goalless draw away at Atletico Madrid, he moaned at a lack of recognition for his team’s defensive quality.
Is this the Guardiola we think we know? Almost certainly not.
‘I think when he arrived, he thought about staying three or four years,’ says Bernardo Silva, Guardiola’s latest captain. ‘That’s what people say. Then he felt at home. I keep hearing every year that it’s his last one… I’ve been hearing that for five years! And he keeps going!’
By 2021, Guardiola was already privately discussing the idea that City would be his last club job because he hadn’t the appetite to start all over again elsewhere. Maybe that is why he’s made it to season 10.
One thousand matches over the course of 18 years, from the Spanish fourth division to completing two European Trebles, with a break of just one season between Barcelona and Bayern Munich. A phenomenal tactician matched by a phenomenal thirst for coaching and – latterly, surprisingly – a phenomenal admiration for English football.
As evidence, in his office on a Saturday matchday, he’s been known to switch on the early National League kick-off. Guardiola marvels at the crowds fifth-tier clubs can pull and genuinely loves the spectacle.
Condensing Guardiola’s impact on City, how he did it all and what were the triggers, is impossible. Some say a five-day stay at Celtic Manor in September 2016 lay the foundations for what the culture around the team would look like, a genial Guardiola mingling through a barbecue for players and staff, keen to know the personal stories of the sports scientists, the kit men.
It gave the impression that everybody was integral – clear when Guardiola used a large portion of his pre-Champions League final address in 2023 to recognise sous chef Jorge Gutierrez’s dedication to the club before leaving for pastures new. Gutierrez was hired from Tapeo & Wine, the now closed Deansgate restaurant of Juan Mata’s father that Guardiola frequented so often in his early years here.
Despite dozens of staff coming and going during his tenure, that collective has always existed and been seen as fundamental. As for the players, sources reveal he ‘won’ the dressing room in the final weeks of his second season. Title sorted in April, Guardiola came back in ‘grumpy’ after three days’ partying. He’d plastered potential records City could break across the training ground walls.
‘Guys, don’t think it is holidays now – we have these records, I want to achieve these,’ he told his squad. ‘If you want to go on holiday, there is the door, that is fine – this applies to players and staff.’
Pep Guardiola on the open-top bus parade to celebrate City’s Premier League title in May 2024
And holding aloft the FA Cup in 2019. The Spaniard has won the trophy twice with City
Guardiola has a strong affection for English football and invited old-timer Neil Warnock to watch City train last year
Players looked at each other, bewildered. Some asked if it was a wind-up.
Nobody got on a plane and the records tumbled. City ended up posting the most points (100), most away points (50), most points ahead of second (19), most wins (32), most away wins (16), most goals (106), best goal difference (+79) and most consecutive victories (18).
Those involved remember that week, still talk about that week.
‘It was a change of mindset,’ one source says. ‘If we want City to be one of the best in the world, we cannot stop at one Premier League. We have to raise our standards.’
Standards. In December 2019, the morning after a staff Christmas party, Guardiola was breezing through the training ground asking where everybody was: ‘Back-to-back Premier League titles and nobody is working. What the…?’
Silva says it is Guardiola’s honesty with the squad that sets him apart, revealing that a town hall meeting in mid-January last season, where every single player was invited to speak their mind, reversed their fortunes. Quieter squad members felt emboldened to address the group with concerns.
The Portuguese midfielder fondly recounts one session from 2017-18, his first season after signing from Monaco when they were obliterating all who stood before them. ‘Pep asked us, “Are you tired? F*** you!” This kind of energy… I know this because I’ve worked with him a long time, he knows when to shout a bit, to keep people on their toes, to provoke a response.
‘He knows the things he is saying are not right at half-time for example… that even when the team is winning, he brings this fire. Sometimes he does stuff like that to keep us awake. He does it on purpose.’
City celebrate winning the title in Guardiola’s second season, 2018-2019, when they smashed all sorts of records after being urged not to drop their standards by their manager
Guardiola with chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak, chief executive Ferran Soriano and director of football Txiki Begiristain after winning the Premier League in 2024, his sixth title with City
Like when he berated them all for not wanting the ball at half-time of a Champions League tie at Sporting CP. City were winning 4-0.
His friends call him a lion in the dressing room and one team talk, when a goal down midway through a European tie at Paris Saint-Germain in April 2021, is recognised as one of the greats, the spinetingling speech about mentality and the team’s ability described as top notch. City won 2-1 that night on their way to reaching a first Champions League final.
‘He’s very gripping, makes you feel and believe,’ says John Stones. ‘When he speaks, that’s it, you’re zoned in on him. What he says, how he says it, when he says it. That hasn’t stopped for me for 10 years – daily meetings, team talks. It’s something that it’s hard for me to describe.’
Other key figures behind the scenes point towards a contrarian nature. If City look relaxed in training, he digs them out. If City appear anxious in training, he’ll give them a collective cuddle. Dressing-downs are far less likely when they’re losing. More demanding when things are going swimmingly.
‘When people say they didn’t understand football until they met Pep, that is exactly what they mean,’ Ilkay Gundogan says. ‘He opens your eyes to a level of detail and ambition you didn’t even know existed.’
At Galatasaray this season, Gundogan is eyeing management after retirement, following other disciples Mikel Arteta, Enzo Maresca and Vincent Kompany.
‘I’ve had serious conversations with Pep about this and he’s been very supportive,’ he says. ‘Pep always jokes that if I ever become a coach, I shouldn’t call him to ask for advice.
‘That I have to figure it out myself. And I definitely shouldn’t call him once he’s retired: “I don’t want to hear from you then!”’
Phil Foden celebrates with the Champions League trophy in 2023, the only time Guardiola has led City to the trophy
Ilkay Gundogan says of Guardiola: ‘He noticed that I had a habit of arriving in the box just at the right moment and he encouraged me to trust that instinct more.’
Gundogan is a Pep Guardiola player. Gundogan may actually be the Pep Guardiola player. His first City signing, seen as so important that City moved for him when he was injured. All-seeing, all-knowing. Eyes in the back of his head, Mastermind intelligence, silk in the boots. And the brain to convert midfield link play into plenty of goals. Gundogan’s transformation into a top scorer when reclaiming the title in 2021 – finishing with 17 in all competitions – was one real evolution of Guardiola’s City.
‘He noticed that I had a habit of arriving in the box just at the right moment and he encouraged me to trust that instinct more,’ Gundogan adds. ‘I needed to time my runs better and arrive late in the box to create more scoring chances without losing balance in midfield.’
Of course, a year later Gundogan’s timing into the box created the most dramatic final day since Sergio Aguero.
Hours were pored into perfecting it, while Stones says his conversion into a central midfielder comes from Guardiola’s steady obsession on his improving body shape – coming to a crescendo with him running the Champions League final against Inter two years ago.
To put that into context, Guardiola has stopped a session stone dead just because someone’s received a pass off the wrong foot. And the disapproving glances he’s shot seasoned coaches for not ‘setting’ the ball properly during drills have occasionally made them go weak at the knees. ‘Training is wild,’ one says – and not just because kit men have been utilised as opposition defenders.
Gundogan and Stones are two of the more pronounced tactical alterations but Guardiola has, in no particular order, tinkered with: inverted full backs, a three-man defence when building up, using Phil Foden as a false nine, using Kevin De Bruyne as a false nine, a 4-4-2, a box midfield, two at the back, and five attackers in the forward line (4-1-5).
There was a very brief dalliance with a back five early on. There will be more. Coaches at rival clubs have disclosed how they’ve driven themselves mad clock-watching when City truly strangled matches, how they felt completely naked and exposed.
There have been plenty of those moments in the 6,642 days since Guardiola’s managerial career began against CE Premia with Barca’s B team, at a municipal 1,500-capacity ground surrounded by high-rise flats and seven streets from the Catalan coast. A goalless draw at a time Guardiola questioned his own principles. Things have looked up since.
Guardiola transformed John Stones into a central midfielder from a centre half. ‘He’s very gripping, makes you feel and believe,’ says Stones
‘It’s not simple to describe Pep,’ Silva says. ‘He takes you to another level. He’s different from other managers.’
‘It’s not simple to describe Pep,’ Silva says. ‘That he was a top player and won a lot helps. I think he has the understanding of what it’s like. In terms of offensive concepts, he takes you to another level. He’s different from other managers.
‘You never saw Man City playing the same way. We always change. That’s because he always thinks that if we don’t change, people will adapt and be able to control the way we play.’
This is why, in his first year at the Etihad Stadium, one £60million signing admitted to peers over lunch that it was the only time in his career that he couldn’t complain about being dropped.
That he had noticed over a period of weeks that you couldn’t question Guardiola’s foresight in how matches panned out. ‘The players connected with Pep,’ one source says. ‘He convinces you. He makes you want to die – not just for him but for the rest too.’
