Pep Guardiola and the future of English football

MANCHESTER City achieved a historic domestic treble at the weekend, confirming Pep Guardiola’s status as the best coach in the world.

He’s a complex character though. Two incidents after Saturday’s FA Cup final gave an insight into the man and his current state of mind.

The first was the rather extraordinary sight of him giving animated analysis and coaching feedback to Raheem Sterling on the pitch after the game had finished.

A game that his team had won 6-0 and in which Sterling had scored two and given yet another scintillating performance.

Guardiola is relentless, a perfectionist and an obsessive person.

There’s something in the intensity of his stare; it’s as though he has a vision of the perfect game of football in his head and he won’t rest until his team deliver a performance worthy of it.

Did Pep really need to do it there and then though? There’s a time and a place and it felt like neither.

There was an element of performance to it, done publicly and therefore slightly for show. As a minimum he could have waited to make the point back in the dressing room.

The question of the appropriateness of time and place was raised by Guardiola himself in the post-match press conference.

A journalist asked him about payments that had been made previously to former City boss Roberto Mancini and whether Pep had received any similar payments.

The question implied that there was something illegitimate about the potential payments.

Guardiola was furiously affronted to have been asked about such a subject at that moment.

His point was that having just won the treble, that should be the only reasonable line of questioning to pursue there and then.

But I don’t think Pep is quite that naive.

Football clubs today make news almost as much as for what happens off the pitch as what occurs on it.

As one of the richest clubs in the world, Manchester City have to expect and accept that level of scrutiny.

City are currently under investigation by UEFA for potential breaches of financial fair play regulations and feathers are clearly ruffled at the club.

For all the magnificence of City’s treble win, Guardiola himself acknowledges that domestic dominance is not enough.

After the FA Cup win he said: “I know we will be judged at the end on whether we win the Champions League.”

This season was a big missed opportunity for City in Europe. I’m still amazed (and I suspect Pep is as well) that City didn’t beat Spurs over two legs in the Champions League.

Just like Liverpool’s quest for a Premier League title, the pressure on City in the Champions League increases with every year they fail to win it.

The all-English final between Liverpool and Spurs owes something to Guardiola though. He’s raised the standards so far in the Premier League that he’s improved three or four teams besides his own.

Liverpool’s incredible season has been built on shrewd signings, growing confidence and the need to try and match the exceptional excellence initiated by Guardiola at the Etihad.

Two all-English European finals this season highlights the fact that the top Premier League teams are finding a formula for success against the best of the other big leagues in Europe.

That formula is more recognisably Guardiola’s than anybody else’s.

It looks as though we are on the verge of a new era of English dominance in Europe, and it’s very surprising that Manchester City are not currently setting the standard for that.

Of the judgements that remain for City, none will be harsher than that of Pep himself.