The show goes on: Good news for some, bad news for many
The dawning reality of the two greatest managers of their generation prolonging stays at their clubs will send a shudder through their rivals.
It is the worst nightmare for Manchester United, Chelsea, Arsenal, Tottenham Hotspur and any other Premier League club with ambitions to win the title. It is one of the greatest fears for any big club across Europe – from Bayern Munich to Paris StGermain to Real Madrid.
Less than three weeks after Pep Guardiola said he was ready to commit to Manchester City with a long-term contract extension and is ‘‘willing to stay forever’’ it has been revealed that Liverpool have secured Jurgen Klopp to a new deal after persuading him to remain.
The only succour for their rivals, until thismonth, all of whom are desperate to find the ‘‘next Pep or the next Jurgen’’, all of whom benchmark their managers against them, is that the clockwas ticking on their careers at City and Liverpool.
Guardiola has one more season after this campaign, with City having a gentleman’s agreement
Manchester United
v Brentford.
Title race: Manchester City have 80 points to Liverpool’s 79. Both teams have five matches to play. City’s goal difference is plus 59, Liverpool’s plus 63.
that he can leave at the end of the season – at the end of each season – if he wishes. No-one expects him to stay for the rest of his career but it appears he is considering a longer time.
Klopp has previously been adamant that he will be burnt out when his deal expires in 2024 and needs a break.
Suddenly that landscape has dramatically shifted. The dawning reality of Guardiola and Klopp prolonging their stays at their clubs, having undoubtedly created the best two teams not just in England but in Europe, will send a shudder through their rivals.
It also hints at something else. Klopp has been at Anfield since October 2015. If he sees out his current deal that is nine years, an impressive tenure and the longest he has stayed at any club, although he does have a history of sticking around. Guardiola joined City in July 2016 and if he fulfils his contract it will be seven years and, again, his longest period inmanagement.
The natural assumption is that both would look for a new challenge. But if Guardiola joins Klopp in remaining in place, it would confirm something else: both realise it simply does not get any better than where they are now. It does not get any better than this.
And that is terrible news for their rivals who also cite those two as being almost untouchable.
Where can this be replicated? And why would they go in search of something that may take years to re-find? Guardiola could go to Italy and, therefore, win leagues in the four major European football leagues, or Klopp could go to Spain. But where they are now is at the absolute summit.
In fact it is starting to appear that the next challenge, as Guardiola has already hinted, would be a completely new one: both could eventually become national team coaches. Guardiola has a real desire to one day do this and is fascinated by the mystique of Brazil, the iconic yellow shirt of the Selecao and what it represents. There is an assumption in Germany that one day Klopp will take charge of Die Mannschaft. It also suggests that Guardiola and Klopp need each other. They were rivals in Germany but this is on a different scale, not least because Klopp has been far better-equipped by Liverpool to challenge. It seems that their own personal rivalry, even if it is cloaked in a deep mutual respect and a desire not to make it something spiteful, is driving each other one.
These are the two greatest managers of their generation. There is no doubt about that. Noone disputes it. How remarkable it is, then, that they both appear to want to embrace the challenge of taking the other on; that it drives them, personally, just as it drives their teams and their clubs.
If Klopp wins an unprecedented quadruple then, surely, that should be his ‘mic drop’ moment? After all, where would he go from there? It seems the answer is to try and do it again; to create a dynasty like Sir Alex Ferguson at Manchester United and to do it against Guardiola and City who are such formidable opponents. What a legacy that would be. Guardiola is similarly creating history. If Citywin the Champions League it will be for the first time ever and end the search for that Holy Grail. If they retain the league title they will have won it in four of the last five years – and have done so against Klopp’s Liverpool.
There is yet another dimension. Fascinatingly each team is the other’s ‘Kryptonite’. No-one else could blow Liverpool away as City have done – twice – in the league this season, in the first-halves of their meetings at Anfield and the Etihad. Conversely no-one could have resisted the way Liverpool did, gaining draws in both those games, and then destroying City in the first half of their FA Cup semifinal, knocking them out of that competition and ending their hopes of a treble.
If a team – and amanager – were to be designed to hurt Liverpool then it would be City and Guardiola. If a team – and a manager – were built to exploit City’s weaknesses then it would be Liverpool and Klopp. Each can target the other’s weakness. Each is strong enough to resist and hit back.
So the over-riding sense is, fantastically, that both managers also feel the other is driving him on to greater heights. That the challenge is too important to shirk. Somewill say it needs that bit of nastiness, that bit of personal enmity as existed between Ferguson and Arsene Wenger in their pomp, to make it a great rivalry, and that may be true.
My view? The quality of the football and their personalities transcends that andwe should celebrate that. The possibility of Klopp and Guardiola signing new deals may not be what their rivals want to hear but, as they have done with each other, it is up to them to embrace the challenge rather than hope it goes away.
It seems that their own personal rivalry, even if it is cloaked in a deep mutual respect and a desire not to make it something spiteful, is driving each other one.
Above, Jurgen Klopp, left, and Pep Guardiola