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"title": "Struggling Man City’s start this season will be a major test for Guardiola",
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"contents": "<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Despite all the success Spanish soccer coach Pep Guardiola has enjoyed during his legendary career, he has always been criticised for supposedly finding teams that are mostly intact, and just moulding them according to his extremely distinct philosophy.</span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Tactician Guardiola moulds teams that play fluid, flamboyant, free-flowing and possession-oriented soccer. His detractors regularly argue that he would struggle to create such teams at clubs with fewer resources and the player personnel he has worked with for much of his illustrious career.</span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">At Barcelona, Guardiola could call on the likes of Lionel Messi, Xavi Hernández, Andrés Iniesta, Dani Alves, David Villa and Sergio Busquets –who are each all-time greats in their positions.</span>\r\n<h4><b>Ready-made</b></h4>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Despite Guardiola clearly stamping his signature on that Barcelona team, as they dominated global soccer and won a mammoth 14 trophies during his time in Catalunya, credit for their success at the time has occasionally gone to Guardiola’s predecessor, Dutchman Frank Rijkaard.</span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">“Barcelona was already cooked. Pep’s work was easy, as he knew perfectly well the infrastructure of the youth system,” Hristo Stoichkov, Guardiola’s former Barcelona teammate, previously said.</span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">“Frank Rijkaard made the squad Pep took over. Messi and other players had already debuted with Rijkaard. Spectacular things would have been achieved with Pep or without.”</span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This notion has followed Guardiola for his entire journey as manager. It loomed over his head like an ominous thunder cloud when he finally left Barcelona in 2012 and joined German giants Bayern Munich in 2013.</span>\r\n\r\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-2497236\" src=\"https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/GettyImages-1497965389-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"Guardiola City\" width=\"1919\" height=\"2560\" /> <em>Pep Guardiola, as manager of Manchester City, celebrates with the UEFA Champions League trophy. (Photo: Catherine Ivill / Getty Images)</em></p>\r\n<h4><b>Bayern ‘failure’</b></h4>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Guardiola took over a Bayern team that had just won a treble under Jupp Heynckes. Guardiola, whose trophy haul at Barcelona included a treble in 2011, was expected to maintain these standards in Munich.</span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Although he succeeded in claiming a healthy haul of silverware (including three league titles, two German Cups and a Club World Cup), the European Champions League remained elusive during his stay.</span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Bayern were eliminated in the semifinals during each of Guardiola’s years in charge. This was despite the team boasting a plethora of stars, including Thomas Müller, Franck Ribéry, the injury-plagued Arjen Robben, Philipp Lahm, Toni Kroos, Xabi Alonso and Robert Lewandowski.</span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In his time in Germany, Guardiola’s tactical brilliance and obsession with the smallest details shone through. But because he was brought to Bayern to help them dominate in Europe and beyond, his domestic success did not save him from his critics, who labelled him a failure for not winning the Champions League.</span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">At the time, Guardiola admitted that the lack of a Champions League title would make his time in Germany “incomplete in the eyes of some people”.</span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">However, he also said: “But if you ask how my time at Bayern was then I would say it was only positive.”</span>\r\n<h4><b>City success</b></h4>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Now he is at Manchester City, where he has been since leaving Bayern in 2016. Unlike his time in Germany, Guardiola’s tenure at City saw him finally win another Champions League in 2023, in addition to the two he clinched with Barcelona.</span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">With this victory the Spanish coaching powerhouse made history by becoming the only manager with two European trebles after the one he won with Barca in 2011. He also moved to three Champions League titles – two fewer than the most successful manager in the competition’s history, Carlo Ancelotti.</span>\r\n\r\n<b>Read more: </b><a href=\"https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2024-09-29-the-striking-impact-of-pep-guardiolas-influence-will-reverberate-long-after-he-has-ended-his-storied-career/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The striking impact of Pep Guardiola’s influence will reverberate long after he has ended his storied career</span></a>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">“Winning this competition and the treble is so difficult, and that’s why today it’s not important how we did it. It only matters that we did it,” he said after grabbing another piece of history.</span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Over and above guiding City to this historic European conquest in just their second final, Guardiola has turned them into a Premier League winning machine.</span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Last season, the Citizens picked up their fourth consecutive league trophy, and their sixth overall under Guardiola’s tutelage. In its history the club has won the English top flight 10 times.</span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In spite of the identity and winning mentality Guardiola has clearly instilled in the team, his critics have said he is basking in the shade of a tree that was planted by City’s first superstar manager, Roberto Mancini. The Italian was roped in by the club’s Emirati billionaire owner, Sheikh Mansour, in 2009 – a year on from Mansour’s takeover of the Manchester club.</span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Mancini won City’s first league title in the Premier League era in 2012, but was sacked the next year. Chilean great Manuel Pellegrini took over the reins and won the league in his first season at the helm. He also won a couple of domestic trophies during his time in Manchester, which ended in 2016, to usher in the Guardiola era.</span>\r\n\r\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-2497235\" src=\"https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/GettyImages-520918080-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1704\" height=\"2560\" /> <em>Pep Guardiola at a match against Benfica during his time as Bayern Munich coach from 2013 to 2016. (Photo: Octavio Passos / Getty Images)</em></p>\r\n\r\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-2497234\" src=\"https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/GettyImages-88019902-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1707\" height=\"2560\" /> <em>Pep Guardiola is thrown into the air by Barcelona players as they celebrate winning the 2009 UEFA Champions League title while he was their coach. (Photo: Getty Images / Getty Images)</em></p>\r\n<h4><b>Turbulent time</b></h4>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">“For a long time, we didn’t win and to break that first step like Roberto did and after Manuel, it’s huge credit. Maybe we would not be here without that,” Guardiola said, paying homage to his predecessors.</span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Now Guardiola finds himself needing to pull City out of a major lurch. The club has struggled to win matches recently. Their 2-0 defeat to Liverpool last weekend left the Citizens on a seven-match losing streak.</span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Prior to this run Guardiola had never lost more than three matches in a row in his coaching career.</span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Before the loss to Liverpool, City had surrendered a 3-0 lead to Feyenoord in the Champions League, with 16 minutes left to play.</span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That match left Guardiola bruised (both literally and figuratively).</span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">“With my finger, my nail. I want to harm myself,” Guardiola told the media after that fixture.</span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">He has since apologised for his remarks and said he did not intend to make light of mental health struggles. Despite him retracting his statement, his offhand comment demonstrated the frustration he is feeling at the moment.</span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Throughout his coaching career he has faced challenges, but putting City back on the train tracks by reconfiguring the confidence of his players may very well be his biggest challenge to date.</span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">He still has quality players at his disposal, but they are playing with heavy heads and feet as current Premier League log leaders Liverpool continue to pull away. </span><b>DM</b>\r\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><i>This story first appeared in our weekly </i>Daily Maverick 168<i> newspaper, which is available countrywide for R35.</i></span></p>\r\n<img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-2496898\" src=\"https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/DM-07122024001-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1181\" height=\"1553\" />",
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"description": "<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Despite all the success Spanish soccer coach Pep Guardiola has enjoyed during his legendary career, he has always been criticised for supposedly finding teams that are mostly intact, and just moulding them according to his extremely distinct philosophy.</span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Tactician Guardiola moulds teams that play fluid, flamboyant, free-flowing and possession-oriented soccer. His detractors regularly argue that he would struggle to create such teams at clubs with fewer resources and the player personnel he has worked with for much of his illustrious career.</span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">At Barcelona, Guardiola could call on the likes of Lionel Messi, Xavi Hernández, Andrés Iniesta, Dani Alves, David Villa and Sergio Busquets –who are each all-time greats in their positions.</span>\r\n<h4><b>Ready-made</b></h4>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Despite Guardiola clearly stamping his signature on that Barcelona team, as they dominated global soccer and won a mammoth 14 trophies during his time in Catalunya, credit for their success at the time has occasionally gone to Guardiola’s predecessor, Dutchman Frank Rijkaard.</span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">“Barcelona was already cooked. Pep’s work was easy, as he knew perfectly well the infrastructure of the youth system,” Hristo Stoichkov, Guardiola’s former Barcelona teammate, previously said.</span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">“Frank Rijkaard made the squad Pep took over. Messi and other players had already debuted with Rijkaard. Spectacular things would have been achieved with Pep or without.”</span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This notion has followed Guardiola for his entire journey as manager. It loomed over his head like an ominous thunder cloud when he finally left Barcelona in 2012 and joined German giants Bayern Munich in 2013.</span>\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_2497236\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"1919\"]<img class=\"size-full wp-image-2497236\" src=\"https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/GettyImages-1497965389-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"Guardiola City\" width=\"1919\" height=\"2560\" /> <em>Pep Guardiola, as manager of Manchester City, celebrates with the UEFA Champions League trophy. (Photo: Catherine Ivill / Getty Images)</em>[/caption]\r\n<h4><b>Bayern ‘failure’</b></h4>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Guardiola took over a Bayern team that had just won a treble under Jupp Heynckes. Guardiola, whose trophy haul at Barcelona included a treble in 2011, was expected to maintain these standards in Munich.</span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Although he succeeded in claiming a healthy haul of silverware (including three league titles, two German Cups and a Club World Cup), the European Champions League remained elusive during his stay.</span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Bayern were eliminated in the semifinals during each of Guardiola’s years in charge. This was despite the team boasting a plethora of stars, including Thomas Müller, Franck Ribéry, the injury-plagued Arjen Robben, Philipp Lahm, Toni Kroos, Xabi Alonso and Robert Lewandowski.</span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In his time in Germany, Guardiola’s tactical brilliance and obsession with the smallest details shone through. But because he was brought to Bayern to help them dominate in Europe and beyond, his domestic success did not save him from his critics, who labelled him a failure for not winning the Champions League.</span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">At the time, Guardiola admitted that the lack of a Champions League title would make his time in Germany “incomplete in the eyes of some people”.</span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">However, he also said: “But if you ask how my time at Bayern was then I would say it was only positive.”</span>\r\n<h4><b>City success</b></h4>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Now he is at Manchester City, where he has been since leaving Bayern in 2016. Unlike his time in Germany, Guardiola’s tenure at City saw him finally win another Champions League in 2023, in addition to the two he clinched with Barcelona.</span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">With this victory the Spanish coaching powerhouse made history by becoming the only manager with two European trebles after the one he won with Barca in 2011. He also moved to three Champions League titles – two fewer than the most successful manager in the competition’s history, Carlo Ancelotti.</span>\r\n\r\n<b>Read more: </b><a href=\"https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2024-09-29-the-striking-impact-of-pep-guardiolas-influence-will-reverberate-long-after-he-has-ended-his-storied-career/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The striking impact of Pep Guardiola’s influence will reverberate long after he has ended his storied career</span></a>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">“Winning this competition and the treble is so difficult, and that’s why today it’s not important how we did it. It only matters that we did it,” he said after grabbing another piece of history.</span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Over and above guiding City to this historic European conquest in just their second final, Guardiola has turned them into a Premier League winning machine.</span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Last season, the Citizens picked up their fourth consecutive league trophy, and their sixth overall under Guardiola’s tutelage. In its history the club has won the English top flight 10 times.</span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In spite of the identity and winning mentality Guardiola has clearly instilled in the team, his critics have said he is basking in the shade of a tree that was planted by City’s first superstar manager, Roberto Mancini. The Italian was roped in by the club’s Emirati billionaire owner, Sheikh Mansour, in 2009 – a year on from Mansour’s takeover of the Manchester club.</span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Mancini won City’s first league title in the Premier League era in 2012, but was sacked the next year. Chilean great Manuel Pellegrini took over the reins and won the league in his first season at the helm. He also won a couple of domestic trophies during his time in Manchester, which ended in 2016, to usher in the Guardiola era.</span>\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_2497235\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"1704\"]<img class=\"size-full wp-image-2497235\" src=\"https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/GettyImages-520918080-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1704\" height=\"2560\" /> <em>Pep Guardiola at a match against Benfica during his time as Bayern Munich coach from 2013 to 2016. (Photo: Octavio Passos / Getty Images)</em>[/caption]\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_2497234\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"1707\"]<img class=\"size-full wp-image-2497234\" src=\"https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/GettyImages-88019902-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1707\" height=\"2560\" /> <em>Pep Guardiola is thrown into the air by Barcelona players as they celebrate winning the 2009 UEFA Champions League title while he was their coach. (Photo: Getty Images / Getty Images)</em>[/caption]\r\n<h4><b>Turbulent time</b></h4>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">“For a long time, we didn’t win and to break that first step like Roberto did and after Manuel, it’s huge credit. Maybe we would not be here without that,” Guardiola said, paying homage to his predecessors.</span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Now Guardiola finds himself needing to pull City out of a major lurch. The club has struggled to win matches recently. Their 2-0 defeat to Liverpool last weekend left the Citizens on a seven-match losing streak.</span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Prior to this run Guardiola had never lost more than three matches in a row in his coaching career.</span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Before the loss to Liverpool, City had surrendered a 3-0 lead to Feyenoord in the Champions League, with 16 minutes left to play.</span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That match left Guardiola bruised (both literally and figuratively).</span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">“With my finger, my nail. I want to harm myself,” Guardiola told the media after that fixture.</span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">He has since apologised for his remarks and said he did not intend to make light of mental health struggles. Despite him retracting his statement, his offhand comment demonstrated the frustration he is feeling at the moment.</span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Throughout his coaching career he has faced challenges, but putting City back on the train tracks by reconfiguring the confidence of his players may very well be his biggest challenge to date.</span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">He still has quality players at his disposal, but they are playing with heavy heads and feet as current Premier League log leaders Liverpool continue to pull away. </span><b>DM</b>\r\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><i>This story first appeared in our weekly </i>Daily Maverick 168<i> newspaper, which is available countrywide for R35.</i></span></p>\r\n<img class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-2496898\" src=\"https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/DM-07122024001-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1181\" height=\"1553\" />",
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Pep Guardiola, as manager of Manchester City, celebrates with the UEFA Champions League trophy. (Photo: Catherine Ivill / Getty Images)
Pep Guardiola at a match against Benfica during his time as Bayern Munich coach from 2013 to 2016. (Photo: Octavio Passos / Getty Images)
Pep Guardiola is thrown into the air by Barcelona players as they celebrate winning the 2009 UEFA Champions League title while he was their coach. (Photo: Getty Images / Getty Images)