Pep Guardiola has reiterated his intention to take a break from football after leaving Manchester City, admitting that it could be for a period of up to 15 years.
The 54-year-old Spanish coach is the most successful manager in City’s history, with 18 titles, including six Premier League titles and the Champions League.
His contract expires in 2027 and, although Guardiola has not specified when he will leave the club, he has stated that his sabbatical is “decided”.
I know that after this stage with City I will stop, that’s for sure. It’s decided, more than decided.
Guardiola also commented: “I don’t know how long I will stop, one year, two years, three years, five, ten, fifteen, I don’t know. But I will leave after this period with City because I need to stop and concentrate on myself, on my body.”
In November, Guardiola signed a contract extension. Last season was difficult for City, as the club didn’t win any titles for the first time since Guardiola took over in 2016.
Guardiola recounted: “I’ve spent four or five months this year in every away stadium with the fans chanting: ‘You’ll be fired in the morning. You’re going to be fired.’ There’s no other profession, architect, teacher, doctor, journalist… where 60,000 people ask you to lose your job.”Pep Guardiola ha dicho que se tomará un descanso del entrenamiento después de dejar el Manchester City.Guardiola added: “When you win six Premier Leagues, there comes a time when you go down. It’s human nature… it’s a process that had to happen, it happens, it took longer to happen, and when it happened, it was deeper than we could have imagined.”
Last season, City was affected by injuries, losing Ballon d’Or winner Rodri to an ACL injury in September. City had their earliest Champions League exit since the 2012-13 campaign and finished third in the Premier League. However, Guardiola insists the season was not a failure.
Guardiola commented: “It hasn’t been that bad. In the end, we reached the FA Cup final and finished third, we didn’t finish twelfth. In retrospect, we will see that it hasn’t been such a bad season. But yes, we spent many months without winning a match. We went 13 or 14 games without winning, and that was… it had never happened before. But it puts you in your place.”
Guardiola remains calm regarding trophies. “Even when we were winning, I didn’t feel we were anything special,” said the former Barcelona and Bayern Munich coach. “Now that we haven’t won, I don’t feel like a failure.”
Guardiola expects City to bounce back strongly. “Speaking on behalf of Manchester City, it has been very healthy for us,” he said. “Because success can confuse you. It hasn’t confused us for many years, but this year the players have been injured a lot… but I think it will be very good for the next five or ten years. And next year [this coming season] we will do better.”
The City will begin their Premier League campaign at Wolves on August 16.
