Pep Guardiola is set to replace Manuel Pellegrini at the end of the current campaign for Manchester City.
The grass is not always greener on the other side, and nobody knows that better than Pep Guardiola’s current club, Bayern Munich. On Monday, it was confirmed that the Spanish tactician has opted to take over for Manuel Pellegrini at Manchester City, but few in Bavaria will be shedding any tears with Carlo Ancelotti on the way in.
Guardiola arrived at the Allianz Arena in the summer of 2013, after Bayern Munich had just won a treble under Jupp Heynckes. The German coach had become a fan favorite and a beloved figure in Munich, but he was being forced out so the club could bring in Guardiola, who had been looking for a new adventure after taking a year off on sabbatical.
"“We informed Jupp early on that we were in contact (with Pep Guardiola),” said Bayern Munich president, Uli Hoeness, at the time, via Sky Sports. “Of course he would have liked to have continued for another year, but in the end he decided this way. We are grateful that he didn’t make a scene.”"
Most clubs in Germany could only dream of winning three consecutive Bundesliga titles while on track to win a fourth, but Bayern Munich aren’t most teams. The Bavarian giants expect to win the league every season, and believe they should be strong favorites to claim the UEFA Champions League every year as well. It would be incredibly harsh to suggest that Guardiola’s time in Germany would be deemed an epic failure if he doesn’t manage to lift the continent’s most prestigious club trophy in his final season with Bayern, but it may be the truth.
The 45-year-old inherited the greatest team on the planet, and struggled to keep them there. At $24 million a season, Guardiola was made the highest paid coach in all of world soccer, but as of right now Bayern are still waiting on a return for their investment. After all, Heynckes earned $18.55 million less than Guardiola currently does, and he brought them to the Champions League final in both years he was in charge of the club during his third stint.
Guardiola wasn’t brought in to help Bayern achieve more domestic success, that had almost become a guarantee with the talent they already had. Instead, they gave Guardiola the biggest contract a coach had ever received because they believed the Spaniard would turn them into a global juggernaut that couldn’t be stopped.
While consecutive Champions League semi-final appearances is hardly anything to snuff at, it surely has to be seen as a step back from back-to-back final appearances, with a victory in one of them. Heynckes also led Bayern Munich to a 91-point season in his final year with the club- a total that Guardiola wasn’t able to match in either of his first two seasons in Germany.
Guardiola has one more chance to lead the Germans past the penultimate round of the continental competition, but they’ve been given a daunting task in the Round of 16. They will meet a strong Juventus side that did manage to reach the final last season and who have now won 13 consecutive league games.
Manuel Pellegrini arrived in Manchester at the same time Guardiola took up the helm at Bayern Munich and much like Guardiola, the Chilean managed to win a double in the first season with his new club. While Pellegrini wasn’t able to repeat the feat the following year like his colleague did, Manchester City still finished second in what is probably the world’s most competitive league.
Currently, Pellegrini has his side just three points behind Leicester City for first place in the English top flight, and they remain alive in all three cup competitions. They will take on Liverpool at Wembley Stadium in the Capital One Cup final on February 28th, and are heavy favorites to get past Dynamo Kyiv in the Champions League Round of 16. With all this in mind, it is difficult to comprehend exactly why the Citizens are so eager to rid themselves of the 62-year-old.
Whenever a new manager takes over, there is a necessary adjustment period for both the players and the coach. Even Jose Mourinho went trophy-less in his first season back with Chelsea and he already had experience coaching in England. Considering the complexity of Guardiola’s tactical setup, expect it to take even longer for Manchester City to be playing the type of soccer we are used to seeing from a side under the Spaniard’s tutelage.
With City Football Group- Manchester City’s parent company- now owning teams in Major League Soccer, Australia, and Japan, it is possible that the organization is thinking on a global scale and having Guardiola implement his style of play throughout all their teams. But that would also be the wrong approach, considering all four teams play in unique leagues on different continents.
It is ridiculous to suggest that the current Bayern Munich boss isn’t one of the best in the game, but for Manchester City to be in such a rush to replace Pellegrini seems equally absurd. Knowledge is largely experimental rendering it necessarily incomplete, but if one doesn’t learn from past experiences they’ll never see progression.
Manchester City simply seem unwilling to learn from Bayern Munich’s mistake. Even if Guardiola led the Bavarians to several domestic trophies, they didn’t need to drop everything at once in order to land him. Especially, considering they already had a man in place who was more than capable of doing the job, and with less than a quarter of the salary.
Pellegrini deserves a ton of credit for the way he has handled this whole situation. The Chilean shouldn’t have too much difficulty landing another job either, but it doesn’t feel right the way he has simply been tossed to the side.
Heynckes led Bayern Munich to Champions League glory with Guardiola lurking in the background in 2013, and one could just imagine what the headlines would read if Pellegrini did the same with Manchester City in 2016.