₦airaland Forum

Pep Guardiola has reiterated that he will take a break from coaching after leaving Manchester City, admitting it could be as long as 15 years.

The Spaniard, 54, is the most successful manager in City's history, having won 18 trophies, including six Premier League titles and the Champions League.

His contract expires in 2027 and while Guardiola has not specified when he will leave the club, he has once again claimed his sabbatical is "decided."

Guardiola, who told ESPN in May that he would leave City when his contract ends, told GQ Spain: "I know that after this stage with City I'm going to stop, that's for sure. It's decided, more than decided.

"I don't know how long I'll stop for, a year, two years, three years, five, ten, fifteen, I don't know. But I will leave after this spell with City because I need to stop and focus on myself, on my body."

Guardiola. who signed a contract extension in November, is coming off a difficult season at City. The club finished trophyless for the first time since Guardiola took the helm in 2016.

"I've spent four or five months this year in every away stadium with the crowd chanting, 'You'll be sacked in the morning. They're going to fire you'," Guardiola said. "There's no other profession, architect, teacher, doctor, journalist... where 60,000 people ask you to lose your job.

"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 did, it went deeper than we could have imagined."

Injuries plagued City last season, with the team losing Ballon d'Or award winner Rodri to a right ACL injury in September. City had their earliest Champions League exit since the 2012-13 campaign and finished third in the Premier League. Yet Guardiola insists the season was not a failure.

"It hasn't been that bad," he said. "In the end we reached the final of the FA Cup and finished third, we didn't finish twelfth. In hindsight, we'll see that it hasn't been such a bad season. But we did go many months without winning a game. We went 13 or 14 games without a win, and that was ... it had never happened before. But it puts you in your place."

Guardiola maintains an even keel with respect to trophies. "Even when I was winning, I didn't feel we were anything special," the former Barcelona and Bayern Munich coach said. "Now that we haven't won, I don't feel like a failure."

Guardiola expects City to bounce back strong. "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'll do better."

City begin their Premier League campaign at Wolves on Aug. 16.

BlackViper:
https://www.espn.com/soccer/story/_/id/45840992/pep-guardiola-take-15-year-break-leaving-man-city

NastiLord:
Dead retirement. He knows he's fading out though he has achieved what Arsene Wenger, Arteta and Arsenal will never achieve