Pep Guardiola said he would be out of football “for a while” after his departure from Manchester City was confirmed on Friday following a decade of glittering success in which he won 17 major trophies.
With the former Chelsea head coach Enzo Maresca expected to replace him, Guardiola revealed he was leaving due to his energy levels declining.
City announced they would rename the Etihad Stadium’s extended North Stand in his honour. The Pep Guardiola Stand will open on Sunday for Aston Villa’s visit in the season’s final game. A statue of him will also be made and placed on the approach to the stand in due course.
Guardiola is certain to be inundated with offers of work but he is clear regarding the future. “Rest. No plans to train for a while. Otherwise I would be here. I need to step back, I will not train for a while,” he said. “Many people when I said it will be my last season said after three months you will come back. I don’t think so, I will take a while, but I have to prove to myself [that I need a rest].”
In his last two jobs, Guardiola managed Barcelona from 2008 to 2012 and Bayern Munich from 2013 to 2016.
He said: “It’s not 10 years – except half a year in New York, it has been 17 or 18 years every three days with people demanding trebles and Premier Leagues and I need to breathe a little bit and relax. I will be out for a while.
“I feel really satisfied, happy and proud. It has been the experience of my life at City, otherwise I would not have been 10 years. I cannot be more grateful for the amount of love and affection.”
The naming of the stand touched Guardiola as it will carry the family name of his 94-year-old father. He said: “I’m speechless, no words. What can I say? Khaldoon [al-Mubarak, the City chair] called me this morning and said the club made that decision. I like to feel that my vibe or my energy will be there for ever – good energy for the team.
“My father will come on Sunday, 94 years old, to watch the game. It’s an incredible honour to have his name in this beautiful place.”
Guardiola, 55, claimed 20 trophies in total, including three Community Shields. He guided City to the treble in 2022-23, including their only Champions League to date, won the Uefa Super Cup that summer, and Club World Cup in December 2023, and the next season a record fourth consecutive Premier League.
The first of City’s six league titles under him, in 2017-18, came with a 100-point tally, another record, plus 106 goals, and the next term the domestic treble was claimed. Guardiola also won four consecutive Carabao Cups, from 2018 to 2021, and made it five in total this season. Last Saturday’s 1-0 FA Cup final triumph over Chelsea was his last piece of silverware.
Guardiola was asked how his era might be remembered. “Hopefully they enjoyed watching us,” he said. “The moments were fun – moments we played really good and others not. I would say the first Premier League was important and, of course, I cannot deny the Champions League.
“There is one sentence, talking to Noel Gallagher two years ago and he said: ‘We were a team not able to win four games in a row and now we are going for four Premier Leagues in a row’. I said: ‘Wow, that is a good sentence for the step since Abu Dhabi took over [September 2008]. To be part of that made me so happy.”
Guardiola suggested his decision was taken after a gradual process of losing energy. “It’s the time,” he said. “It’s not waking up and think: ‘Now is the time to leave.’ I felt it for a while [this] and always the club respect me unbelievably. Ten years is a lot of time and I think the club needs a new manager, new energy with the incredible players that we have right now and we start to write another chapter.”
In a club video confirming his departure earlier in the day, he said: “Don’t ask me the reasons I’m leaving. There is no reason, but deep inside I know it’s my time. Nothing is eternal.”
But Guardiola will take up an ambassadorial role within the City Football Group, the umbrella company that owns Manchester City. “When we talked together, I said: ‘I would love to continue to be part of this club.’ I will take zero decisions but to be part of the club if they need me to represent them or do something at the many clubs that this organisation has I will be there.”
Sir Alex Ferguson was among those who congratulated Guardiola on his 10 years at the club. “With his Scottish accent I struggled to understand – it was a voicemail,” Guardiola said of the former Manchester United manager. “I will call him back for sure. He congratulated me for the trajectory [of my time] and for what we achieved. He is the greatest in this country. I’m so happy.
“I miss Johan Cruyff a lot so I’m happy that Sir Alex, the greatest, could see this. I’m pretty sure that Sir Alex will not call us the noisy neighbours again, we are the neighbours, and I’m so happy that he was there to watch us.”
After Monday’s parade in Manchester that will celebrate City’s men’s, women’s and youth teams’ seasons, Guardiola is expected to return to Barcelona to start his new life.