Seven trophies, including three Bundesliga titles, came in his three seasons in Bavaria.
The only missing piece was a Champions League title and while that is sometimes used to discredit his time at Bayern, Honigstein is having none of it.
“He was 100% a success,” he said without hesitation.
“Winning the Treble before he came made the bar almost impossibly high for Guardiola but in terms of the wider impact, the way he developed players all pointed to a huge success.
“He gave German legends like Lahm, Schweinsteiger, Kroos more dimensions to their game.
“Bayern dominated to an extent that hadn’t been seen consistently over that long a period before when he did it. He took this team to a new level.
“Most people would say yes but they didn’t win the Champions League. That is true and a blemish of sorts, but in terms of the football, the dominance, that was unique at the time. A lot of people would have preferred him to stay longer.
“In the end, it became almost too easy for him and he realised that it doesn’t matter what I do all season, it comes down to one or two games in the semi-finals of the Champions League.
“For a coach so meticulous in his preparation, that was probably not quite enough and he felt he needed a different kind of challenge.
“Since then, Klopp and Liverpool pushed Pep to another level in England, so you could say that their time together in Germany was a precursor to everything that came in the Premier League.”
After three seasons, Pep would move to City to continue his magnificent career and start the love story with the Etihad faithful that has followed.
We’ve seen a lot of teams in England take inspiration from his football in the years that have followed, but was that the case in Germany?
Honigstein says he’d liked to have seen more clubs attempt it.
“It's an interesting debate in Germany, because a lot of people say that Guardiola changed German football and he’s made everyone want to play that passing football now. I don’t see it that way,” he said.
“I don’t see any club taking up that blueprint and trying to play that football because I think it’s just seen as too difficult unless you have players you can trust under that pressure.
“This is the most difficult way of playing football and I don’t see any team that has tried to do what Bayern did under Guardiola.
“A lot of his detractors feel he negatively affected German football but I see in the opposite way, I wish he would have had more people trying to do what he did.”