Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola had a system built for him and made it his own, but things will have to change now
MANCHESTER, ENGLAND - AUGUST 23: Khaldoon Al Mubarak, Chairman of Manchester City, and Ferran Soriano, CEO of Manchester City, are seen in attendance prior to the Premier League match between Manchester City and Tottenham Hotspur at Etihad Stadium on August 23, 2025 in Manchester, England. (Photo by Clive Mason/Getty Images)
Manchester City bosses Khaldoon Al Mubarak and Ferran Soriano (Image: Clive Mason, Getty Images)
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The great irony to Pep Guardiola at Manchester City was that he ended up being what his bosses had been trying to avoid. City CEO Ferran Soriano in particular has always been scathing of the idea of the all-powerful manager that bewitched English football, and after joining the club in 2012 he set about making sure City would take a different route.
Txiki Begiristain arrived soon after as sporting director, effectively telling Roberto Mancini he was on borrowed time having just won the club's first Premier League title. Mancini was loved by City fans and there will always be a special place for him in their history, yet he was pushing for powers beyond a coach's control and more in the frame of what Sir Alex Ferguson was at United - and City just wouldn't accept this.
Hence the immediate push for Guardiola to join them in 2013 and, when that didn't work and he went off to Bayern Munich, the move for Manuel Pellegrini instead. This was a talented coach but one who would work within a system rather than seek to be the centre of it.
Guardiola, of course, would point out that he was anything but a leader-dictator when he arrived at the Etihad; he has said before that the recruitment team is responsible for 70 per cent of the club's success and recently praised the player care team for their work in keeping players happy. There have also been plenty of times when the manager's request for players has not been granted when Begiristain or others have refused to budge from their principles.
However, Pep Guardiola is Pep Guardiola. You go out of your way to get him and then you make exceptions for him that you wouldn't allow anybody else, especially when he delivers the absurd level of success that he brought to City.
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It is quite wild that it has taken until the last week of the season for news to really break that the manager is leaving, and it is not as if it is a secret that has been held for that long. Not for the first time, and to the detriment of succession planning, Guardiola has been allowed to decide in his own time because the possibility of keeping him is more valuable than anybody else that could be brought in.
His voice with transfers has also been more powerful than most would be. Indeed, arguably one of the main reasons he did not leave last summer was because he had been firm in 2024 that the squad did not need rebuilding when the consensus from the recruitment team was that it did; the champions fell apart, and Guardiola U-turned to stay because he felt he could not leave the squad in that state.
That will change with the new coach, expected to be former No.2 and youth coach Enzo Maresca. The Italian - or whoever else gets the job - will still be a figurehead in the sense that they are the public face of the club, and will have the opportunity to build his power base.
But nobody can be Guardiola, and the system City have built is designed so that it does not all fall apart when a manager leaves. That means Soriano, Al Mubarak and sporting director Hugo Viana will all take on more responsibility as City look to move on from the best manager in the world.
Having built a universe for Guardiola that became his, the club now aim to show they can be successful without him.