Pep Guardiola, manager of Manchester City, gives instructions to Bernardo Silva of Manchester City during the drinks break in the Premier League match between Manchester City and Aston Villa at Etihad Stadium, Manchester, United Kingdom, on May 24, 2026. (Photo by Mark Cosgrove/News Images/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Pep Guardiola and Bernardo Silva
View Image
One of Pep Guardiola's many achievements has been to get Manchester City fans excited in their team again. For the last 592 matches, supporters who had grown restless towards the end of Manuel Pellegrini's time in charge have turned up knowing that the players wearing their shirt are going to give everything.
For the 593rd and final time, making Guardiola the man to have coached more City games than anyone else in the club's history, it felt like everyone - including Aston Villa fans - could have done without the football. Bernardo Silva being in tears in the tunnel as he held his daughter's hand before walking out for one final time felt far more significant than anything that happened in the game that followed.
It wasn't a perfect ending in the sense that the Premier League title still wasn't up for grabs. For a man who has taught the club to take every game in every tournament seriously, it was a shame to see such an uncompetitive final game.
Then again, no finale has everything: ask Ilkay Gundogan, one of many players back at the Etihad to celebrate the last 10 years. He left after captaining the team to the Treble but has now left the club twice without getting the chance to say goodbye to the fans.
That there was nothing riding on Sunday allowed a record crowd of more than 60,000 in the Etihad to treat the day as they have done the last 10 years with Guardiola, Stones, Silva and the rest: one long party where it felt like the sun shone every day. For one last time, come and see the players and manager you will tell your kids, grandkids and randomers in the pub about for ever more.
It could also be a farewell to more than just the big three. A number of the starting XI face uncertain summers, with question marks over whether Nathan Ake, Nico Gonzalez, Rico Lewis, Savinho and James Trafford will be part of the new era; none did much over the 90 minutes to suggest they should be, while Omar Marmoush couldn't even get off the bench with Erling Haaland not in the squad.
That is something for Enzo Maresca, Hugo Viana and Ferran Soriano to sort in City's future, but this day was all about the last 10 years. As well as winning the game, Villa more than played their part on the day with guards of honour alongside the City players for first Silva and then Stones in the second half.
That mattered more to everyone inside the Etihad - more than the performance, more than the result, and more than the temporary fury when the big screen flashed up that Phil Foden's late equaliser had been ruled out by VAR because his backside was in an offside position.
Guardiola, for once this season, stood unmoved on the touchline as others raged around him; when he isn't getting irate about those decisions, the party really must be over.
That is not his problem any more - none of it is - and as he heads for a beach as far away from Howard Webb as he can get, Guardiola's head will instead be filled with all of the memories that he has shared with everyone inside the Etihad for the last decade.