Manchester City have been working for years to maintain their sporting success and Pep Guardiola's departure presents the biggest test
Manchester City have to try to continue their success without Pep Guardiola
Manchester City have to try to continue their success without Pep Guardiola
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Ask champions about the only thing harder than winning and they will tell you that it is winning again. It is as natural for your competitors to up their game as it is for you to lose a bit of your edge.
Pep Guardiola said during the run-in for the Premier League title this season that Manchester City could not compete with Arsenal's hunger and motivation that stemmed from not having won the league for so long. However important or otherwise that proved to be, Guardiola was correct with the final outcome.
It is also why the City manager declared before he left that his 'best title' was 24 trips to Wembley in ten years, and why the record of his that is most likely to remain in English football is four consecutive league titles. It is more probable that one team has an unbelievable campaign that takes them beyond 100 points - however unlikely that looks at the moment - than for a club to dominate for four years in a row.
As City were building over the last ten years, they looked for other examples across sport and beyond for how they could prolong and extend their success. As they prepare for the biggest change in English football since Sir Alex Ferguson left United in 2013, City hope they have everything they need to know on what they do and don't need to be looking at.
Because City have reached new heights in the game, the club had to look away from football. The New England Patriots are one of the most famous examples of a sporting dynasty, with coach Bill Belichick and quarterback Tom Brady overseeing a staggering level of success in the NFL that saw them set records between 2000 and 2019 for most Super Bowl appearances (nine), Super Bowl wins (six, joint top), consecutive division titles (11) and the league's only undefeated 16-game regular season (2007).
Those two individuals are the figureheads of that incredible Patriots era, while over in the NBA the Miami Heat did a decent job of transitioning from their super team of the 2010s that starred Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh and LeBron James. There, president Pat Riley helped to oversee personnel changes while Erik Spoelstra has remained in place as coach to give continuity.
As much as those successes come down to star power, work also went into how well these clubs did at making sure they were getting the most out of that talent. How those clubs made sure that the players were as available as they could be, and peaking at the right times, was a far bigger operation that set everyone up for success.
Beyond sport, City have also tapped into the business world to try and glean how top companies over the world have maintained their reputations in their respective fields. Given the Blues want to attract top people into all departments of their operation, there needs to be a focus on the whole if they are to bring the best out of the most valuable part of City.
Particular attention has been paid to how huge organisations can fall so quickly and the data presented by author Jim Collins on how the five stages of decline can be spotted even when businesses are doing well and how it can be reversed. Those five stages, as Collins briefly summarises, are: hubris born of success, undisciplined pursuit of more, denial of risk and peril, grasping for salvation, and - finally - capitulation to irrelevance or death.
Scary stuff, and something that those in charge at City would like to feel they have done well to avoid first in replacing club legends and key personnel in recent years and then transforming the squad. There were worries that the faults in the club could be terminal in the 2024/25 campaign, but the most recent season appears to have shown that City have seen those problems off.
The biggest test, however, comes with the departure of Guardiola. Once again, the appointment of Enzo Maresca as his successor does not look like it crosses into those five concerning steps yet only time will tell and it is also still early in the tenure of Hugo Viana as sporting director after replacing Txiki Begiristain last summer.
Maresca, or Viana for that matter, may not ultimately work out and maintaining City's place in elite football after a decade of Guardiola is a formidable challenge. At the very least, City look and feel more prepared than their neighbours were 13 years ago.