Pep Guardiola has insisted he will remain as manager as Manchester City if they’re relegated, but he’s also consistently protested the club’s innocence throughout the arduous battle with the Premier League over their alleged breaches of financial fair play, because presumably – as far as he knows – they are innocent.
If they’re found guilty – unless he’s also in the know and has merely been covering for his bosses – they’ve been telling him porkies and he will likely feel rather aggrieved at the false assurances they’ve been giving him for the last two years. The Spaniard might even kick up a fuss to avoid being tarred by the same brush as the fraudsters above him.
He’s previously said his next, and possibly final, role in management will be with an international team, but with a City deal set to run until 2027 cut short as a result of a guilty verdict, relegation and a hostile divorce, Guardiola may well feel he has unfinished business in club football.
With that in mind we’ve come up with what we believe to be the ten most likely next jobs for Guardiola should the FFP book be thrown at City and lead to his acrimonious exit at the end of the season.
England
He was “offered the job” immediately after Euro 2024 according to Guillem Balague, who also claimed England remain the “favourites” to tempt Guardiola into international management despite Thomas Tuchel now being at the helm. Littler Englanders would no doubt be more amenable to a Pep-led Three Lions because a) he’s not GERMAN, b) He’s Basically English Now Anyway and c) he’s not GERMAN.
Brazil
Current boss Dorival Junior has a win percentage of just 40 per cent from his 14 games in charge, which is frankly pants and speaks to a general consensus that he’s no more than stop gap until they can hire a world-renowned coach who’s done the business in European football.
They’ve been tapping Carlo Ancelotti up for a long while, and that feels like a natural next step for him after rounding off club management with the inevitable sixth Champions League gong at the end of this season, but Guardiola is just about the only alternative we can imagine preventing that long-held desire – seemingly from both parties – becoming a reality.
Girona
A report in December claimed his younger brother Pere Guardiola – chairman of Girona – had offered Pep the ‘chance of a quiet job’ at the club as the ‘technical secretary’, which is definitely one of the 450 jobs no longer listed in the Manchester United directory. It’s like the role of The Stable Door or The Fifth Donkey given to children lacking thespian talents in the school Nativity.
But if the Daddy of the City Group gets relegated then the Abu-Dhabi money needs to go somewhere. It would make sense if they pumped Girona full of gold, what with them already having had a taste of Champions League football, and given the delightfully tempting prospect of enough backing enabling them to challenge the El Clasico establishment. Guardiola senior is an excellent candidate to establish them as a European giant.
Juventus
Thiago Motta didn’t last the season and Igor Tudor is now faced with reverting what looks like something approaching a Manchester United-like slide from sheer dominance into mediocrity.
Tudor’s only trophy having taken charge of over 300 games in five different countries was the Croatian Cup in 2013, so we can’t see this caretaker role developing into a permanent position come the end of the season.
We’re assuming Serie A is an itch Guardiola would ideally like to scratch and Juventus are perhaps the only Italian club he will deem worthy of his talents.
MORE MANCHESTER CITY FFP NONSENSE FROM F365
👉 Man City FFP: Liverpool, Man Utd, Arsenal, Watford, even Spurs among new winners of reallocated trophies
👉 Man City stars reassigned after guilty FFP verdict leads to Premier League relegation
👉 Man City FFP: Guardiola’s 28-man squad ranked on post-relegation exit likelihood with verdict looming
Arsenal
They’ve had a likeness of Guardiola; it’s time for the real thing to get them over the line.
Mikel Arteta’s done a fine job at the Emirates, but we’re thinking Arsenal would be better off with the guy who hatches genius ploys to alter the course of modern football rather than the guy who copies those tactics and does a pale imitation of them at the point when they’re old hat and no longer work as effectively.
Chelsea
At some stage, Chelsea – whether under these owners or the next lot – are going to accept the reality that their quest for A Legacy Manager is doomed to fail and they’ll start hiring proven winners to start winning trophies again.
Barcelona
Guardiola previously said he would return to Barcelona if he was “indispensable” and we wonder whether the club classes them not winning the Champions League since 2014/2015, in which time Real Madrid have won it five times, as a sign of his indispensability.
That could change this season under Hansi Flick, who has them on course for the treble. But with a clutch of world-beating La Masia graduates now in the first team, led by a precociously talented right-winger, Joan Laporta could do worse than hiring the man who put those same ingredients to devastating use between 2008 and 2012 should Flick fail to do the business this term.
Germany
Julian Nagelsmann is now likely picturing himself leading Germany at the World Cup having looked sure to take a Premier League role of some sort after Euro 2024, but offers will still arrive for his services from one or other of the Big Six basket cases in the interim and he may bafflingly decide to accept one of them, in which case Guardiola would be top of the DFB shortlist.
Al-Nassr
We weren’t going to specify the Saudi Pro League club – it feels just as likely that Guardiola rocks up at PIF-owned Al-Ahli, Al-Ittihad or Al-Hilal as Al Nassr – but the thought of Cristiano Ronaldo’s Al-Nassr becoming Pep Guardiola’s Al-Nassr brings us almost as much joy as Ronaldo sitting in a press conference alongside his new manager as Guardiola fields endless questions on Lionel Messi and the chance of them being reunited for one last dance.
Inter Miami
That last dance is more likely at Inter Miami, whose owner, David Beckham, would presumably burst due to incontrollable levels of self-worth and superiority if his quest to turn the east coast of Florida into Catalonia saw him land Barcelona’s greatest ever manager to coach Messi, Sergio Busquets, Luis Suarez and Jordi Alba.