Pep Guardiola will reportedly leave Manchester City at the end of the season, calling time on a decorated decade in England and a transformational period with a club he steered to 16 major trophies, including the UEFA Champions League. Guardiola is set to exit following Sunday’s match at Aston Villa, their hopes of winning the Premier League title potentially still in play for what is expected to be the manager’s final game in charge.
According to multiple reports in England, he is expected to be succeeded by Enzo Maresca, a one-time assistant at City under Guardiola and the former Chelsea coach who won the UEFA Conference League and the Club World Cup last season before he exited in January. Maresca was reportedly in contact with City over a potential vacancy in the months before his Chelsea departure.
Speculation around Guardiola’s future began in earnest at the end of last season, City’s first trophyless campaign since the ex-Barcelona coach arrived for the start of the 2016-17 season. It was a rarity in his 10 seasons in Manchester – his very first trophy came with the 2017-18 EFL Cup, which was quickly followed up by his first Premier League title that same season.
His crowning achievement was winning the treble in the 2022-23 campaign, ending City’s long wait to win their first Champions League title. It was the first time Guardiola had led a team to a treble, attempting to do so at his previous roles with Barcelona and Bayern Munich, and marked the first time an English team had pulled off the feat since Sir Alex Ferguson‘s Manchester United team did so in the 1998-99 season.
Guardiola also steered City to six Premier League titles in total, including four in a row from the 2020-21 season to the 2023-24 campaign, the first time a team had pulled that off in the league’s history. His version of City will be remembered for a sheer dominance that was unparalleled in England’s top flight in the modern era.
Pep Guardiola’s trophies with Manchester City
- Premier League: 2017-18, 2018-19, 2020-21, 2021-22, 2022-23, 2023-24
- FA Cup: 2018-19, 2022-23, 2025-26
- EFL Cup: 2017-18, 2018-19, 2019-20, 2020-21, 2025-26
- UEFA Champions League: 2022-23
Guardiola’s one-of-a-kind legacy
Guardiola was already one of the brightest minds in the game by the time he was hired by City in 2016, previously winning two Champions League titles with Barcelona and steering Bayern to three Bundesliga trophies. He only bolstered his own reputation during his decade in Manchester, his longest spell at a single team since first taking charge of Barcelona B in 2007.
He quickly implemented his possession-based, free-flowing style of play in Manchester and though accolades did not come immediately, the wait for Guardiola’s first titles was not all that long. After a trophyless campaign to start his tenure, City refreshed in the summer with new players like Kyle Walker and Bernardo Silva to begin an almost unrivaled era of dominance. City won the Premier League title and hit 100 points, the first champions in the league’s history to win that many points along the way.
They repeated as Premier League champions the following year, one part of a domestic treble-winning season. His track record only became more impressive from there – his City quickly became one of the most entertaining teams in Europe with the addition of future Ballon d’Or winner Rodri in the summer of 2019, while Kevin De Bruyne enjoyed his peak years as the headliner of Guardiola’s dominant side. During their period of four successive Premier League titles, which included the 2022-23 Champions League title, each of De Bruyne, Erling Haaland and Phil Foden went on to win the PFA Players’ Player of the Season award, De Bruyne doing so twice.
City’s luster began to fade last year with another trophyless campaign, only Guardiola’s second since joining the club, and though they followed it up with a domestic cup double this season, they have not looked like the finished product. Even as they beat Chelsea to the FA Cup on Saturday, though, their lasting dominance was hard to deny – the fact that they could lift two trophies in a less-than-ideal season is to Guardiola’s credit, even if they fall short of the Premier League title.
It is unclear what Guardiola’s next act might be, but he would leave City with his legacy fully intact as the greatest manager of his generation, and one of the best the game has ever seen.
