‘Pep will soon learn England is not so easy’ Pep Guardiola
Pep Guardiola

Pep Guardiola

ONCE Pep Guardiola has completed the vital first task of falling out with Tony Pulis, he can set about nailing the myth that his is a charmed life, packed with ready-made teams who carry him to glory with just a bit of tinkering.

Manchester City’s next manager had previously accepted two dream jobs. Barcelona, where Lionel Messi was bursting into the picture alongside Xavi and Andrés Iniesta, and Bayern Munich, who had just won the Treble under Jupp Heynckes. City are hardly Ragarse Rovers, to use Stan Collymore’s old phrase, but we can be sure Guardiola is stepping into a different kind of comfort zone here in England.

Many of the top footballers of the last 20 years have resisted the Premier League’s overtures. Hardly any of the top coaches have. Arsène Wenger, Jose Mourinho, Carlo Ancelotti, Fabio Capello, Rafael Benítez, Roberto Mancini, Luiz Felipe Scolari and Manuel Pellegrini are among those who have answered the mother country’s call.

And unless the best coaches really do have a list of countries they feel they need to tick off – a Grand Tour for masochists – then there must be something about the manic cabaret of England’s highest tier that draws them here.

Yes, yes, the reported £15 million a year at City will have helped. But Guardiola could easily have stayed on mainland Europe. The point is that he chose a challenge that might almost be seen as a test of a manager’s manhood, his spirit and his bag-packing speed, such is the speed with which fixtures fall on top of you. Rubbing Pulis up the wrong way is an early mission. Even Eddie Jones has managed it, and the two are in different sports. The new England rugby coach’s comments about the “old Stoke” putting the ball in the sky and then just chasing it did not sit well with the current West Brom and former Potters manager.

Guardiola will have to face the traditional welcoming committee, whether through put-down, touchline square-off or even shoving match, if Alan Pardew’s anger management goes wonky again. ‘Pep’ will find, like Jürgen Klopp at Liverpool, that English clubs play more games than the New York Yankees.

Time on the training ground, he will discover, is restricted by the chug of the team coach waiting to carry the whole circus off to Scunthorpe or Exeter for an FA Cup tie. The media environment he will enter will fixate more on personalities than those in Germany in Spain. He will find himself framed in private duels with fellow Premier League managers (duels he never knew existed.) But through that lens he will also learn about the English football obsession in ways that were impossible on occasional Champions League trips to City or Arsenal.

Ah yes, the passion. Bayern Munich is hardly a library. Nor is Barcelona’s Nou Camp a place of monkish contemplation. The new part, though, will be travelling around a country where every team and every set of fans want to stick it to you, from Norwich in the east to Bournemouth on the south coast.

So far Guardiola has managed two dominant teams in countries where the title race was restricted to two or three sides, at most. He is closing in on a hat-trick of Bundesliga crowns with Bayern. At Barcelona he had Real Madrid to contend with but not much else. Here, he will have Jamie Vardy coming at him at Leicester and the racket at Crystal Palace to deal with.

In essence there will be no let-up, even without the other big clubs to compete with. Manchester United and Chelsea will have to react. Spurs are on the rise. Arsenal are deeply rooted. Klopp has plans for Liverpool. Sorry, but all this is a hell of a lot more challenging than the current Bundesliga, where Borussia Dortmund are eight points back, with Hertha Berlin a further 10 points adrift.

The chances are that Guardiola really is the wizard who raised Barcelona to another level from 2008, when he promptly marginalised or discarded Ronaldinho, Samuel Eto’o and Deco, bought Gerard Piqué and Dani Alves and promoted Sergio Busquets to a side already sporting Iniesta, Xavi and Carles Puyol.

Guardiola also caught the arc of Messi’s genius. Under Frank Rijkaard in 2007-08, Messi appeared 40 times and scored 16 goals. The following season – Guardiola’s first – Messi scored 38 times in 51 outings.

The change in playing style is equally salient. Guardiola made Barcelona hound the ball back and keep it even more jealously. In 2009 he became the youngest Champions League winning coach in a Treble-winning campaign. At Bayern, the narrative remains impressive but slightly less clear. The 2013 Champions League winning side of Manuel Neuer, Philip Lahm, David Alaba, Bastian Schweinsteiger, Arjen Robben, Thomas Müller and Franck Ribéry has not progressed in Europe. Guardiola’s team lost a 2014 Champions League semi-final 5-0 on aggregate to Real Madrid and a year later went down 5-3 over two legs to Barcelona.

He may fill that rare gap on his CV this spring, starting with a round of 16 tie against Juventus. If Bayern were to win the Champions League this term then Guardiola would arrive in Manchester with a pretty much perfect managerial record. Either way he will generate intense interest as he steps into an unfamiliar world and notices that everyone wants to fight you. England: not an easy country to conquer.

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