90min

Pep Guardiola confirms timeframe for Man City exit & future plans

  • Pep Guardiola interview details plans for Man City exit
  • Successful boss recently signed new contract until 2027
  • Intends to follow Jurgen Klopp example with career break

By Jamie Spencer

Pep Guardiola sees a finite end to his Man City spell
Pep Guardiola sees a finite end to his Man City spell / James Gill - Danehouse/GettyImages
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Pep Guardiola has teased that the next two seasons could be his last with Manchester City, insisting he has decided to "stop" after his contract with the club.

Guardiola signed a new deal with City last November that runs until the end of the 2026/27 campaign, which he implied will coincide with his exit from the Etihad Stadium after what will have been 11 years in charge of an unprecedented era of success.

Guardiola will be 56 years of age by then. It won't necessarily signal the end of his career altogether, but he does plan to take a break from coaching – as Jurgen Klopp has done since leaving Liverpool last summer, and as Guardiola himself previously did during the 2012/13 season.

"I want them to remember me however they want. After my contract with City, I will stop. I am sure. I don't know if I will retire, but I will take a break. How I want to be remembered, I don't know," the former Barcelona and Bayern Munich boss told ESPN.

"We all want to win so that we can have a memorable job, but I think the fans of Barcelona, ​​Bayern Munich and City enjoyed watching my teams play. I don't think we should ever live thinking about whether we will be remembered."

Pep Guardiola
Man City's Premier League stranglehold is over / Robbie Jay Barratt - AMA/GettyImages

This season has been Guardiola's toughest since arriving in Manchester in 2016. His team started the campaign looking to extend their own English record with an unprecedented fifth straight Premier League title, but now just finishing in the top five to secure Champions League qualification has become the challenge. A squad rebuild began in January and will continue in summer.

"It has been a year of a lot of learning. There is not just one reason why this year has been difficult, there are many details, of wrong decisions made on my part. It has been a year of a lot of learning for me, personally," Guardiola explained.

"I knew there would be a time when we would fall, but we fell a lot. We didn’t expect to be so far behind [Liverpool], but we can’t win them all. What we did over nine years was exceptional, but we have to learn to try to understand what we need in the future."

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