Pep Guardiola to Leave Manchester City, Ending Trophy-Laden 10-Year Reign

Pep Guardiola confirmed on Friday what Manchester City fans had been dreading. The club's most successful manager is leaving, bringing to a close a trophy-laden ten-year spell in which he established City as a major force in Europe and changed the face of English football.

Guardiola had another year remaining on his City contract. Nevertheless, he will take charge of his final game against Aston Villa in the Premier League on Sunday. When asked about his reasons for departing, he told reporters not to ask. He said there was no single reason, but deep inside, he knew it was his time. Nothing is eternal, he added – if it were, he would stay. What will be eternal, he said, is the feeling, the people, the memories, and the love he has for his Manchester City.

The club announced that Guardiola will take up a role as global ambassador. Enzo Maresca, the former Chelsea manager who previously served as Guardiola's assistant at City, is considered the favorite to take on the daunting task of filling Guardiola's shoes after a decade of unprecedented dominance.

Since joining City in the summer of 2016, Guardiola led the Abu Dhabi-backed team to six Premier League titles and the club's first Champions League trophy in 2023. He won seventeen major trophies in total, including a domestic double this season of the English League Cup and the FA Cup. Across his entire coaching career – including his time at Barcelona and Bayern Munich – he has won thirty-five major titles. City was by far his longest job in management; he had never previously stayed more than four years in a single role.

He set new benchmarks along the way. City became the first team to win four straight English league titles and the first to amass 100 points in a single season in 2018. The following year, City became the first team to win the domestic treble – league, FA Cup, and League Cup – in the same season. But his biggest achievement, by most accounts, was leading City to the ultimate treble in 2023: winning the league, the Champions League, and the FA Cup, matching Manchester United's feat from 1999.

Guardiola also brought to England a distinctive style of football – a possession-based approach that starts with playing the ball out from the goalkeeper or defense. That style ended up being mimicked across the country, from kids' teams at the grassroots level to rival Premier League sides.

City chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak praised Guardiola's unique coaching approach, saying it allowed him to constantly challenge the accepted truths of the game. He stated that in the last ten years, Guardiola has not only made Manchester City better but has also made football better. The chairman added that it was the "right answer" for Guardiola to walk away now. While the manager goes out on another trophy-winning campaign, this was the first time in his career that he has gone two seasons without being crowned league champion. City was also eliminated from the Champions League before the quarterfinal stage in each of the last two years.

Chief executive Ferran Sorriano said Guardiola's legacy is extraordinary and that its true impact will be better assessed by Manchester City historians of the future. He noted that if there is something more difficult than winning, it is winning again. That requires incredible persistence, resilience, and the humility to start again every year with the same energy, again and again. That, he said, is what Guardiola did.

Guardiola will go down as one of the greatest managers in Premier League history, rivaling Alex Ferguson. However, he repeatedly had to defend City against allegations of financial breaches, with more than 100 charges still hanging over the club. City was accused of providing misleading information about its finances over a nine-year period from 2009 to 2018 – a span in which it won three titles and signed some of the world's best players, including Yaya Touré, Sergio Agüero, and Kevin De Bruyne. One of those titles was won under Guardiola. City has always denied wrongdoing. Guardiola said he was "fully convinced" the club was innocent.

In his farewell message to fans, Guardiola reflected on the journey. He said they worked, suffered, fought, and did things their own way. Their way. On Sunday, that way comes to an end at the Etihad – at least with him on the sideline.