Pep Guardiola has firmly restated his intention to take a break from football management after concluding his time at Manchester City, revealing the hiatus could extend as long as 15 years.
The 54-year-old Spaniard, who has carved his name into City’s history books as the club’s most decorated manager with 18 major trophies, including six Premier League titles and a coveted Champions League crown, remains under contract until 2027.
Although he hasn’t set an exact departure date, Guardiola confirmed that a sabbatical is not just likely but “decided.”
In an interview with GQ Spain, Guardiola reaffirmed sentiments he shared with ESPN back in May about stepping down after his current deal ends.
“I know that after this stage with City I’m going to stop, that’s for sure. It’s decided, more than decided,” he said.
“I don’t know how long I’ll stop for, a year, two years, three years, five, ten, fifteen, I don’t know. But I will leave after this spell with City because I need to stop and focus on myself, on my body.”
Despite penning a contract extension in November, Guardiola endured a challenging season, one of his most testing since arriving in 2016.
For the first time under his leadership, Manchester City ended a campaign without lifting a single trophy.
“I’ve spent four or five months this year in every away stadium with the crowd chanting, ‘You’ll be sacked in the morning. They’re going to fire you’,” Guardiola said. “There’s no other profession, architect, teacher, doctor, journalist… where 60,000 people ask you to lose your job.”
Reflecting on City’s season, he acknowledged the inevitability of a dip in form, stating, “When you win six Premier Leagues, there comes a time when you go down. It’s human nature … it’s a process that had to happen, it happens, it took longer to happen, and when it did, it went deeper than we could have imagined.”
Key injuries took a toll on the squad, including a long-term ACL injury to Ballon d’Or winner Rodri in September.
The team also exited the Champions League earlier than usual, failing to progress past the round of 16, a first since the 2012–13 season and settled for a third-place finish in the Premier League.
Still, Guardiola is not ready to label the season a failure.
“It hasn’t been that bad,” he said. “In the end we reached the final of the FA Cup and finished third, we didn’t finish twelfth. In hindsight, we’ll see that it hasn’t been such a bad season. But we did go many months without winning a game. We went 13 or 14 games without a win, and that was … it had never happened before. But it puts you in your place.”
He also downplayed the emotional highs and lows often attached to winning and losing.
“Even when I was winning, I didn’t feel we were anything special,” Guardiola noted. “Now that we haven’t won, I don’t feel like a failure.”
Looking ahead, Guardiola believes this difficult period may benefit the club long term.
“Speaking on behalf of Manchester City, it has been very healthy for us,” he said. “Because success can confuse you. It hasn’t confused us for many years, but this year the players have been injured a lot … but I think it will be very good for the next five or ten years. And next year [this coming season] we’ll do better.”
Manchester City are set to kick off their Premier League campaign away to Wolves on August 16.
