‘Genuine visionary’: is Pep Guardiola the greatest of all time?

He attended the Champions League final in Istanbul on Saturday, but prior to that Manchester City’s “mysterious benefactor” had only ever watched his team play once, said Sam Wallace in The Sunday Telegraph. Sheikh Mansour, a member of Abu Dhabi’s ruling family, must have been delighted he made the effort: he got to witness history being made. By beating Internazionale 1-0, City not only gained their first Champions League title, but became only the second English club, after Manchester United, to claim “the treble” (the Premier League, FA Cup and Champions League in a single season).

The match was a nervy affair, said Daniel Boffey in The Observer, with few signs of the “seemingly effortless grace that has been the hallmark of Pep Guardiola’s team this season”. But with games like this, the result is all that matters – and Rodri’s calmly taken 68th-minute goal ensured that the night ended in triumph for City.

So Guardiola has done it again, said Oliver Brown in The Daily Telegraph. He has racked up an extraordinary amount of silverware over his career: now he has trebles in two different European leagues to his name (he achieved the first with Barcelona in 2009). It’s a distinction that “almost defies belief” – one that entitles the Spaniard to be considered the greatest club manager of all time. True, he has never coached at a club with modest resources: he actually began his managerial career at Barcelona, before moving to Bayern Munich in 2013, and then on to City in 2016. But while it undoubtedly helps to be at a club that spends “north of £2bn during your seven years in charge”, it would be wholly wrong to see Guardiola as merely a “figurehead for some colossal corporate vanity project”. The 52-year-old is a genuine visionary, who has elevated football to the status of art – and who has fashioned City into “arguably the most elegant side English football has seen”.

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What makes Guardiola so special is how he has “changed what is considered possible in football”, said Jonathan Wilson in The Guardian. When he arrived at Barcelona in 2008, the sport was in a period of “astringency”. Defensively minded managers such as José Mourinho and Rafa Benítez dominated the game. There was little emphasis on creativity. But Guardiola saw that technical improvements in boot, ball and pitch quality – combined with the crackdown on challenges from behind – were creating opportunities for teams to play with more freedom and more flair. He saw that football could be less about physical dominance, more about the “manipulation of space”. That has made the sport more attacking and exciting, with a higher number of goals per game. All football fans have a lot to thank him for.