Pep Guardiola leaves Manchester City after ten year reign

Pep Guardiola will leave Manchester City at the end of the season, bringing down the curtain on a ten-year reign that has produced 20 trophies and transformed the club into one of the most dominant forces in the history of English football, according to the Daily Mail.

The announcement is expected to be confirmed on Sunday, in time for the news to be celebrated at an open-top bus parade on Monday. The parade is set to begin at Manchester’s Northern Quarter at 4pm before finishing outside the Colin Bell Stand reception at the Etihad Stadium an hour later. City have already begun to inform their sponsor partners that the announcement is imminent, and the news has been an open secret among those close to Guardiola for some time.

Guardiola, 55, joined City in the summer of 2016 and has since overseen the most successful period in the club’s 131-year history. Six league titles, including an unprecedented four in succession, the club’s first ever Champions League triumph, and a cabinet full of domestic honours have defined a decade that has fundamentally changed what English football looks like at the top level. The vulnerabilities that have emerged in City’s play this season have only underscored how much of their sustained dominance has been shaped by Guardiola’s presence in the dugout.

When Guardiola’s Man City departure will be confirmed

The timing of the announcement is significant. City’s final Premier League game of the season comes on Sunday against Aston Villa at the Etihad Stadium, and it is expected that Guardiola’s departure will be confirmed in time for it to be marked at the Monday parade. The Catalan has one year remaining on his current contract, and it is possible he will remain at the club in some capacity, though his role as first-team manager is coming to an end.

Guardiola refused to be drawn into confirming his future after Saturday’s FA Cup final victory over Chelsea at Wembley, which added trophy number 20 to his remarkable haul at the club. City are still in the running for the Premier League title, facing Bournemouth on Tuesday evening before the final day showdown with Aston Villa, meaning this week could yet see them add a 21st piece of silverware to the Guardiola era.

Enzo Maresca and Vincent Kompany lead the race to replace Guardiola

The leading candidates to succeed Guardiola are Enzo Maresca, the former Chelsea manager, and Vincent Kompany, the Bayern Munich boss. Maresca is a free agent having left Stamford Bridge in January and has been strongly linked with the City role for several months. Kompany, a legendary figure from his playing days at the Etihad, is currently under contract at Bayern Munich but has long been considered a dream appointment by those within the club.

Whoever takes over will inherit one of the finest squads in European football, along with the enormous challenge of maintaining the standards Guardiola has set across a decade at the highest level. Those are standards that very few managers in the history of the game would be capable of upholding, which is perhaps the most telling tribute to what is ending this weekend.

What Pep Guardiola achieved in ten years at Manchester City

The numbers are almost absurd in their scale. Twenty trophies in ten seasons. Six Premier League titles. Four league championships won in consecutive years, a feat that had never been achieved in English football history before Guardiola’s City accomplished it. The club’s first Champions League title, which had eluded them for over a century of trying before Guardiola delivered it. And now an FA Cup triumph on Saturday at Wembley that made it 20, the perfect send-off for a manager whose influence on this club, and on English football more broadly, will take years to fully appreciate.

The announcement ends months of speculation about whether Guardiola would see out his contract or step away early. The open secret that those around him had been carrying has now become the news that the football world had been both dreading and expecting. Manchester City will go on. But the Guardiola era, quite simply, will never be repeated.