Pep Guardiola in Position to Change the Culture of Manchester City Forever

“I can stay more time or less than three years,” said Pep Guardiola earlier this month when asked if he would consider staying on as Manchester City manager beyond his initial three-year contract.

“Less might happen if the results are not good or if the chairman is not happy with me or my job. But if after that period I am happy, and they are happy, why not longer?

“For now, I am so happy here, and I’m not just thinking about, ‘Will it just be three years?’”

It was the first time Guardiola had suggested he could extend his stay at the Etihad Stadium. He tends to do short cycles as a manager, having been in charge at Barcelona for four years before completing a three-year stint at Bayern Munich.

At City, though, the task before him is greater.

Whereas Barcelona and Bayern Munich both had established winning mentalities, a history of domestic and European success and academy systems with entrenched values and philosophies, at City he finds a club at the embryonic stage of their development.

They want to enter the European elite and have made great strides domestically since the takeover in 2008—but they require much more work if they want to dine at the top table of European football.

Guardiola’s appointment was one the club’s directors felt they needed if they were to make that leap and join Europe’s best.

They want sustained success, and Guardiola—who has a clear idea of how he wants his sides to play—is the man to lay the groundwork for years of winning, not just short-term gain.

He has the chance to change the culture of the club in a more drastic way than he has before. He turned Barcelona into the best side in world football—but the style of football he encouraged and the club’s ability to produce their own world-class youth prospects was already well established. At City, they are only just beginning the process.

City laid the foundations for Guardiola before he arrived. They opened a new youth and first-team training centre 21 months ago at great cost after extensive research by football administration officer Brian Marwood that saw him travel the world to draw inspiration from top music and sports academies, blending ideas and innovations he felt could give City’s new facility the edge. The result is a spectacular, 80-acre site that cost £150 million to develop.

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The idea was to replicate aspects of Barcelona’s La Masia and encourage every single age group (from the under-eights right through to the under-23s) to play the same style of football—the style Guardiola, a disciple of Johan Cruyff, favours.

Attacking, …

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