I may take ’15-year’ break after leaving Man City, says Pep Guardiola

Manchester City head coach Pep Guardiola has said he may take a 15-year break from coaching after leaving the club. The Spaniard has won 18 trophies, including six Premier League titles and the Champions League with Cityzens and he has helped the club in reaching new heights.

Guardiola’s contract expires in 2027, but the 54-year-old manager has not shed light on his immediate future.

Guardiola told GQ Spain: “I know that after this stage with City I’m going to stop, that’s for sure. It’s decided, more than decided.

“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.”

The former Barcelona coach had signed a contract extension with the Sky Blues in November. City went without any silverware in the previous season, which happened for the first time in Guardiola’s coaching tenure in the last nine years.

“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.

“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.”

The Spaniard feels the previous season was not a total failure despite going trophyless.

“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.”

Manchester City will begin their Premier League campaign against Wolves on 16th August.