Although Qatar has signed a millionaire squad, the Catalan does not get the champions and sees how Klopp, his social-democratic nemesis
Pep Guardiola loses his 'sex appeal'
Since leaving Barça in the summer of 2012, after having accumulated 14 titles as a coach, signing a sextet in a calendar year and starring in a duel of long penises and sharp elbows against Mourinho in which there were fingers in the eye, thick language and An invitation to duel with razors in a bricklayer, life as coach of Pep Guardiola (48) has not been as sweet as it was then.
If we look at the style of play and the cold data, it obviously has not been bad: in Munich he dominated the League and the Cup, and in Manchester he has signed two Premier in a row and several minor tournaments. But when a sheikh pays you 15 million pounds per season - his contract has lasted until 2021 - and he has invested 400 to sculpt a custom-made team, it is normal to ask for something more than an occasional FA Cup and ball departures from the area with precise passes to the foot. Mansour bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, who feels as much attraction to the bright as magpies, wants the Champions League.
Guardiola has not seen a Champions League again from 3-0 at Manchester United in Wembley - also a final - and the thing is already going for a decade . It is normal, then, that some Mancunian commentators, as happened with the Bavarians, wonder if he really is as good a coach as one thinks, or if, as Siro López said, it is one of those that means colony. This season the thing no longer looks as good as 2018/2019, that of the second Premier and the records; it is his new black beast, Jürgen Klopp who dominates the English league with Liverpool - it seems that he has already reincarnated in the new Bill Shankly -, after also wearing the European crown.
Does that mean Guardiola has one foot outside Manchester City? Nor do we go over. He is third in the league, he has qualified without major problems for the eighth Champions, he has the support of the Gallagher brothers , but he has also accumulated several punctures, he has picked up the league and the downturn in the level of play is considerable, especially as you set as your ultimate goal the perfection of the background drawn on the center of the field as the mathematical symbol of infinity.
But as happened in his three seasons in Munich, if there are no Champions there is no party, and the sheikh's patience has its limit. For Guardiola, in the worst case, there would not be a real drama either: he has the current account about to burst - when he left Barça and took his famous sabbatical, he allowed himself to rent a spacious apartment on the Upper East Side, a stone's throw from Central Park, the most expensive area in Manhattan - and since you are not known for other ostentatious luxuries, you will have saved enough to buy two neighborhoods in Dubai.
INVESTOR BUT SAVING
It happens that Pep Guardiola does not seem to have immediate plans to leave Manchester. In the same way that he invested in properties in Barcelona and Munich, he also acquired a central apartment in the northern English capital and has invested with his great supporters in the City, the manager Ferran Soriano and the sports director Txiqui Beguiristain, in a restaurant of Catalan food, Tast, for which he has hired Paco Pérez, a chef trained in kitchens with five Michelin stars.
Unlike Gerard Piqué, who for a time was joined by an almost paternal-affiliate relationship, Guardiola has not been obsessed with creating businesses to bargain and set up businesses; His character is more Catalan, more saving. But if you suddenly had to change your air, you would not lose cache or be in a hurry to retrain, waiting for the best offer. You just have to worry about him. His wife, Cristina Serra, also bills enough as director of the small chain of fashion stores Serra Claret, and the attention to the business has been the first reason why since this season she no longer lives with Pep in Manchester and has returned to Barcelona.
The high level of income that Guardiola generates is one of the powerful arguments that a reasonable person could use to refute the probe balloon that circulated through the policy sections of the newspapers a few weeks ago, and that said his name sounded to head -o , at least, to appear in the top positions- of a future list of Junts per Catalunya for the next Catalan elections. Guardiola's affiliation with the identity right is well known - in that aspect, Jürgen Klopp stands even more like his nemesis, which is beaten by a social democratic heart as strong as Willy Brandt's, and which has always defended the welfare state -, and for now he has been the only person who has given his face in his relationship with Tsunami Democràtic, being the image of that first propaganda video allegedly created by the nearby circle of Puigdemont and his puppets in the autonomous government to activate the civil revolt in Catalonia.
A gesture, to lend his image, that could even border the apology of the potentially criminal, and that went beyond his previous affiliation to independence, limited to reading manifests in the name of Òmnium or putting yellow ties in the press conferences. Nor should we underestimate his character, little compatible with the dirty arts of politics: Guardiola, although he has some cynical and aspires to show a supposedly cultured and lyrical facade, he does not know how to lie with conviction, pride is transparent when he wins and resentment when he loses, as well as his manifest arrogance -in Barça, some employees called him 'La Patum', an expression of difficult translation that identifies with a person 'who enjoys considerations more for his fame than for his merits'-, everything this little compatible with the institutional mud.
From there to change the benches for politics there is a stretch that any minimally intelligent person - and Guardiola does not sin of candidness - would never consider. In the best case, he would exchange several million euros for a deputy payroll, which would give him a lot for a good rental in Tres Torres. At worst, he would end up going discreetly to Senegal, like Lluís Llach. If Guardiola from Manchester ever leaves, his options are clear: the Argentine national team and Paris Saint-Germain sound, perhaps an Italian team or even Barça, who still sighs for him. And whatever it is, we can start from an immovable certainty: money will continue to flow. Touch football and beautiful game, depends.
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