Before we turn to the 2024/2025 league season, it is worth taking a moment to recall last year’s final result. Manchester City became the champion, for the fourth time in a row and just two points behind the title, Arsenal came second. In addition, all this while the Gunners won their last five matches in the PL without exception, so Guardiola’s knew exactly that if they stumbled even once, it could easily cost them their title defense. Well, they didn’t, they didn’t find a winner in the heat either, so they got rich with another trophy. If we go back another year at the time, we can see roughly the same thing, but with the difference that then City won the championship a bit easier, with a five-point lead over Arsenal. After this, we can safely say that the Londoners have had enough of the dominance of the blues and the missed championship chances.
The head coach of Manchester City is facing a difficult season. Photo: AFP / AFP or licensors/Manchester City’s Spanish manager Pep Guardiola addresses a press conference of Manchester City in Bratislava on September 30, 2024, on the eve of the UEFA Champions League football match against SK Slovan Bratislava. (Photo by -STR / AFP)
The coach of Manchester City and Arsenal started from the same place
Pep Guardiola has been on the bench of the reigning champion since 2016, while Mikeal Arteta took over Arsenal in 2019. The age difference between the two professionals is ten years, both grew up in Spain and both started their football careers in the colors of Barcelona. It is true that, due to the age difference, when Guardiola was with the Catalans’ first team, Arteta was still in the B team. Life then made it so that their paths crossed again, although this time they did not end up at the same club, but as head coaches of the same league.
But if they came from the same place and absorbed the same fundamentals in Barcelona, where does this opposition between the two professionals and their teams come from?
Maybe it’s because Arteta and Guardiola were similar figures – and now they’re on completely separate paths in terms of style.
If you take a closer look, Guardiola and Jürgen Klopp, who left the Liverpool bench in the summer, have always been complete opposites in terms of style, theirs was a battle of two different ideologies. Klopp liked to use the famous “gegenpressing”, which is one of the most important strategies in modern football. The essence of this is that the team keeps the opponent under high pressure to win the ball back. And this did not match the “dance” of Guardiola’s team on the field, so the different styles never collided personally, and therefore this kind of conflict was not typical for the players either.
At the same time, Guardiola and Arteta are clearly more alike. These are two managers who once learned from the same book and in some cases shared chapters.
