GUARDIOLA FOOTBALL
London, Jan 17 (EFE) .- Pep Guardiola will turn 50 this Monday, becoming the cornerstone of Manchester City, in the perennial memory of the Barcelona fans and with the aim of continuing to decipher that puzzle that he has always turned around since who hung up his boots, football.
He will celebrate it in Manchester, a city with which he has fallen in love after several years living there, and in which he landed after many years in Barcelona and a brief stay in Munich.
It will be a tepid celebration due to the current circumstances, with all the restaurants in the city closed due to the total confinement in which the United Kingdom lives, and with most of his family residing in Barcelona.
In addition, the little respite that this busy season gives causes that during his birthday he also has to look askance at the notebook to prepare for the next Premier League game against Aston Villa, which will be played two days later.
Guardiola, who at 50 years old is still the absolute king of national competitions in England, with eight titles in five seasons, has managed to blend in with a city that flees from the eccentricities of capitals like London and that is much more familiar and close, about all for a music lover like him.
In the five years in which he has lived in Manchester, Guardiola has toured the theaters and cinemas of the city, enjoying musicals and plays, as revealed in the book ‘Pep’s City: The Making of a Superteam’.
Nor has he been left behind in the gastronomic plane and it was in 2018 when he decided, together with Txiki Begiristain and Ferran Soriano, to open a Catalan food restaurant, TAST, in one of the most important streets of Manchester.
Of course, the title celebrations are usually reserved for El Tapeo, Juan Mata’s restaurant (now permanently closed), whose dishes were also to the taste of his rival in Manchester, José Mourinho, for a couple of years.
On the sporting level, Guardiola lives a moment of resurrection in England, where he went from winning the four domestic titles in 2019 to delivering the crown of the Premier League and the FA Cup last season.
Jürgen Klopp’s ‘Rock & Roll’ rolled over in the style of Pep and dethroned him, ending a dynasty that could only last two years. Now he struggles to regain that title with a broad wardrobe team, but who suffers to find continuity in the number nine.
The puzzle of Sampedor has led him to play with the figure of the false ‘nine’, as he already did in Barcelona, only now he does not have Leo Messi. The continuous injuries of Sergio Agüero and the irregularity of Gabriel Jesús force him to continue turning a lineup that already has many world stars.
With him as coach, Kevin De Bruyne has become the best midfielder in the Premier, Raheem Sterling has become a reliable scorer, Phil Foden has gone from promise to starter, Rodri is the means of the team’s future, Ederson a wall and Ruben Dias seems like the center-back Guardiola has been looking for for years.
Even with that, Guardiola enters the 50 with a pending account in the form of ‘Orejona’. His work will always be discussed until he manages to win another Champions League outside of Can Barça. He did not succeed at Bayern Munich and, so far, in four attempts he has not even reached the semifinals in which his predecessor, Manuel Pellegrini, put the top of the team.
Renewed until 2023 and with the ever-imprinted intention of extending his life in the city of the Gallagher brothers, the Stones Roses or the Smiths, Guardiola will live a 50th birthday in which he will not miss the great puzzle of his life, football.
Manuel Sanchez Gomez
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