JAKARTA - Pep Guardiola told ESPN that although he did not know if he would retire from coaching when he left Manchester City, he was confident he would take a break from football management.
The 54-year-old coach's tenure at Manchester City is the longest coaching period in his career - he spent four years at Barcelona and three years at Bayern Munich - and he signed a two-year contract extension in November 2024 which will keep him at the Etihad Stadium until 2027.
Guardiola has provided unprecedented success since joining Manchester City in 2016.
He has led The Citizens to six Premier League titles and awarded their first win in the Champions League as part of their treble campaign in 2022/2023.
However, this season has been a difficult season for Guardiola and Manchester City. They are 21 points behind Premier League champions Liverpool and are struggling to qualify for the Champions League next season.
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"I want people to remember me no matter how much they want. After my contract with Manchester City, I will quit. I'm sure."
"I don't know if I will retire, but I will rest. How I want to be remembered, I don't know."
"All coaches want to win so we can have an impressive job, but I'm sure that Barcelona supporters Bayern Munich and Manchester City are having fun watching my team play."
"I don't think we should live while thinking about whether we will be remembered. When we die, our family cry for two or three days. After that, you are forgotten."
"In a coach's career, there are good and bad, the important thing is to remember longer."
"I say that the most important thing is not what people think about you, after all, our lives as football players have been very good."
"There are new challenges as a coach, I don't know what will happen in the future and in the end that doesn't matter," Guardiola told Brazil's ESPN as part of the second Premier League Accounters series on Disney+.
Guardiola further stressed that he did not intend to say that his time at Manchester was coming to an end.
"No! No, no, no, I'm not saying I'm leaving now or at the end of the season. Yes, if they fire me, yes."
"However, I said when I finished my tenure here, I didn't know in one year, two years, three years, four years, five years, six years, I don't know."
"I will rest. I will not retire, but I will rest, for sure," he told Sky Sports.
The sad five consecutive defeats to Manchester City in October and November 2024 left them eliminated from the Carabao Cup and effectively ended their challenge of winning the Premier League title.
Reflecting on what he described as a difficult season, Guardiola admits that he could have made different decisions so far.
"It was a great learning year. There's not only one reason why this year was difficult, there are many things to pay attention to, like the wrong decision I made."
"So, this is an extraordinary learning year for me personally," the Spaniard told ESPN.
Guardiola's side have recovered from their slump in the middle of the season until now they are in third place in the Premier League standings after beating Wolverhampton Wanderers 1-0 on Saturday, May 3, 2025, early morning WIB.
They will face Crystal Palace in the FA Cup final on May 17, 2025.
The Manchester City coach said that despite their downturn being bigger than he had hoped, he was proud of the legacy he had built at the club.
"People think we learn more from defeat than from victory."
"However, I also think I learned from winning. I know there will be times when we will fall, but we often fall."
"We didn't expect to get this far, but we couldn't win everything. What we've been doing for 10.9 years was incredible."
"However, now we have to sit and learn to try to understand what we need to produce in the future," Guardiola said.
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