Manchester City’s head coach Pep Guardiola greets fans at the top of the English Premier League soccer match between Manchester City and Crystal Palace in Manchester, England, Wednesday, May 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Ian Hodgson)
MANCHESTER, England — Pep Guardiola confirmed Friday what Manchester City fans had been fearing. The club’s most successful manager is leaving, bringing to a detailed a trophy-laden, 10-year spell wherein he established City as a force in Europe and altered the face of English soccer.
Guardiola had a yr left on his City contract but will take charge of his final game on Sunday against Aston Villa within the Premier League.
READ: Pep Guardiola won’t quit on troubled Man City
“Don’t ask me the explanations I’m leaving. There isn’t a reason, but deep inside I comprehend it’s my time,” he said.
City said Guardiola will develop into a world ambassador and it was naming its newly developed stand at Etihad Stadium after him.
Enzo Maresca — the previous Chelsea manager who was previously assistant to Guardiola at City — is the favourite to tackle the daunting task of filling the Catalan’s shoes after a decade of unprecedented dominance.
Since joining City in the summertime of 2016, Guardiola has led the Abu Dhabi-owned team to 6 Premier League titles and a primary Champions League crown in 2023.
He won 17 major trophies including a domestic double this season of the English League Cup and the FA Cup. He has won 35 major titles across his coaching profession including at Barcelona and Bayern Munich.
City was by far his longest job in management, having never previously stayed greater than 4 years in a job.
READ: Man City fans make public plea to Pep Guardiola: ‘Stay!’
“I is not going to train for some time,” the 55-year-old Guardiola said. “I feel I might not have the energy that’s required to day by day … with the expectations to fight for the titles.”
Guardiola set latest benchmarks; City became the primary team to win 4 straight English leagues and the primary to amass 100 points in a single season in 2018. The next yr City was the primary team to win the domestic treble of the league, FA Cup and League Cup in the identical season.
His biggest achievement was leading City to the last word treble in 2023, winning the Premier League, Champions League and FA Cup — matching Manchester United’s feat from greater than 20 years earlier in 1999.
He also delivered to England a variety of soccer — a possession-based approach that began with playing the ball out from the goalkeeper or defense — that ended up being mimicked across the country, from kids’ teams at grassroots level to rivals within the Premier League.
“The unique approach that he brings to his coaching has allowed him to always challenge the accepted truths of our game. It’s the explanation that within the last 10 years he has not only made Manchester City higher — he has also made football higher,” City chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak said. He added it was the “right answer” for Guardiola to walk away now.
While he goes out on one other trophy-winning campaign, this was the primary time in his profession that he has gone two seasons without being crowned league champion. City was also eliminated from the Champions League before the quarterfinals within the last two years.
READ: Man City wins League Cup, sinks Arsenal after Kepa blunder
City said Guardiola’s latest role would see him give technical advice to clubs in its ownership group.
“Pep’s legacy is extraordinary and its true impact shall be higher assessed by Manchester City historians of the longer term,” chief executive Ferran Sorriano said. “If there’s something harder than winning, it’s winning again. It requires incredible persistence, resilience and the humility to begin again yearly, with the identical energy, time and again. That is what Pep did.”
While Guardiola will go down as considered one of the best managers in Premier League history — rivaling Alex Ferguson — he repeatedly needed to defend City against allegations of monetary breaches, with greater than 100 charges still hanging over the club.
City was accused of providing misleading details about its funds over a nine-year period from 2009-18 — a span wherein it won three titles and signed a few of the world’s best players like Yaya Toure, Sergio Aguero and Kevin de Bruyne. One in every of those titles was won under Guardiola.
City has at all times denied wrongdoing. Guardiola said he was “fully convinced” the club was innocent.
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“We worked. We suffered. We fought. And we did things our own way. Our way,” Guardiola said in his farewell message to fans.