It is no longer news that Pep Guardiola is leaving Bayern Munich at the end of the season and, according to him, would be heading in the direction of the English Premier League, EPL.
Without question, the EPL has become the most followed and the most exciting league in the world. But it still has some way to go to catch up with Spain and Germany in showcasing the best standard of football and the best footballers in the world.
These missing ingredients will be added to it with the anticipated earthshaking changes coming to the league next summer.
At the start of the next season, the EPL will be home to many of the best coaches in Europe including Jose Mourinho, Guus Hiddinck, Manuel Pellegrini, Arsene Wenger, Jurgen Klopp, and Pep Guardiola. It is the coming of Pep Guardiola, however, that will completely alter the complexion of the league.
If Mourinho’s first coming to Chelsea FC in 2004 and the resultant rivalry and mind games with Wenger and Sir Alex Ferguson created a storm, Pep’s entry will create a hurricane!
Why has the coach become as important as the player in a team, after all coaches don’t play the game, the players do?
What will happen next summer is that for the first time there will be a massive scramble for the cream of the best players in the world by some premiership clubs. The status and power of the coaches plus the resultant acute rivalry this would bring amongst the clubs would attract the best players in the world to England.
For sure, Pep Guardiola will move to the EPL only after he must have secured the guarantee of which ever team he chooses to go to that he will bring with him top players from the stables of Barcelona, Bayern Munich, even Real Madrid and one or two other European great clubs and create an authentic new power-house in European football in England.
Pep may already be considered one of the best coaches in the world at the moment but the fact still remains that his experiences have been limited to managing only two teams with the best set of players in the world. Many people believe that with the caliber of players in both Bayern Munich FC and FC Barcelona any average coach in Europe would go far in any championship!
So, the true test of Pep Guardiola’s genius will be for him to move to a lesser club and attempt to replicate his signature playing style and winning formula. That’s why he himself admits that a move to the EPL will be a very interesting challenge for him net season.
But in doing this he will not be foolish enough to assume that his coaching prowess will make him succeed where several others before him have been burnt. He would do well to learn from the experiences of Van Gaal, Guus Hiddinck, Carlo Ancelotti and so on in the EPL.
His success in the EPL will be predicated on his ability to lure several players from Spain, Germany and Italy to England. That’s why several people now think the real possibility of Lionel Messi, Paul Pogba, Cristiano Ronaldo, Neymar, Robert Lewandowski, Gareth Bale, Gerard Pique, and a few others moving over to the EPL next summer.
Pep Guardiola’s singular move will impact the EPL by exploding a frenetic migration of the best players and coaches to England.
The next obvious question is this: where would Pep Guardiola go to in the EPL? Let me hazard a guess and start with some obvious deductions.
Pep can only go to one of a very few clubs in the EPL.
Arsenal are definitely out of the question with Arsene Wenger firmly on ground and working hard to win the league this season again after a 14-year drought.
Liverpool have Jurgen Klopp. He is doing well too so far and the club may not be buoyant enough to go shopping for the Messi’s of this world.
Manchester United. Sir Alex is still a hard act to follow unless there is a major restructuring that only a coach of the status and influence of a Pep can bring. Man U have the resources and the followership to invest massively in a wholesome restructuring. They have a rich tradition of winning also.
They cannot, therefore, be ruled out, but after what happened to Van Gaal and David Moyes, any coach would think twice about berthing there, including Pep.
In my estimation, it is Mourinho that has the perfect temperament to take up such a huge challenge as Manchester United. But Pep? I have my doubts .
Chelsea already have Guus Hiddink, even if many people believe he is doing a caretaker’s job until Roman Abramovich’s lures his real choice of manager to take over. Chelsea have the resources and also the ambition to invest in Pep and the most expensive players on the planet. But something tells me that this would not be Guardiola’s choice destination.
There is only one club left with the playing style, the resources and the ambition that all seem to fit the spirit of Pep Guardiola. The only plausible reason why anyone would doubt that Pep would be heading to Manchester City would be the presence of Manuel Luis Pellegrini, the present manager of the club. He too has rich managerial credentials, and is doing pretty well this season, making City already look and play like possible champions half way through it. Why would a winning manager be changed at the end of the season? That is the million Dollar question that only Guardiola can answer.
So where is he heading? There is no other club in the EPL besides the five listed above that can afford to hire him with his ‘army’ of great players without whom he can not succeed.
Whatever happens, I believe the EPL will never be the same again when Pep Guardiola finally makes his move, reveals his choice of club and heads to England.
Zinedine Zidane – The Football Poet As Coach!
One of the greatest players in history, three-time winner of the Ballon D’or (the world’s best player award) has been hired, with his very limited experience in coaching, to handle one of the biggest and richest football clubs in the world –Real Madrid.
These are indeed very interesting times.
Zinadine Zidane was not your ordinary player. He was a genius, a football artist extraordinaire, one who played football with the grace, fluency and rhythm of a poet.
The ‘marriage’ between Real and Zidane is one that will attract a lot of attention because of the sheer audacity of the step itself and the perception that great players never make great coaches.
Yet, Real Madrid must know what they are doing by letting go a reputable manager like Rafael Benitez who was not doing badly by remaining in the race for the top spot with FC Barcelona and Athletico Madrid in the La Liga. The rest of the world would like to also see the product of this romance, whilst personally I would watch out to justify my own position that good certificates do not make good coaches!
Zidane’s intelligence, his experiences playing under great coaches, and his experiences as assistant coach to various coaches in the club for many years, more than make up for his limited managerial experience. His credentials as a player will help him tremendously in tempering and managing the egos of the megastar players that abound in Real Madrid.
Should Zidane bring to bear a fraction of his playing skills and brilliance on the field of play to coaching, the world will be in for a massive treat of football this season. All eyes will be on Real Madrid and Zidane throughout the rest of the ongoing season!
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