Some things never change. Eternal champion Manchester City loses football matches in the autumn. And Pep Guardiola agrees to extend contracts in November.
Tuesday evening brought news that executives in the country's wealthiest boardrooms have reached for extra jerseys, although even the extra layers can't stop the shivers caused by the realization of yet more Guardiola, a seemingly endless Guardiola.
Just a few months ago he was ready to renounce all of this. Shattered at the end of English football's Everest climb to become the first manager to win four consecutive titles. He was done, the energy was gone.
Those in the know about City were talking about 2025, the end of a chapter, with both their great boss and sporting director Txiki Begiristain expected to call time for an era like no other. The staff was under the impression that this would be it, a last dance.
But then Guardiola scored another goal and it was just too much to stop. Setting bigger goals for themselves, bringing in new faces, finding new ways to beat those incessant low blocks. He just can't leave it alone. This is a medicine like no other.
At this rate he may never leave, but on and on, flailing as the next pretenders come and go in an attempt to take the crown. In November, a new deal was agreed in principle for another year and possibly another twelve months on top of that.
It's been four years since City stumbled through a similar period to the one they're going through now: performances not at their best, disappointing results.
So there had been sound of him saying goodbye, although not as loud as this time.
Guardiola sent a message that year by extending his contract – even though some staff were surprised he had committed and unsure how he would take the team – and the same is true now.
Those players will notice. The confusion and uncertainty will be cleared once City posts the story on their website.
It brings more peace to the procedures that went anything but smoothly over the past month. Do City's displays improve immediately? Maybe not – they didn't in 2020 either – but the decision to replant its flag leaves the team in no doubt about what is expected of them from now until the end of the season.
The chance that everything will melt away disappears.
“He has taken me to a level I didn't know I could reach,” Ballon d'Or winner Rodri said recently. “He gives you a toolbox and you have more tools than the rest.”
Guardiola's relationship with chairman Khaldoon Al-Mubarak is crucial in these decisions – the two have holidayed together with their families in the past – and the latter would always be keen to keep the club's prized asset.
Because that's what he is: despite all the brilliance of Erling Haaland, Kevin De Bruyne, Phil Foden. The City juggernaut is about the man who runs it. The man who wandered around the club's training ground the morning after the Christmas parties complaining that no one else was working.
He is a force of nature, someone who drags staff along with him and someone who quickly identified with City as a club. As a man full of surprises, this is perhaps the biggest since he arrived here in 2016, in a suit and white sneakers.
That man wouldn't have labeled this job a decade-long crusade. No chance.
He is free in Manchester, free from the politics that blighted his spells at Barcelona and to a lesser extent Bayern Munich. There is a strange difference of opinion in the transfer market, but certainly on the training field, and the Catalan does not fall short in preparing for matches.
There is undoubtedly a sense of gratitude involved and next summer's Club World Cup schedule must have weighed heavily on Guardiola as he worked out his next move. Less than a month will likely pass between the end of that competition and the start of the 2025-2026 season.
How would City have dealt with that, apart from the fact that the successor would shadow him in America? The consequences of not having a preseason with a new voice would certainly have had an impact in the intervening period.
The post-Guardiola conundrum is set to be challenged even further and City couldn't be happier about it, giving new sporting director Hugo Viana more time to settle in before a new man projects some stability at a time when the champions will have to deal with the Premier League in two major cases off the field.
They have done Guardiola a number of favors over the years and this is just another favor he offers in return.
Comments