An architect who redefined football - why Guardiola stands apart

Manchester City won 17 major trophies in 10 seasons under Pep Guardiola, while Guardiola won 41 trophies across a 17-year managerial career. He won the league 12 times in those 17 years. Sir Alex Ferguson reached 49 trophies in 39 years, and Carlo Ancelotti has six league titles with two more Champions Leagues than Guardiola. Winning at the highest level is described as an entry fee, since many elite managers have won plenty of titles. The focus shifts to Guardiola’s distinct impact, including his role in transforming Barcelona into a complete club side, advancing positional play at Bayern, and proving his approach can work with limited resources and in lower divisions with youth teams.

"Manchester City won 17 major trophies in 10 seasons under Pep Guardiola. Stop and let that number land. Guardiola has won 41 trophies in total across his 17-year managerial career. The legendary Sir Alex Ferguson got to 49 - but in 39 years. And Guardiola has won the league 12 times in those 17 years. Compare that to Carlo Ancelotti, who, with more years in the profession, has 'just' six league titles - although two more Champions Leagues than Guardiola. The numbers give you a glimpse of who should be considered the greatest."

"And yet winning - at the highest level, for long enough - is only the entry fee. Ferguson won a lot. So did Bob Paisley, Bill Shankly, Jose Mourinho and Ancelotti. Zinedine Zidane too in a short period. Mircea Lucescu, Valeriy Lobanovskyi, Ottmar Hitzfeld, Jock Stein, Arsene Wenger, Jurgen Klopp - they all won plenty of titles. The question is not whether Guardiola belongs in that company. Obviously he does. The question is whether he stands apart from it - and why."

"To understand Guardiola's true weight in football history, consider this. His fingerprints are on everything. It really started with a sentence. When Joan Laporta was weighing up whether to give Guardiola the Barcelona job, the president looked at him and said: "No tens els collons." ("You don't have the balls.") His only managerial honour at the time was the Spanish third division. Laporta gave him the job. Football changed. Guardiola changed it."

"By the way, can Pep do it on bad pitches, with small crowds, with a small team? He did it in the third division with Barcelona B, with kids. Another tick. The school he came from had two Dutch headmasters: Rinus Michels and Johan Cruyff. Later on came Louis van Gaal. At Barcelona, Guardiola turned their ideas into the most complete club side the world had seen. At Bayern Munich he pushed deeper into positional play, leaving ideas German football is still working through today."

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