Guardiola’s response to an autograph hunter who said he used to be a chef emphasized continuing to do the work and preparing better. That mindset of constant improvement and pursuit of perfection underpinned Manchester City’s achievements, including domestic trebles, record league success, and four consecutive championships. City won 17 major honours across a decade, supported by Guardiola’s intense focus on training-ground work, strategic planning, opposition analysis, and frequent team selection adjustments. He rotated players to keep performance high and managed setbacks with measured reactions to losses and officiating decisions. His approach combined relentless preparation with tactical flexibility, including extensive experimentation with starting lineups.
"I used to be a chef. Guardiola's reply cuts to the quick and reads as a mantra heard surely by the 85 players he used in 10 Premier League seasons. Continue to do it. Prepare better, he says."
"This ethos of improvement and seeking perfection swept Guardiola's City to the 2023 treble, the 2018 title with a record 100 points as part of a domestic treble, and to a historic four consecutive championships, the last of these a year after the winning Premier League, Champions League and FA Cup, when fatigue might have caused decline."
"The deeper need was for the work on the training ground, with the players, in strategising, in the shuffling of team selection, the scrutiny of the opposition. This was Guardiola's elixir, his drug. He was the arch-plotter, tactician and fielded 349 different starting XIs in 378 Premier League games."
"He could rotate and keep City, for most of the time, a winning machine. He knew, too, how to deal with and recover from losses. He hated losing but could be magnanimous. After the deep disappointment of losing on away goals to Tottenham in an April 2019 Champions League quarter-final, Guardiola was measured when discussing Fernando Llorente's second-half goal and how Raheem Sterling's injury-time strike was ruled out for Sergio Aguero's offside."
Read at www.theguardian.com
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