Football • Opinion • Analysis

Matchday Pundit

Ten years. Twenty trophies. One man who changed English football forever. And now, the curtain falls.

20

Trophies won
at Man City

There are moments in football when you know, even as they happen, that you are watching history. Not the kind of history that gets rewritten or revisited with caveats and asterisks, but the kind that simply stands. Permanent. Inarguable. The kind that will be talked about in pubs and living rooms and press boxes long after the people discussing it have forgotten most other things about this era of the game. Pep Guardiola leaving Manchester City is that kind of moment.

City have confirmed that the announcement is imminent, timed ahead of a Monday open top bus parade through Manchester that will serve as a celebration of one of the most extraordinary decades any single manager has ever produced at a single club. He arrived in the summer of 2016. He leaves ten years later with 20 trophies, a transformed club, and a changed game. There is no other way to say it. English football looks the way it looks today in large part because of what this man did at the Etihad Stadium.

The Numbers

Twenty Trophies in Ten Years

Let me put the numbers in front of you before anything else, because they frame everything that follows. In ten years at Manchester City, Pep Guardiola won six Premier League titles, three FA Cups, five Carabao Cups, one UEFA Champions League, one Club World Cup, one UEFA Super Cup and three Community Shields. That is 20 major trophies. An average of two per season across a decade at the same club.

6Premier League titles

3FA Cup wins

5Carabao Cup wins

1Champions League

20Total trophies at City

41Career trophies total

On 5 October 2025, he became the fastest manager in Premier League history to reach 250 victories, doing so in just 349 matches and surpassing Alex Ferguson’s previous record of 404 matches. On 9 November, he took charge of his 1,000th match as a manager. On 28 January 2026, he recorded his 400th win with City, again the fastest manager in English football history to reach that milestone. The records he set were not just impressive. They were the kind of records that may never be broken.

In 2017 to 18, Manchester City became the first and still only side in English football history to accumulate 100 points in a single Premier League season. That was just his second year in charge.

The Journey

Season by Season

How the Decade Unfolded

2016 to 17

Guardiola’s first season ends without a trophy, City finishing third. He immediately begins a wholesale squad rebuild, adding Walker, Mendy, Ederson, Bernardo Silva and Danilo. No silverware. Total transformation of the foundation.

2017 to 18

The machine starts. City win the Premier League with a record 100 points and the Carabao Cup. It is the most dominant league title performance in English football history. The 100 point season becomes a benchmark nobody else has reached since.

2018 to 19

The domestic quadruple. Premier League, FA Cup, Carabao Cup and Community Shield. City become only the second team ever to achieve the domestic treble of league, FA Cup and League Cup, and they do it by winning their final 14 Premier League matches.

2019 to 20

Carabao Cup and Community Shield. City finish second in the Premier League, 18 points behind Liverpool. They exit the Champions League in the quarter finals. The first signs that rivals have begun to close the gap.

2020 to 21

Premier League and Carabao Cup. City win 15 consecutive matches across all competitions during the winter and spring. Guardiola wins his third Premier League title at the club. Champions League final defeat to Chelsea in Porto.

2021 to 22

Premier League title on the final day, overtaking Liverpool in one of the most dramatic title finishes the competition has ever produced. Champions League semi final exit. Carabao Cup winners.

2022 to 23

The historic treble. Premier League, FA Cup and Champions League in the same season, beating Inter Milan in Istanbul in a final decided by Rodri’s second half winner. City then win the UEFA Super Cup and FIFA Club World Cup later in the year, becoming the first English club to hold all five major trophies simultaneously.

2023 to 24

A fourth consecutive Premier League title, an achievement no English club has ever managed before or since. City also win the Community Shield. A season of historic proportions, even without a cup final appearance.

2024 to 25

A difficult campaign. City finish third in the Premier League, their worst finish since Guardiola’s first season. A period of transition, injuries and squad ageing brings the first genuine questions about the end of a cycle.

2025 to 26

The farewell season. Carabao Cup won against Arsenal. FA Cup won against Chelsea at Wembley with a Antoine Semenyo backheel for the ages. Twenty trophies. Ten years. Curtain falls.

The Legacy

What He Changed

The Game Looks Different Because of Him

The trophies tell you what he won. They do not fully capture what he changed. When Guardiola arrived at City in 2016, he found a club with resources and ambition but without a football identity you could describe with clarity. Within two seasons, he had built something that every other team in the Premier League had to respond to. The high press, the positional play, the goalkeeper acting as a sweeper, the full backs inverting into midfield, the relentless demand for technical quality from every position. These things existed before Guardiola but he brought them to England at a level and consistency nobody had seen before.

He also changed what a successful footballer looked like at the highest level. Ederson was not considered a sweeper keeper before Guardiola made him one of the most important players in City’s system. Oleksandr Zinchenko went from a winger nobody wanted to a system defining left back. Rodri, already excellent when he arrived, became the Ballon d’Or winner under his management. Kevin De Bruyne became the finest midfielder of his generation. Bernardo Silva became one of the most complete and adaptable players in world football. The list of careers he elevated is extraordinary.

And his influence runs far beyond the players he managed directly. Xabi Alonso played under Guardiola at City during his brief post playing career consultancy and is now Chelsea’s incoming manager carrying his ideas into Stamford Bridge. Enzo Maresca was his assistant during the treble winning season and is the frontrunner to succeed him. The next generation of coaches shaping European football were all formed in some way by watching, working under, or responding to what Guardiola built.

He arrived at a club that had won two Premier League titles. He leaves it as the benchmark against which every other club in England measures itself. That is not normal. That is generational.

What Comes Next

Who Follows the Greatest Manager in City History

City’s sporting director Hugo Viana must now navigate the most consequential appointment in the club’s history. The leading candidates are Enzo Maresca, who served as Guardiola’s assistant during the treble winning 2022 to 23 campaign before a disappointing spell at Chelsea, and Vincent Kompany, the former City captain who is currently managing Bayern Munich and who embodies the culture Guardiola built during his playing days at the Etihad.

There are also reports that Guardiola himself may remain at the club in a different advisory capacity, which would at least preserve continuity of philosophy during a transition that carries enormous risks. City are also facing the departure of Bernardo Silva, who has given nine years and 18 trophies to the club and is expected to move to Barcelona or Serie A this summer. Replacing Bernardo Silva the player is difficult enough. Replacing Bernardo Silva the cultural cornerstone is something else entirely.

Whoever takes the job inherits a squad of genuine quality, a world class training ground, the most sophisticated sporting infrastructure in English football, and a fanbase that has been spoiled in the most wonderful way possible for a decade. They also inherit the impossible task of following a man whose shadow over the Etihad Stadium will stretch for a very long time.

The Reaction

How Football Said Thank You

Social media stopped when the news broke. City fans posted every trophy lift, every iconic press conference moment, every piece of brilliant football across ten extraordinary years. Rival supporters, who have spent a decade being beaten and outsmarted by this man, queued up to pay their respects. When your rivals salute you, you know you have done something remarkable.

The Monday open top bus parade through Manchester is being described as the most significant football celebration the city has seen since the 2023 treble. The route through the Northern Quarter and down to the Etihad will be lined by supporters who understand they are not just farewelling a manager. They are farewelling an era. Those do not come around often. And when they end, the absence of them takes a long time to fill.

Guardiola himself has said very little publicly beyond the smile and the shrug at Wembley when asked if Saturday was his last game as City manager. Those who know him say the decision was made weeks ago, that he is at peace with it, and that he leaves with no regrets and no unfinished business. Twenty trophies tends to do that to a man.

He is 55 years old with 41 career trophies and the energy, the curiosity and the intellectual restlessness that have defined his entire career. Pep Guardiola is not done. He is just done here. And that, for Manchester City and for English football, is the end of something that may never be seen again.

Matchday Pundit