City manager says “when we win the wine tastes better, you sleep better”
Pep Guardiola is eager to return Manchester City to their best next season, which he says will help him avoid feelings of deep personal discomfort.
After 12 league titles in 16 years across Spain, Germany and England, the 2024-25 campaign ended with Guardiola and Manchester City finishing empty-handed, with the Spaniard saying after City’s final Premier League game that the season had been so difficult for his side that qualifying for the Champions League felt like a title.
But while the noise from the outside world was loud, the most stinging discontent came from within the 54-year-old.
“It’s not about proving the haters wrong,” Guardiola told Reuters during a short break in Barcelona. “It’s to prove myself that I can do it. I don’t want to have those feelings that last season left.
“When we win, the wine tastes better afterwards. You sleep better. I don’t know a manager who loses games and sleeps like a baby. It doesn’t happen.”
Guardiola would love another crack at the Champions League next season, a competition City won in Istanbul in 2023 to complete their treble, but have failed to reach the semi-finals of in the past two years. If there’s good news on that front for Guardiola, it might be the departure of Carlo Ancelotti from Real Madrid.
The two men have met five times in the knockout rounds of the competition and Ancelotti has come out on top in four of those, including in the past two seasons. But they will no longer be facing each other.
“I’m happy he’s not at Madrid anymore because all the time he beats me,” joked Guardiola. “I don’t have to handle it anymore.”
But Guardiola made it clear that it was not a given that he would win it, saying that even the most dominant figures in sport fall short more often than not.
“I’ve won 12 leagues in 16 years, not bad,” said Guardiola. “But you cannot win all the time. Michael Jordan won six NBA Championships in 15 years. Tiger Woods, one incredible golf player, Jack Nicklaus, I don’t know how many he has. But they lost more Grand Slams than they won. It happens.”
With the Club World Cup set to begin on 14 June, Guardiola has less than a fortnight before he has to get back to work, and he described how he has been spending his much-needed break:
“Wake up later and don’t be with the players. Try to live what would be a normal life,” said Guardiola. “Go to a concert, lay down on the sofa, read books.
“I can play golf when my body allows me. Watch series that people suggest to me during the season to watch, like I’m not able to do.
“And I want to tell you something: usually, I’m going to do the same things as you do in your life.”
