Manchester City sits in second place in the Premier League, behind only the unlikely Leicester City. The team is also in the final of the League Cup and the last 16 of the F.A. Cup and the Champions League. In theory, it could win all four trophies this season.
And yet City just gave its manager his notice.
The team announced Monday that it had signed Pep Guardiola, the man behind the tremendous success of Barcelona, and more recently Bayern Munich, to take over next season on a three-year contract. That leaves the current manager, Manuel Pellegrini, as a lame duck even as the team competes for some of the most prestigious prizes in soccer.The dismissal of Pellegrini reflects the increasing pressure for success among the superteams in Europe’s top leagues. As recently as 1999, Manchester City was in the third tier of English soccer. But after being purchased by investors from the United Arab Emirates in 2008, the team has become one of the world’s wealthiest, winning the Premier League in 2012 and 2014.
The club insisted in a statement that “Manuel, who is fully supportive of the decision to make this communication, is entirely focused on achieving his targets for the season ahead and retains the respect and commitment of all involved with the leadership of the club.”
Guardiola will finish out the season with Bayern before heading to Manchester.The dismissal of Pellegrini reflects the increasing pressure for success among the superteams in Europe’s top leagues. As recently as 1999, Manchester City was in the third tier of English soccer. But after being purchased by investors from the United Arab Emirates in 2008, the team has become one of the world’s wealthiest, winning the Premier League in 2012 and 2014.
Guardiola in 2014. Guardiola won back-to-back league titles with Bayern Munich in 2014 and 2015 and will almost certainly win a third this season.
The flood of money has brought a host of world-class players to the team, but also sky-high expectations.
The Chilean veteran Pellegrini was hired in 2013 and led City to the Premier League title in his first year, then finished second to Chelsea last season. More disappointing to the owners was that the team fell in the round of 16 of the Champions League in both seasons.
This season, City is in a strong second place despite injury problems among many of its best players, including striker Sergio Agüero and the captain Vincent Kompany.
But the opportunity to hire Guardiola, 45, often called the world’s greatest manager, was apparently too great.
Guardiola was a success from the minute he took over as Barcelona’s manager, winning the Spanish League and Cup and the Champions League in his first season there, 2008-9. He added two more league titles, and another Champions League title in 2011, then in 2012 announced he would step down for a “sabbatical.”
Bayern Munich hired him in January 2013 to take over the next season. Guardiola won back-to-back league titles with Bayern and will almost certainly win a third this season.
In its statement announcing Guardiola’s hiring, Manchester City said, “These negotiations were a recommencement of discussions that were curtailed in 2012.” There was plenty of speculation at that time that Guardiola had been City’s first choice for manager and that Pellegrini had been a fallback.
The specter of the highly successful Guardiola on the way to Manchester City may put real pressure on City’s crosstown rival, Manchester United, to dump its manager, Louis Van Gaal, and go for the charismatic José Mourinho, who was recently fired by Chelsea.
Chelsea is also in need of a permanent manager, meaning that of England’s big four, only Arsenal, where Arsène Wenger is in his 20th year, has had any stability at the position.
After the announcement of Guardiola’s hiring by Bayern in 2013, the lame-duck manager, Jupp Heynckes, won the league and the Champions League. Pellegrini will have to hope he can go out at City with a similar blaze of glory.
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