The inside story of Pep Guardiola’s decision to quit Man City: Why he’s chosen to go now, the holiday where he made up his mind and the clues his reign was coming to an end

Pep Guardiola makes big decisions with vitamin D. In November 2024, with the weight of the world on his shoulders, Manchester City’s manager flew to the Middle East for a short holiday after the international break.

President Khaldoon saw Al Mubarak, talked about defeats and the future. Within a few hours, the Catalan verbally agreed to extend the contract, which went against his previous plans.

Guardiola has always set the summer of 2025 as a viable finish date in England; This date would open the curtain on a frankly surprising, trophy-laden tenure, but he felt he could not leave City in disrepair.

That gave him at least another 18 months to oversee guard changes on the roster, refresh the team and provide a platform for future success. There were those within the club who wondered if this would be another refresher for the all-seeing, all-knowing workaholic who had propelled them to such unimaginable success.

And this is a reasonable way of thinking. All season long there have been rumors about Guardiola’s future, and all season long there have always been warnings from a person prone to change his mind and a person who truly loves where he lives and who he works for.

But with the March international break on the horizon, Guardiola still had not presented a definitive future plan to his bosses and director of football Hugo Viana. So he went after the sun again. The plan was to fly directly to Abu Dhabi, carrying the Carabao Cup safely in the bag. This was not possible given airspace restrictions in the midst of Donald Trump’s war against Iran.

The decision has been debated for some time, with the Catalan embroiled in deep discussions with the Manchester City hierarchy during the last international break.

Guardiola went anyway and came back much more tanned than a 55-year-old player traveling home or anywhere in Europe for a few days. It was the look of a man farther away.

Coincidentally, Enzo Maresca, the frontrunner to succeed Guardiola, spent a long time in the Maldives after leaving Chelsea.

Guardiola spoke on the matter and was now acutely aware that a call had to be made either way. Maresca, on the other hand, has the relaxed air of someone who is confident about what will happen in the future.

Staff had had their suspicions for months, and the final news was nothing more than a confirmation of what they had expected from much of the campaign. But only recently, in the last month or two, have ideas of life without Guardiola in east Manchester become more concrete and truly worth considering.

An odd comment, a simple slip of the tongue from someone in the hierarchy, gave some trusted staff a hint of what was soon to come. Players have been talking privately about this possibility and are becoming more aware as time goes on. The feeling grew that Guardiola and his assistants would soon ride off into the sunset.

Guardiola speaks wistfully, nostalgically both in public and behind closed doors, and it speaks volumes that he chose to watch Stockport County lose to Port Vale and avoid the match of the year between Paris Saint-Germain and Bayern Munich.

Stockport owner Mark Stott runs the block of flats where Guardiola lives, near Manchester Cathedral. The pair remain close, although an open invitation to attend Edgeley Park as guests of honor has been on the table for years. Now Guardiola chooses to leave.

When asked about this a few days later, he said that he would have time to watch his former club Bayern from his couch next season.

Former City assistant manager Enzo Maresca (second from left) favorite to replace Guardiola

It made sense that the Catalan turned down Paris Saint-Germain’s Champions League tie with Bayern Munich and eventually received an open invitation from Mark Stott to watch Stockport County.

The Etihad are ready to open their North Stand expansion with 7,000 additional seats on the final day of the season – and meeting that deadline is something Al Mubarak has been pressing staff for in recent weeks. It was obvious why this was being talked about, and yesterday’s news only confirms these thoughts.

City were desperate to keep this under wraps for as long as humanly possible, and moving it to the final week of the season represented good business in that regard.

Guardiola did his part by donating enough at press conferences to convince those who wanted to convince him he would stay.

But on Saturday, the morning of the FA Cup final, the BBC hoped they had cracked the story in a broadcast interview but in reality the City boss was evasive and offered only crumbs.

The conversation took place just minutes after he hurried away from media duty, sounding cheerful but reserved when asked about his last trip to Wembley as manager. Giving the BBC something different redressed the balance somewhat.

The impact of what is said and when it is said must be playing out in the minds of Guardiola and the City managers. They saw the impact Jurgen Klopp’s January 2024 announcement had on the remainder of Liverpool’s season. This must have influenced the thought.

After Klopp said that was it, Liverpool played one more match and rose to the top of the Premier League by five points. They lost an average of one point per game over the next 17 games until the end of the season, leaving them nine winners behind City, who made history by retaining their third consecutive league title.

Guardiola leaves having won the FA Cup and Carabao Cup in his final season. Can he make the domestic treble this week?

There were clearly lessons in this and so nothing was revealed as soon as Guardiola stepped off his private jet after the holiday to prepare for the competition. And really there should be no discernible emotional or psychological difference between how City’s team feels now and how Liverpool felt then.

But now in this title race, just like in 2022, they will have to use this feeling until that last day when Villa are the guests, the drama of İlkay Gündoğan’s last two.

Guardiola’s legacy rests on none of this, on the contrary it would be poetic if he managed another domestic Treble in his final month as City manager. If they do that during the transition – an expensive transition, but a transition nonetheless – then it further enhances the genius of this man. It plays on the man’s ruthlessness and winning mentality.

They worry about how they can approach copying in a way that can wait for another day. For now, City’s only concern over these few days, with the FA Cup and Carabao in the bag, the title on the line and Monday’s farewell party, is making sure the ending suits their king.