Pep Guardiola's decade at Manchester City is over. Sunday's final Premier League match against Aston Villa was his last in the Etihad dugout — ten years, an absurd trophy haul, and now a clean exit. So what comes next?
The honest answer, at least for now, is nothing. "I don't think for one second about anything related to football for the next years," Guardiola said. "I need to rest, I need to reflect, I need to see what happened in my 17, 18 years." He did the same after leaving Barcelona. A sabbatical, a reset, then back — and bigger than before.
England is the most logical landing spot
When Guardiola does return, the England job makes more sense than almost anything else. He spent a decade in the country. He knows English football's players, its culture, its media circus. The FA were linked with him before they hired Thomas Tuchel for the 2026 World Cup cycle, which means the interest was real — it just came at the wrong moment.
England's squad has also evolved technically in ways that would have made Guardiola's methods harder to implement a decade ago. That's no longer true. The raw material is there. Whether he'd fancy inheriting Tuchel's project is a different question, but if Tuchel moves on after 2026, the timing could align almost perfectly.
Other options exist but have complications. Guardiola won 47 caps for Spain, but his vocal support for Catalan independence makes that job politically fraught. Brazil has been mentioned — Guardiola has even spoken about it himself — but Carlo Ancelotti just signed an extension to take him through to the 2030 World Cup. That door is closed unless something goes badly wrong.
The market will be watching
Guardiola won't be in management next season, and probably not the one after either. But his odds for the England job after Tuchel's tenure are worth keeping an eye on — those prices tend to drift in a long vacancy, then collapse fast when a name this big resurfaces. Anyone pricing up the next permanent England manager will need to leave room for a very familiar Catalan face.
For now, though, he's stepping away. Three clubs. Three countries. Three generational projects. "I go to rest and recover the time I missed with my kids," he said. After what he built at City, no one can argue with that.
