Manchester City's farewell tribute to Pep Guardiola featured exactly one person with no connection to the club. That person was Jürgen Klopp.
Before City's final home game of the 2025–26 Premier League season — a dead-rubber defeat to Aston Villa that closed out Guardiola's decade in charge — the club released poster artwork crammed with the faces that defined their era: De Bruyne, Kompany, Foden, Haaland, Rodri, Fernandinho. Every name you'd expect. Then, tucked in among them, the former Liverpool manager.
It wasn't an accident. The club urged fans to "pinch and zoom to catch every detail." They knew exactly what they were doing.
The rivalry that made both sides better
The logic is sound. Guardiola's City was shaped, in no small part, by the pressure Klopp's Liverpool applied. The 2018–19 title race is the cleanest example — City needed 14 consecutive wins down the final stretch to hold off a Liverpool side that won their last nine. City finished on 98 points. Liverpool's 97 remains the highest points tally ever recorded by a team that didn't win the title, and still the fourth highest in the entire history of English league football. That's not a footnote. That's a generational performance that still fell short.
Liverpool got their revenge the following season with 99 points and a runaway title. Then 2021–22 went to the wire again, both clubs clearing 90 points, City edging it once more.
Guardiola said it plainly when Klopp left Liverpool: "We cannot define our period here without him... without Liverpool. Impossible." Andy Robertson, in his final Anfield appearance, echoed it on live television: "Pep Guardiola pushed us to completely new limits. We should have won more Premier Leagues if it wasn't for that man."
The quote that frames it best, though, comes from Klopp himself on the nature of their relationship: "For a rivalry, we don't need to be disrespectful."
What comes next for both men
Neither is rushing back into management. Klopp has been operating in a Head of Global Soccer role at Red Bull since leaving Liverpool two years ago, while Guardiola is moving into an ambassadorial and technical advisory position within the City Football Group. Both are stepping back from the dugout — for now.
The more interesting question is where they resurface. Guardiola has long wanted to manage a national team at a World Cup, with Spain ruled out by his own admission — his support of Catalan separatism makes that complicated — but other options remain open across Europe and beyond. Klopp, meanwhile, has not closed the door: "As a coach I'm not completely finished. I haven't reached retirement age." The Germany job, currently held by Julian Nagelsmann through Euro 2028, is widely understood to be Klopp's target when it next becomes available.
Ligue 1 side Paris FC have reportedly expressed interest in bringing Klopp back to club management, with potential Red Bull ties making it a plausible fit. But the sense is he's playing a longer game — much like Zidane has spent years waiting specifically for the France job rather than settling for something else.
A future Guardiola vs. Klopp chapter at international level isn't guaranteed. But it isn't far-fetched either. And if City's tribute artwork is any indication, even the club that benefited most from their rivalry understands that iron really does sharpen iron.
