Biography
Pep Guardiola is a Spanish professional football manager and former player, who is the current manager of Premier League club Manchester City. He is considered to be one of the greatest managers of all time. He holds the record for the most consecutive league games won in La Liga, the Bundesliga and the Premier League.
Club career in Barcelona
Born in Santpedor, Barcelona, Catalonia, Guardiola joined La Masia at age 13 and rose through the ranks of Barcelona’s youth academy for six years, making his début in 1990 against Cádiz. As Phil Ball writes in Morbo,
In his first week at the club, Johan Cruyff turned up unannounced at the Mini Estadi, a venue just down the road from Camp Nou used by Barcelona B. Just before half-time he wandered into the dug-out and asked Charly Rexach, the youth team manager at the time, the name of the young lad playing on the right side of midfield.
“Guardiola – good lad,” came the reply. Cruyff ignored the comment and told Rexach to move him into the middle for the second half, to play as pivot. It was a difficult position to adapt to and one not used by many teams in Spain at the time. Guardiola adjusted immediately, as Cruyff had suspected he would, and when he moved to the first-team in 1990, he became the pivot of the Dream Team.
International career in Spain
Guardiola made his senior debut on 14 October 1992 in a 0–0 draw with Northern Ireland at Windsor Park in a World Cup qualifier. In the same year, Guardiola captained Spain when they won a gold medal at the Barcelona Olympic Games. It was in this year when he won the Bravo Award. That was recognizes the world’s best player under the age of 21. Between 1992 and 2001, Guardiola played over 47 times and scored five goals for the senior Spain team. He was a member of the Spanish team during the 1994 World Cup, where they reached the quarter-finals, losing 2–1 to Italy. He fell out of favour with Javier Clemente, Spain’s manager, due to disagreements and missed out on Euro 1996.
Style of play
Guardiola, considered one of the best midfielders of his generation by Johan Cruyff. Further, Guardiola was a highly creative, hard-working, nimble, and elegant player. Similarly, with good anticipation, tactical awareness, and an ability to read the game. Although he was competent defensively and able to press opponents to break up play and win the ball. And that was due to his slender build he usually functioned as a deep-lying play-maker. There he excelled courtesy of his technical ability and intelligent, efficient, precise passing game.
Personal life
Guardiola was born to Dolors and Valentí. He has two older sisters and a younger brother, Pere, a football agent. He is non-religious. Guardiola met his wife when he was 18. They married on 29 May 2014. They have three children named Maria, Màrius and Valentina. Following his tenure as Barcelona’s manager, he stated that he would move to the United States to live in Manhattan, New York. He lived for a year, until he decided on his future. To prepare for his position as the manager. There he was the manager of Bayern Munich, Guardiola practised German for four to five hours per day. Guardiola supports the political independence of Catalonia. Since 2015, he confirmed that he would participate in the pro-independence coalition Junts pel Sí in that year’s regional parliamentary election.
Overview
- Full name: Josep Guardiola Sala
- Date of birth 18 January 1971
- Age: 48
- Place of birth: Santpedor, Spain
- Nationality: Spanish
- Spouse: Cristina Serra (since m. 2014)
- Teams coached: Manchester City F.C. (Association football manager, since 2016), etc.
- Children: Marius Guardiola, Valentina Guardiola, Maria Guardiola
- Height: 80 m (5 ft 11 in)[2]
- Playing position: Defensive midfielder
- Current team: Manchester City (manager)
- Net Worth: $40 million
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Reference Net Worth of Pep Guardiola