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Pep Guardiola, Manchester City manager, sees the 2024-25 trophyless season as a time of growth. Despite finishing third, he values the lessons learned over victories.
Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola (AP)
For the first time since 2017, Pep Guardiola stood at the end of a season without a trophy in hand.
Yet, rather than view it through the cold lens of failure, the Manchester City manager chose to see the 2024-25 campaign as something deeper—a season of introspection, of quiet resilience, of necessary growth.
Guardiola opened up, not just about football, but about the emotional toll of chasing greatness.
“I want to suffer when I’m not winning games,” he confessed. “I want to feel bad. I want to sleep badly. I want that when the situation goes bad, it affects me… I want that!” Guardiola stated in conversation with Reuters.
At 54, Guardiola has amassed an enviable legacy—12 domestic league titles across Spain, Germany, and England. But last season marked only the second time in his career that he walked away without a single piece of silverware.
City finished third in the Premier League and fell short in both domestic and European competitions.
Yet Guardiola resists the temptation to label the season a disappointment. Instead, he frames it as perhaps one of the most meaningful of his tenure in Manchester.
“You judge happiness if you win. You judge success if you win and win. And that is a problem,” he said with quiet defiance.
“I will not judge myself or my team because of bad seasons or good seasons… Maybe finishing third in a season and never giving up, otherwise you finish 10th or 12th, maybe that’s a better season than when we won the fourth Premier League in a row.
“We faced so many difficulties that were higher due to injuries, relaxation, I was not good enough… for many reasons. Maybe the analysis about my period is that the last season was better. Qualifying for the Champions League when we were on the verge of not getting it.”
In those words, there’s a sense of a man who’s lived long enough in the highs to understand the necessity of the lows. Football, for Guardiola, is not just about the silver. It’s about the substance. The struggle. The story.
He also touched on the weight that comes with being in the spotlight, in a job that doesn’t allow for much silence.
“The stress is always there because you are being judged every single day, but it is what it is,” he said, with a kind of calm that only comes from years under pressure.
“Nobody put a gun to my head forcing me to choose this job. I have chosen that… There is no professional in football that wins all the time, because it’s simply impossible. So, it happened last season… You accept it, improve, learn, and there will be good learnings for the future.”
Sometimes, the seasons that don’t end in glory are the ones that shape us most. Guardiola knows that. And maybe, just maybe, he’s at peace with it.
After training in the field of broadcast media, Siddarth, as a sub-editor for News18 Sports, currently dabbles in putting together stories, from across a plethora of sports, onto a digital canvas. His long-term…Read More
After training in the field of broadcast media, Siddarth, as a sub-editor for News18 Sports, currently dabbles in putting together stories, from across a plethora of sports, onto a digital canvas. His long-term… Read More
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