Is Pep the greatest manager of all time?

Are we just rewriting history now?

No but before Pep, Xavi was not on course to be seen as a legendary and one of the best midfielders ever. He didnt start the CL final for Barcelona against Arsenal. Mark van Bommel started instead of Xavi. Barcelona almost sold Xavi to Chelsea. Clearly not a 'nothing player' (which is about the dumbest way to describe a player tbf) but also not a midfielder that was expected to dominate midfields for years to come.
 
Of course he is a great manager

I just don’t think he’s the greatest.


He can obviously manage a team/club to a good standard but let’s be honest. He hit the jackpot at Barca with xavi, Iniesta, busquets and Messi. He went to Bayern who were/are serial winners domestically and did worse than his predecessor and moved to city where he’s had an open cheque book since his arrival.

Reiterate he can obviously manage a club to a good standard, but not for me
There is no problem at all with this statement. If someone thinks he is not the greatest manager of all time, that's perfectly fine. How is something like that judged anyway?

The issue is with people constantly trying to argue that he is not a great manager, which is just a moronic stance.
 
No but before Pep, Xavi was not on course to be seen as a legendary and one of the best midfielders ever. He didnt start the CL final for Barcelona against Arsenal. Mark van Bommel started instead of Xavi. Barcelona almost sold Xavi to Chelsea. Clearly not a 'nothing player' (which is about the dumbest way to describe a player tbf) but also not a midfielder that was expected to dominate midfields for years to come.
Thats fine it's very rare youd expect someone to dominate like he did, but as you said quite clearly was never a nothing player. Actual joke to suggest as much and I'd wonder if you have short term memory loss or simply werent alive at the time of you genuinely believe that.
 
The argument that Guardiola had some luck/good fortune in managing Xavi, Iniesta, etc. is not without merit.

At the same time, it's not a random club that appointed a random manager. He rose through the ranks there as a player, had a long and successful career, and then eventually came back to rise through the ranks as a manager.

Suppose you have a guy who starts working at a tech company as an intern, then rises through the ranks until he's one of the lead engineers, and then leaves for a competitor. Then he comes back for some executive program and is eventually appointed CTO and the company does amazingly well for a few years. You wouldn't really say "well he's just lucky they had some good engineers at the time."

I think many of us dislike Pep, due to obvious reasons. But this "he had luck", is just stupid. He built a system tailor made for the squad. And it was a killer system. Plus, it was just the right time for trend of tiki-taka.

BUT. The issue for me with him as being as "the greatest ever", is that he left Barca simply because he knew the age of "tiki-taka" is ending and left for the easiest job possible followed by City where he was slapped in Europe on regular basis until historic depression of legacy clubs happened.
 
No but before Pep, Xavi was not on course to be seen as a legendary and one of the best midfielders ever. He didnt start the CL final for Barcelona against Arsenal. Mark van Bommel started instead of Xavi. Barcelona almost sold Xavi to Chelsea. Clearly not a 'nothing player' (which is about the dumbest way to describe a player tbf) but also not a midfielder that was expected to dominate midfields for years to come.
That CL final was in 2006, 2 years later he was the best player of Euro 2008.
Of course no one would expect him to become one of the best midfielders of all time but he was already one of the top midfielders in the world.
Pep has merit to have created that team (especially the tactics) but let's not pretend he picked a bunch of nobodies and made them world beaters.
 
I think many of us dislike Pep, due to obvious reasons. But this "he had luck", is just stupid. He built a system tailor made for the squad. And it was a killer system. Plus, it was just the right time for trend of tiki-taka.

BUT. The issue for me with him as being as "the greatest ever", is that he left Barca simply because he knew the age of "tiki-taka" is ending and left for the easiest job possible followed by City where he was slapped in Europe on regular basis until historic depression of legacy clubs happened.
Which clubs were those?
 
No. Xavi said that himself

Four years ago, I was considered horrible and useless. I was the cancer of Barcelona. A player who is 1.70 cm tall should not have played according to Rijkaard", Xavi emphasized

Xavi: I was Barça's cancer - Telegraph https://search.app/HWVmxNgjRC6fjKsPA
For one, did you actually bother to read that "article"?

For two, that's not the telegraph. That's the telegrafi, an albanian online news website published in Kosovo. I don't even think those quotes are real, and even if they were, it's a criticism of rijkaard, not xavi being a nothing player.

Iniesta also started on the bench against arsenal in the CL final, was he also a nothing player?
 
For one, did you actually bother to read that "article"?

For two, that's not the telegraph. That's the telegrafi, an albanian online news website published in Kosovo.
I don't even think those quotes are real, and even if they were, it's a criticism of rijkaard, not xavi being a nothing player.

Iniesta also started on the bench against arsenal in the CL final, was he also a nothing player?
:lol:

Apart from that though…..?
 
For one, did you actually bother to read that "article"?

For two, that's not the telegraph. That's the telegrafi, an albanian online news website published in Kosovo. I don't even think those quotes are real, and even if they were, it's a criticism of rijkaard, not xavi being a nothing player.

Iniesta also started on the bench against arsenal in the CL final, was he also a nothing player?
That article was published several years ago and most of the originals are no longer on the internet. Those quotes were in Telegraph, ESPN etc.

Xavi was about to be shipped out of Barcelona in summer 2008 before Pep stopped the sale. I know because Bayern was one of his destination. Barcelona never saw Xavi as part of their future until Pep came and made him the best midfielder of his generation
 
You only have to look at the way he has dealt with City's current poor form by pulling out his chequebook instead of trying to improve the players he has got, changing up his tactics, or bringing players through from what City fans claim is the best youth academy in the world to see he is isnt this world class master tactician people try to make him out to be.
 
That article was published several years ago and most of the originals are no longer on the internet. Those quotes were in Telegraph, ESPN etc.

Xavi was about to be shipped out of Barcelona in summer 2008 before Pep stopped the sale. I know because Bayern was one of his destination. Barcelona never saw Xavi as part of their future until Pep came and made him the best midfielder of his generation

As much as Pep helped him, its worth pointing out Xavi was excellent in Euro 2008, so in a way, Luis Aragones was the one who unlocked his potential first.
 
Pre Pep, Xavi was seen as a nothing player and was about to be sold off by Barcelona.

After Pep, Barcelona with Xavi was getting smashed 7-0 by Bayern. By 2014 they crashed out before the semis. 2015 Xavi was no longer a regular

Pre Pep, Xavi was the lynchpin for Spain when they won the Euros 2008 and was rightly crowned the player of the tournament. Even disregarding that achievement, that is an utterly idiotic post which takes some doing in this thread.

It's almost like idiocy fueling stupidity. On one hand you have people rushing to heavily downplay or almost nullify Pep's achievements, and on the other you have people rushing to downplay other managers (or the players and teams that Pep managed) to hype Pep's achievements and his standing in the game. Very similar to the CR7 vs Messi thread in some aspects. It would be nice if people could be balanced fair and not let their biases run amok. Pep is one of the best managers ever and what he did with Barcelona would stand the test of times. Him being a manager of City also of course, makes him an utter wanker and a hypocrite but it shouldn't really influence his work at Barcelona, and to a certain extent at Bayern, in my opinion.
 
Pre Pep, Xavi was the lynchpin for Spain when they won the Euros 2008 and was rightly crowned the player of the tournament. Even disregarding that achievement, that is an utterly idiotic post which takes some doing in this thread.

It's almost like idiocy fueling stupidity. On one hand you have people rushing to heavily downplay or almost nullify Pep's achievements, and on the other you have people rushing to downplay other managers (or the players and teams that Pep managed) to hype Pep's achievements and his standing in the game. Very similar to the CR7 vs Messi thread in some aspects. It would be nice if people could be balanced fair and not let their biases run amok. Pep is one of the best managers ever and what he did with Barcelona would stand the test of times. Him being a manager of City also of course, makes him an utter wanker and a hypocrite but it shouldn't really influence his work at Barcelona, and to a certain extent at Bayern, in my opinion.
:lol: yep, everyone always veers way too much to the other side in these sort of “debates”. Like there isn’t a reasoned middle ground to be had…
 
That article was published several years ago and most of the originals are no longer on the internet. Those quotes were in Telegraph, ESPN etc.

Xavi was about to be shipped out of Barcelona in summer 2008 before Pep stopped the sale. I know because Bayern was one of his destination. Barcelona never saw Xavi as part of their future until Pep came and made him the best midfielder of his generation
Source: trust me bro.

As someone else stated, xavi won player of the tournament euro 2008. If barca were planning on "shipping him out" that's an indictment of them, not xavi.

All in all, if you truly believe xavi was a nothing player before pep, I strongly doubt youre old enough to have actually watched him play. And if you are, I don't think analysing football is for you.
 
Pre Pep, Xavi was the lynchpin for Spain when they won the Euros 2008 and was rightly crowned the player of the tournament. Even disregarding that achievement, that is an utterly idiotic post which takes some doing in this thread.

It's almost like idiocy fueling stupidity. On one hand you have people rushing to heavily downplay or almost nullify Pep's achievements, and on the other you have people rushing to downplay other managers (or the players and teams that Pep managed) to hype Pep's achievements and his standing in the game. Very similar to the CR7 vs Messi thread in some aspects. It would be nice if people could be balanced fair and not let their biases run amok. Pep is one of the best managers ever and what he did with Barcelona would stand the test of times. Him being a manager of City also of course, makes him an utter wanker and a hypocrite but it shouldn't really influence his work at Barcelona, and to a certain extent at Bayern, in my opinion.
His work at Bayern was quite unremarkable.
 
His work at Bayern was quite unremarkable.

He achieved very little if anything at Bayern and was involved in controversy when he publically blamed the clubs elderly first team doctor for a 3-1 defeat in the Champions League and forced him to leave a job he had been doing for many years.
 
He achieved very little if anything at Bayern and was involved in controversy when he publically blamed the clubs elderly first team doctor for a 3-1 defeat in the Champions League and forced him to leave a job he had been doing for many years.
Admittedly competent but nothings special, most managers would have gotten the results he did at Bayern as it would have taken outright malfeasance from them to stop them from wining the league.

Looking back at his resume it's his barca and city stints that make his name, the latter having a big asterisk next to it.
 
In terms of Bayern, he did have to face excellent RM and Barca-sides in UCL, probably should have made one UCL-final with Bayern though, in 15/16, if Saul didn't turn into Messi for a moment.

But, results are what they are.
 
Admittedly competent but nothings special, most managers would have gotten the results he did at Bayern as it would have taken outright malfeasance from them to stop them from wining the league.

Looking back at his resume it's his barca and city stints that make his name, the latter having a big asterisk next to it.
The former also has an asterisk due to the referee bribing allegations.
 
The former also has an asterisk due to the referee bribing allegations.
True and I despise them for it as they should have never made the 2009 final in the first place.

But still I reckon most footballing fans are willing to brush those aside, the nature of the city situation however makes it impossible to do the same.
 
In terms of Bayern, he did have to face excellent RM and Barca-sides in UCL
He did take over a record-breaking treble winning team that reached 3 CL finals in 4 years before him. They were absolutely at least on par to the Barca and Real teams in those years and he did nothing with it. But it has to be said he didn't cause any real problems as well, which is remarkable for a Bayern manager.
 
He did take over a record-breaking treble winning team that reached 3 CL finals in 4 years before him. They were absolutely at least on par to the Barca and Real teams in those years and he did nothing with it. But it has to be said he didn't cause any real problems as well, which is remarkable for a Bayern manager.
It could be argued that it is harder to come in and motivate a group of players that has already achieved a treble.

Also people tend to forget that Bayern weren't that dominant domestically until Pep showed up. He was the first Bayern manager in 10 years to win two titles in a row. But the fact that they achieved the ultimate achievment for a club side the season before he came in skews that a little. But that treble was also fuelled by a lot of failure leading up to it.

Of course, the groundwork could have been laid for a complete and utter dominance easily achieved by pretty much any manager at that point. But nothing about the preceding decades of Bundesliga showed that it was logical to think Bayern would win every year for the coming decade.

Also Rafa Benitez, a good to great manager in his own right walked into a treble winning side 2 years before that and showed how hard it can be to maintain standards
 
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It could be argued that it is harder to come in and motivate a group of players that has already achieved a treble.

Also people tend to forget that Bayern weren't that dominant domestically until Pep showed up. He was the first Bayern manager in 10 years to win two titles in a row. But the fact that they achieved the ultimate achievment for a club side the season before he came in skews that a little. But that treble was also fuelled by a lot of failure leading up to it.

Of course, the groundwork could have been laid for a complete and utter dominance easily achieved by pretty much any manager at that point. But nothing about the preceding decades of Bundesliga showed that it was logical to think Bayern would win every year for the coming decade.

Also Rafa Benitez, a good to great manager in his own right walked into a treble winning side 2 years before that and showed how hard it can me to maintain standards
All true and I acknowledge that he did a very good job keeping the standards high and not dropping off a level. My point is only that there is no reason to rank Barca or Real higher than Bayern at the time.
 
All true and I acknowledge that he did a very good job keeping the standards high and not dropping off a level. My point is only that there is no reason to rank Barca or Real higher than Bayern at the time.
Barcelona and Madrid can casually spend millions on Neymar Suarez Bale and Ronaldo amounts that Bayern still struggle to pay 10yrs later
 
All true and I acknowledge that he did a very good job keeping the standards high and not dropping off a level. My point is only that there is no reason to rank Barca or Real higher than Bayern at the time.
There's no reason to rank Bayern higher than the other two either. Barca was an absolutely stacked team when they went out against them, Real had multiple world record transfers in their line up. To me, the two Spanish teams edge it slightly at that point. 2016 is when Bayern really should have made it to the finals.
 
There's no reason to rank Bayern higher than the other two either. Barca was an absolutely stacked team when they went out against them, Real had multiple world record transfers in their line up. To me, the two Spanish teams edge it slightly at that point. 2016 is when Bayern really should have made it to the finals.
I think we agree that there are only small differences between those teams in terms of quality. So my point is, if Pep would be the GOAT he would have made a difference to tip the balance for Bayern. He didn't. He isn't THE GOAT, just a very good manager.
 
I think we agree that there are only small differences between those teams in terms of quality. So my point is, if Pep would be the GOAT he would have made a difference to tip the balance for Bayern. He didn't. He isn't THE GOAT, just a very good manager.
Now, I don't think Pep is the GOAT manager but with that line of reasoning you would have no such manager, just a bunch of very good managers.
 
In terms of Bayern, he did have to face excellent RM and Barca-sides in UCL, probably should have made one UCL-final with Bayern though, in 15/16, if Saul didn't turn into Messi for a moment.

But, results are what they are.
2016 was very unlucky - they lost on away goals, Muller missed a penalty and Oblak had a great game, they battered Atletico in the second leg but that’s football sometimes. I don’t see anything that wrong with his Bayern legacy in Europe as you said the previous two years were peak Messi and Ronaldo. Bayern have only won 2 CLs in the past 24 years anyway so it’s not like it’s easy to achieve.

His worst CL moments were at City I thought, losing to Lyon and Monaco and not playing Rodri against Chelsea in the 2021 final against in-form Kante was inexplicable. City should have had more than 1 CL in his 8 seasons, they were arguably the best team in Europe for 3-4 of them.
 
That article was published several years ago and most of the originals are no longer on the internet. Those quotes were in Telegraph, ESPN etc.

Xavi was about to be shipped out of Barcelona in summer 2008 before Pep stopped the sale. I know because Bayern was one of his destination. Barcelona never saw Xavi as part of their future until Pep came and made him the best midfielder of his generation
Hahahahahh

I’m sure Bayern and Barca run all their transfer strategies past you

Or did you just read it in an Albanian publication again.
 
Hahahahahh

I’m sure Bayern and Barca run all their transfer strategies past you

Or did you just read it in an Albanian publication again.

From what i read that plan was actually to sell Xavi to us(Man Utd)
 
Hahahahahh

I’m sure Bayern and Barca run all their transfer strategies past you

Or did you just read it in an Albanian publication again.
Seems like you have something against Albania

At Euro 2008, I was told the club wanted to sell me. Real Madrid were winning and us, nothing,” he recalled.

“I go to the national team knowing that if a good offer comes in, the club will sell me. I spoke to my agent and there was an offer from Bayern. Karl-Heinz Rummenigge wanted me.
But then we hired Guardiola and I had a great tournament. Pep told me not to move, that he couldn’t imagine the team without me, and I’ll enjoy it. I was captivated.”

https://www.football-espana.net/2015/09/15/xavi-nearly-left-in-2008