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Pep Guardiola, a fine player during his playing days, is one of the greatest tacticians of the game.
Guardiola burst onto the scene at Barcelona despite having no prior experience of top-flight management. He became renowned for his tiki-taka style of football as the former player ushered in an era of unprecedented domestic and continental dominance at the Camp Nou.
During a glorious four-season stint at the club, Pep Guardiola delivered three La Liga titles (on the trot), and two Champions League wins amidst a rich haul of 14 trophies in various competitions. For his exploits at the Camp Nou, Guardiola won two 'World's best club coach' honors
The Spanish tactician then moved to Bayern Munich, where he delivered three Bundesliga titles on the trot, two of them being league and cup doubles, before arriving at the Etihad Stadium in the summer of 2016.
Although Pep Guardiola couldn't win the Champions League at Bayern Munich and hasn't able to take Manchester City beyond the quarter-finals in the competition, the Spaniard has transformed City into one of the teams to beat in England.
In Pep Guardiola's second season in charge at the club, a rampaging City tore the record books to shreds as they won the Premier League title with several games to spare. The next season, City withstood a determined challenge from Liverpool to successfully defend their title.
With Pep Guardiola falling short of a league three-peat at a third different club last season, his stock may have dipped ever so slightly, but he remains one of the best in business as City aim to win back the Premier League and make their much-awaited breakthrough in the Champions League in 2020-21.
Top ten players who have flopped under Pep Guardiola
During his stints at three of the biggest clubs in the continent, Pep Guardiola had the good fortune of managing some of the finest players to have graced the sport.
The likes of Lionel Messi, Andres Iniesta, Xavi Hernandez, Robert Lewandowski, Philipp Lahm, Vincent Kompany and Sergio Aguero, to name a few, has made his thankless job easier. The Spanish tactician has also made a slew of shrewd signings who have massively contributed to his success at all three clubs.
However, a few players under Pep Guardiola failed to have the desired impact due to reasons ranging from their incompatibility with the club's playing style, loss of form or at times a case of the player simply not being good enough.
On that note, let us have a look at ten such players who have flopped under Pep Guardiola.
#10 Benjamin Mendy
Benjamin Mendy was signed by Pep Guardiola for £52 million from Monaco in the summer of 2017.
However, the 2018 FIFA World Cup winner has only appeared 58 times for Manchester City in all competitions, a tally that comprises a cumulative 17 appearances in the club's victorious 2017-18 and 2018-19 Premier League campaigns.
Pep Guardiola broke City's club record for a defensive acquisition, but the injury-ravaged left-back struggled to break into the first team when he was not spending large swathes of time on the recuperating table.
#9 Seydou Keita
It may probably be harsh to call Seydou Keita a failure in the strictest sense of the term, because the first Malian player to represent Barcelona was a part of Pep Guardiola's all-conquering Blaugrana team that won 14 trophies, including a continental treble, during a four-year stint at the club.
The midfielder, who was known for his versatility, probably disappointed in the sense that he could not become Barcelona's midfield lynchpin like an Andres Iniesta or a Xavi Hernandez.
Keita later went on the play in the Chinese Super League, La Liga and Serie A before calling time on his career after a season with El-Jaish in the Qatar league. The player was recently in the news for donating food items in the Malian capital to families in need.
#8 Nolito
Nolito was one of Pep Guardiola's first few signings after arriving at the Etihad Stadium in 2016.
However, he turned out to be one of those signings that didn't really work out for the Spanish tactician. During his only season in English football, the winger made 30 appearances in all competitions, scoring six goals and providing five assists, but seemed largely unsettled in the country.
A year later, the Spain international moved back to La Liga, where he now plays for Celta Vigo.
#7 John Stones
John Stones was touted as the next big thing in English football when newly-appointed Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola splashed £47.5 million for the services of the player during an expensive squad revamp.
However, the 26-year-old former Barnsley and Everton center-back has found the going tough at the Etihad. He has certainly not been a disaster during his time at City, but the player has not been able to nail down a starting berth in the center of defence.
Stones has largely failed to step up after the departure of club captain Vincent Kompany, and when Aymeric Laporte missed large swathes of action last season as Pep Guardiola's men fell well short of a Premier League three-peat.
#6 Douglas Costa
Like some of the other players on this list, Douglas Costa cannot be termed an outright failure under Pep Guardiola.
In his final season in charge at Bavaria in 2015-16, Pep Guardiola splashed the cash to lure Costa from Shakhtar Donetsk, making him the fourth-most expensive signing in the club's history at that time.
However, Costa, who was expected to take over the reins from Franck Ribery in the Bayern Munich midfield, failed to light up the stage despite contributing four goals and 14 assists in his debut Bundesliga season.
Nevertheless, despite his modest returns under Pep Guardiola, Costa only has fond memories of the Spanish tactician.
“Guardiola was the person who made the biggest difference in my growth. He allowed me to play in the right role. He called me and said: 'We have a plan for your career, are you coming to join us? Are you ready to learn how to play football?'. I replied: 'Yes, I'm ready.'"
#5 Xherdan Shaqiri
Swiss winger Xherdan Shaqiri arrived at Bayern Munich in the summer of 2012 and was part of the Bavarian giants' historic treble-winning side. However, his returns of eight goals and 13 assists in his debut season rapidly dwindled with the arrival of Pep Guardiola the next season.
Blighted by injuries, Shaqiri rapidly slid down the pecking under Pep Guardiola, scoring only nine more times and providing six assists before he was shipped to Inter Milan in January 2015.
Shaqiri does have regrets about his dip in form under the Spanish tactician, but holds Pep Guardiola in high esteem despite only playing one and a half injury-riddled seasons under him.
“My situation changed under Pep Guardiola, but I never had any problems with him. His training was special, detailed and pretty demanding - but absolutely ace. We did everything with the ball. Unfortunately I had some injury problems. This was disappointing of course, though I'd say I never feared competition and wanted to show the coach why he was wrong," said Shaqiri in a later interview.
#4 Yaya Toure
Yaya Toure, one of the finest midfielders of his generation, made his Barcelona debut a season over Pep Guardiola took charge of the first team in 2008-09.
The player, however, never got going from the get-go, as Pep Guardiola favored Sergio Busquets to Toure in the defensive midfield role. Although Toure played in the 2009 Champions League final, it was only as a makeshift defender as the Blaugrana were short-staffed in that department due to injuries to their regular players.
Eventually, Toure left Camp Nou because he was not content playing second fiddle to Busquets and wanted more game-time, something that wasn't coming under Pep Guardiola.
"Whenever I asked him something, he always gave strange answers. He pretty much ignored me until City's offer came in. That's why I eventually opted to leave. I didn't speak to Guardiola for a year. If he had talked to me, I would have stayed at Barcelona. I did not want to go and wanted to end my career at Barcelona. However, he had no faith in me," reminisced Toure in a later interview.
A change of scenery worked wonders for Toure, and he was a man reborn. Toure hit the ground running, scoring ten goals in his first season at Manchester City in 2010-11 as he evolved into a formidable box-to-box colossus under Roberto Mancini; he had scored only six times in three seasons at Barcelona.
Years later, little love was lost when Pep Guardiola was reunited with Toure at Manchester City.
Toure was omitted from City's 2016-17 Champions League squad, and the player only played a handful of games under Pep Guardiola before leaving the club at the end of the next season, despite City winning the Premier League title.
Nevertheless, the manager showered praise on the player for his contribution to the success at Manchester City.
#3 Claudio Bravo
Claudio Bravo arrived with his former Barcelona boss Pep Guardiola with much fanfare in the summer of 2016, but the Chilean shot-stopper never got going at the Etihad.
The ball-playing keeper was brought to Manchester City as Pep Guardiola prefers his teams to play the ball from the back. However, Bravo failed to adapt to the English game. He was a bundle of nerves in his first season at the club, producing costly errors galore, despite playing 39 times in all competitions.
With the arrival of Ederson the next summer, Bravo unsurprisingly ceased to be the first-choice custodian under Pep Guardiola.
Largely restricted to playing in Cup games in the next three seasons, Bravo would make only 22 more appearances at the club before announcing his departure from the Etihad at the end of the 2019-20 season.
#2 Mario Gotze
Mario Gotze etched his name into German folklore after scoring the winner in the 2014 FIFA World Cup final against Argentina that delivered Die National Mannschaft their fourth triumph in the quadrennial tournament.
That was after the former Borussia Dortmund player had scored ten times in his first season at Bayern Munich, his arrival at the club coinciding with that of Pep Guardiola.
The diminutive player, with his dribbling ability, astute reading of the game and impeccable ball-distribution prowess, seemed to have the wherewithal to flourish under Pep Guardiola like a Messi or Iniesta did at Barcelona. However, that was not to be.
Blighted by injuries, Gotze's attacking output and defensive prowess, which was never his standout attribute to begin with, began to drop alarmingly. In fact, he became a pale shadow of the player that won consecutive Bundesliga titles at Borussia Dortmund.
After three unhappy seasons in Bavaria, Goeze was back at his boyhood club Borussia Dortmund in the summer of 2016, but he was no longer the same player he once was.
#1 Zlatan Ibrahimovich
At the outset, it must be said that Zlatan Ibrahimovich is one of the finest players to have graced the game. However, the player failed to prosper under Pep Guardiola after his arrival at Barcelona in the summer of 2009.
The prolific Swede made a blistering start to life at the Camp Nou, but things began quickly unraveling for Zlatan Ibrahimovich when he was moved out of his favored position as center-forward to accommodate a certain Lionel Messi.
The much-travelled Ibrahimovich, who had a decent return of 21 goals in 45 games in all competitions in his only season in Spanish football, reportedly had a fallout with Pep Guardiola and left the club at the end of the season.
"'It started well, but then Messi started to talk. He wanted to play in the middle, not on the wing, so the system changed from 4–3–3 to 4–5–1. I was sacrificed, and I no longer had the freedom on the pitch I need to succeed, Ibrahimovic later wrote about his Barcelona days in his autobiography.
The failure of the player to adapt may be a discussion for another day, but Pep Guardiola's Barcelona clearly would have prospered had they found a way to accommodate the prolific striker in their plans.
