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Pep Guardiola ruled the Football for four years with his management strategies and decision making during his tenure (2008-2012) at FC Barcelona. He is doing good at his current club in England and has a huge fan base. But the Manchester City Manager could not conceal his desire to return to Barcelona someday and end his career at home.
He is looking forward to coaching the youth team of FC Barcelona now rather than the first team. He told about this desire in an interview with Universo Valdano where he said,
I will finish again where I started... my last steps will be in the youth teams - I hope at Barca. I believe it’s - to start, it’s the best.
Guardiola had shown FC Barcelona its glory days, having won 3 La Liga cups, 2 Copa Del Rey, 2 Champions League trophies, 3 Super Copa and 2 UEFA Super Cups during his 4 years stay at the club. Therefore another managerial offer from the board to the Catalan man is never off the table. If Guardiola does coach Barcelona's first team again, will he be able to bring back the glory days to the club?
He is regarded as one of the most impressive mid players of FC Barcelona. He contained has that hot blood running inside him. He had always been highly creative in his passing, tactically aware, controlled the game and was one of the greatest playmakers of all time.
Hence, it would not be challenging for the Catalan manager to return to the first team as a manager. He knows the mentality of the club as a whole; he has coached the club before, he knows how to extract the Barcelona style of game from his players essentially bringing in the Tiki-Taka culture back to the squad, which has been diminishing gradually from the club since last few years.
The team that Guardiola managed during his last contract at Barcelona was far more experienced and filled with talented players like Victor Valdes, Carles Puyol, Dani Alves, Xavi, Iniesta, Thiery Henry, Samuel Eto'o, Lionel Messi. Hence, it was obviously easy for the manager to implement his plans with the players he had then. These players identified their responsibilities and could synchronize easily on the field.
He has also opened up about the same in his conversation with Universo Valdano,
I was at a fantastic age in which I was taking on the world. We took it on with some incredible players, a young president (Joan Laporta), Txiki (Begiristain)... it was a generation of brutal players and the best player in the world (Lionel Messi). The stars aligned.
The current squad of FC Barcelona is no less talented, but there is a lot more to be done by a manager to make bring it to the same level as the Barcelona squad of 2008-2012. The defensive line is still struggling, and Barcelona is surely missing the expertise of Iniesta and Xavi in the midfield.
Though with the hands-on experience that Guardiola has as a player and then as a manager in the biggest clubs of the world (FC Barcelona, Bayern Munich, Manchester City), it will be a cakewalk for the 47-year-old if he decides to coach the first team of FC Barcelona again.
He is currently associated with Manchester City and has already helped the club claim Premier League trophy in the previous season. Pep is still a hard-working, strategic and Tiki Taka man who has not lost his managerial spark on and off the field.
Unlike other managers who live in the past glory, Pep Guardiola is a man of the present. He has continuously proved his worth in the Football world and can surely bring back the glory days to one of the greatest clubs of the world- FC Barcelona.
