Pep Guardiola, born January 18, 1971, in Santpedor, Spain, is a renowned Spanish football manager and former player. Guardiola achieved success as a midfielder primarily with Barcelona. However, his managerial career garnered him widespread acclaim. He began with Barcelona B before leading the first team to unprecedented success, including three La Liga titles and two UEFA Champions League trophies. His tactical prowess and possession-based style, known as “tiki-taka,” became legendary. Guardiola later managed Bayern Munich in Germany, securing multiple Bundesliga titles. Since 2016, he has been at the helm of Manchester City in the English Premier League, winning several league titles and domestic cups. Guardiola’s innovative tactics, attention to detail, and knack for developing talent have left an indelible mark on football, earning him a place among the sport’s greatest managers.

Pep Guardiola Quotes

01. “My advice for Sebastian Kehl is: if you have a 35-point deficit in the league, it is better to shut up.”
— Pep Guardiola

02. “The result is an empty thing. The result is I’m happy for the next two days because I get less criticism and more time to improve my team. But what satisfies me the most in my job is to feel emotions, the way we play.”
— Pep Guardiola

03. “I don’t like it when a player says, ‘I like freedom; I want to play for myself.’ Because the player has to understand he is part of a team with 10 other players. If everyone wants to be a jazz musician, it will be chaos. They will not be a team, and nothing will be possible.”
— Pep Guardiola

04. “In football, the worst things are excuses. Excuses mean you cannot grow or move forward.”
— Pep Guardiola

05. “The fans can accept a poor performance, but they won’t take it when you choose not to put in the effort.”
— Pep Guardiola

06. “If you train badly, you play badly. If you work like a beast in training, you play the same way.”
— Pep Guardiola

07. “I proved myself in Barcelona, and after I proved myself in Germany, I wanted to prove myself in England.”
— Pep Guardiola

08. “We need the whole squad, every player of the team, if we are to be successful.”
— Pep Guardiola

09. “I will forgive if the players cannot get it right, but not if they do not try hard.”
— Pep Guardiola

10. “If I believed in it, and it wasn’t productive for the team, I wouldn’t do it.”
— Pep Guardiola

11. “For my experience, my family. I will always be grateful for the people who brought me here.”
— Pep Guardiola

12. “Creating something new is the difficult part. To make it and build it and get everyone to follow? Amazing.”
— Pep Guardiola

13. “I am not dealing with footballers, I am dealing with people. They have fears and worry about failing and making fools of themselves in front of 80,000 people. I have to make them see that without each other they are nothing.”
— Pep Guardiola

14. “If there isn’t a sequence of 15 previous passes, a good transition between attack and defence is impossible. Impossible.”
— Pep Guardiola

15. “I won 21 titles in seven years: three titles per year playing in this way. I’m sorry, guys. I’m not going to change.”
— Pep Guardiola

16. “A perfectionist? That’s part of my job.”
— Pep Guardiola

17. “There are footballers who are very good playing on the outside but don’t know what to do inside. Then there are players who are very good inside but don’t have the physique, the legs, to go outside.”
— Pep Guardiola

18. “It’s natural for players to be relaxed, so you have to be there to say, ‘You have to do it again and again and again.’”
— Pep Guardiola

19. “We cannot change absolutely everything in one season.”
— Pep Guardiola

18. “Tactics are so important because everybody has to know what they have to do on the pitch. The relationships and behaviors off the pitch between team-mates have to be as good as possible.”
— Pep Guardiola

19. “You can win ten times, and then you are not able to win five times. I have to discover the reason why, and I am going to find that.”
— Pep Guardiola

20. “I try to be positive. I speak to my players about how we have to play, respect the rules. What I have done is always be positive.”
— Pep Guardiola

21. “People always think the coach is the strongest person at a club, the boss, but in truth, he’s the weakest link. We’re there, vulnerable, undermined by those who don’t play, by the media, by the fans. They all have the same objective: to undermine the manager.”
— Pep Guardiola

22. “All the managers in the world, it doesn’t matter how good you are, if your players don’t understand what you are looking for or what you want, it makes no sense.”
— Pep Guardiola

23. “I don’t understand the lack of respect for amazing players when people say they are not good enough for me.”
— Pep Guardiola

24. “Our job is to convince guys that our way is the best way to cross the road. The tactics and training and facilities are important, but I still have to convince you.”
— Pep Guardiola

25. “I think all managers have to be so demanding.”
— Pep Guardiola

26. “I strive to live with passion and not to be desensitised to life. Things matter to me. You’ve got to live like that. Otherwise what’s the point? It’s not possible to please everyone and there is no point in trying to be what other people think you should be. For me, it’s important to be who I am, not just to be different but to be as authentic as I can be.”
— Pep Guardiola

27. “From my point of view, I always want to fight until the end of my last chance.”
— Pep Guardiola

28. “I have learned that when you’re in the right you should fight the world.”
— Pep Guardiola

29. “I don’t want preconceptions. I want to learn as much as possible.”
— Pep Guardiola

30. “Let us fight until the end. Let me try at least that – fight.”
— Pep Guardiola

31. “I want to win. I want to play serious. I want to be effective.”
— Pep Guardiola

32. “I sit down and watch videos.”
— Pep Guardiola

33. “Iniesta doesn’t dye his hair, he doesn’t wear earrings and he hasn’t got any tattoos. Maybe that makes him unattractive to the media but he is the best.”
— Pep Guardiola

34. “Iniesta doesn’t dye his hair, he doesn’t wear earrings and he hasn’t got any tattoos. Maybe that makes him unattractive to the media but he is the best.”
— Pep Guardiola

35. “It has been an honour to be the coach of the best player [Lionel Messi] I have ever seen and probably the best I will see.”
— Pep Guardiola

36. “There is no defence that can stop Messi. It is impossible.”
— Pep Guardiola

37. “Messi is an irreplaceable player, today if he was here we would have won 5-0 but he was not and we had to play another in his place.”
— Pep Guardiola

38. “I see Maradona every time he grabs the ball and accelerates.”
— Pep Guardiola

39. “Lahm is a scandal. He is super-intelligent, understands the game brilliantly, knows when to come inside or to stay wide. The guy is f***ing exceptional.”
— Pep Guardiola

40. “Lahm is the most intelligent player I have ever trained in my career.”
— Pep Guardiola

41. “Out of everyone at Manchester United, I would pick out Scholes, he is the best midfielder of his generation. I would had loved to play alongside him.”
— Pep Guardiola

42. “Neuer is one of the best goalkeepers in history.”
— Pep Guardiola

43. “I am grateful to be here, and I will always be grateful for the opportunity Manchester City gave me.”
— Pep Guardiola

44. “People usually think that it is the coach who has to raise the spirits of his players; that it is the coach who has to convince his footballers; that it is his job to take the lead all the time. But that’s not always the case.”
— Pep Guardiola

45. “As time goes by, people get to know you better. They pose problems for you, and you have to come up with solutions.”
— Pep Guardiola

46. “I’m going with the understanding that I’ve done my duty.”
— Pep Guardiola

47. “There are teams that wait for you and teams that look for you: Espanyol look for you. I feel very close to their style of football.”
— Pep Guardiola

48. “We all feel that hunger in football. With Cruyff, it was different. He deepened and changed the hunger so you became conscious of why you are getting better.”
— Pep Guardiola

49. “It has been an honour to be the coach of the best player [Lionel Messi] I have ever seen and probably the best I will see.”
— Pep Guardiola

50. “There is no defence that can stop Messi. It is impossible.”
— Pep Guardiola

51. “Messi is an irreplaceable player, today if he was here we would have won 5-0 but he was not and we had to play another in his place.”
— Pep Guardiola

52. “I see Maradona every time he grabs the ball and accelerates.”
— Pep Guardiola

53. “Lahm is a scandal. He is super-intelligent, understands the game brilliantly, knows when to come inside or to stay wide. The guy is f***ing exceptional.”
— Pep Guardiola

54. “Lahm is the most intelligent player I have ever trained in my career.”
— Pep Guardiola

55. “Out of everyone at Manchester United, I would pick out Scholes, he is the best midfielder of his generation. I would had loved to play alongside him.”
— Pep Guardiola

56. “Neuer is one of the best goalkeepers in history.”
— Pep Guardiola

57. “I am grateful to be here, and I will always be grateful for the opportunity Manchester City gave me.”
— Pep Guardiola

58. “People usually think that it is the coach who has to raise the spirits of his players; that it is the coach who has to convince his footballers; that it is his job to take the lead all the time. But that’s not always the case.”
— Pep Guardiola

59. “As time goes by, people get to know you better. They pose problems for you, and you have to come up with solutions.”
— Pep Guardiola

60. “I’m going with the understanding that I’ve done my duty.”
— Pep Guardiola

61. “There are teams that wait for you and teams that look for you: Espanyol look for you. I feel very close to their style of football.”
— Pep Guardiola

62. “We all feel that hunger in football. With Cruyff, it was different. He deepened and changed the hunger so you became conscious of why you are getting better.”
— Pep Guardiola