Pep Guardiola needs the England job to become the GOAT: Man City boss has done it all at club level – but ending Three Lions’ hurt would stop the great manager debate

When England met Greece in the Nations League last Thursday, they were the odd team out in the contest that had never won a European Championship before. The Three Lions have lost the last two finals, yet that is the closest they have come to continental glory in the men’s game.

That famous ’30 years of hurt’ phrase will have rolled over to 60 by the time the next World Cup comes around – we’ll be as far away from Euro 1996 as the release of that Lightning Seeds song from the 1966 World Cup. Sorry for making you feel old and potentially thrusting you into existential crisis, but this is a time for home truths.

England have a managerial vacancy, and a leading candidate for the job is Pep Guardiola, whose Manchester City contract expires at the end of the season. He’s left a trail of success wherever he’s been, and that extends to the countries he’s managed in.

Some pundits, such as Roy Keane, have warned the FA they need to “go for the best”, which is inarguably the charismatic Catalan. There is a notion that England are at a slight disadvantage in trying to woo Guardiola, yet that isn’t the case at all – if anything, he needs such a job more than they need him.

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  Foundations for Spain & Germany

  It would be quite overeager and presumptuous to claim that Spain and Germany’s respective World Cup successes were down to Guardiola’s work in those countries at the time of those glories, but it would be equally cynical to suggest he didn’t in-part influence the way those sides came and conquered.

  Spain, though traditionally a possession-heavy side anyway, leant heavily on relationships and partnerships built within Guardiola’s Barcelona – remember when there was a genuine debate over whether Lionel Messi should have chosen to represent La Roja instead? Barca were the idyllic team of that generation, and Spain boss Vicente del Bosque implemented a lower-pace style which mimicked that side but as to suit the different demands of international football.

  Of course, Germany are perennial favourites in essentially every match they’ve ever played too, and Guardiola had only been at Bayern Munich for one season, yet there was a new-found ruthlessness and savviness about their 2014 displays which had evaded them at Euro 2012.

  Whether merely coincidental or with underlying intention, Guardiola has built up enough stock for the masses to think it conceivable he had a hand in swinging the pendulum of the international game by footballing osmosis. That should count for something, and this process has extended to his time in England.

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    Changing English football

    Guardiola didn’t simply bring principles such as playing out from the back and dominating the ball to English football, but he did fasten those trends and perfect them. All down the pyramid are teams trying to bait the press or build from deep, which may have happened eventually anyways, though not at such a steep, and sometimes reckless, trajectory.

    When City were on the cusp of winning the 2017-18 Premier League title – their first under Guardiola and with a record points tally of 100 – John Stones spoke of the impact his coaching had on the international team and what then-manager Gareth Southgate was benefitting from.

    “I think we try to bring all the attributes and what we learn under Pep into the England squad, and are open to learn from Gareth as well,” he said. “We work hard on the training pitch under Pep, learn a lot of things, different styles of play, how to play against different formations. I think it gives you that head start coming into England, and we can share our ideas as well.”

    Southgate went on to oversee the most successful period in the history of the England men’s national team since the sixties, with his famed man-management working in tandem with his players’ tactical and technical brilliance.
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    Carsley’s ‘world-class’ warning

    Interim manager Lee Carsley is currently mid-Hokey Cokey on whether he should actually get the job on a full-time basis, but he did have an ominous warning after Sunday’s win away at Finland: “This job deserves a world-class coach that has won trophies and I am still on the path to that.”

    That seems to be the way of the international game at the moment. Julian Nagelsmann replaced Hansi Flick as Germany boss last year, Mauricio Pochettino is in charge of the USMNT, Luciano Spalletti is beginning to get a tune out of Italy, Luis de la Fuente enjoyed Spanish success at youth level (similarly to Carsley, in fairness) and Thomas Tuchel is another contender to take the England job.

    Any fanciful dream the FA had of instilling Jurgen Klopp is dead, leaving Guardiola as the best manager available for hire. The least they can do is ask him about taking over from Carsley.

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    Thirst for international management

    Even before Guardiola’s recent comments neither confirming or denying any interest in the England gig, he left the door ajar in the recent past to international management.

    When asked back in March 2024 what he has left to achieve, the Catalan replied: “A national team. I would like to train a national team for a World Cup or a European Championship. I would like that.

    “I don’t know who would want me! To work for a national team they have to want you, just like a club.”

    Well, you’re in luck then, Pep. This vacancy has come at the perfectly opportune time for all parties involved.

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      City’s unwanted asterisks

      Alright, it’s not as if nobody cares about Manchester City, it’s more that the world has become desensitised to their triumphs. They aren’t traditionally as big as England’s other top dogs, and their fervent spending since the Abu Dhabi takeover of 2008 brought questions about their sporting merits even before 115 alleged breaches of Premier League financial rules.

      The battle lines have already been drawn in that debate and neither side is going to budge. It is a war that will rage on in the courts and punctuate discourse for years on end. City and co will proclaim their innocence and right to celebrate their achievements, but they will not be able to sway public opinion so powerfully back in their favour that all will be forgiven and forgotten.

      Guardiola’s honours and accolades at the Etihad may not be as fondly remembered by the masses as those of his Barcelona and Bayern days. For all he has amassed and achieved in the last eight seasons, it’s the work of his opening eight which has truly swooned the wider footballing public.

      It’s worth noting there are no doubts left over Guardiola’s management at City – no more strange team selections, no more odd collapses, no more consistently haphazard defending. The club’s wider cultural impact is what’s under the microscope.

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      Ending the GOAT debate for good

      Guardiola could retire today and he would be a popular pick for the greatest manager in football history. What would be nice for him is to end that argument for good in similar vein to Messi when he won the 2022 World Cup with Argentina.

      Most of the other main rivals for top spot dipped their toes into international waters with moderate upside. Sir Alex Ferguson led Scotland, Arrigo Sacchi managed Italy, and Rinus Michels coached the Netherlands at various points. It’s an echelon Guardiola can too occupy and even vault over into a new stratosphere altogether, the man who indeed ended 60-plus years of hurt.

      England boast a talented squad that has real tournament pedigree now, but they don’t have a Messi, a monopoly on their competition or unlimited riches in a transfer market. There is no way any success with the Three Lions can be asterisked and marked down in the same way as the three other senior jobs Guardiola’s had already in his managerial career.

      The Three Lions need a new boss, but Guardiola needs the opportunity to manage England more.