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Freiburg 0-3 Aston Villa (Tielemans 41’, Buendia 45+3’, Rogers 58’)

BESIKTAS PARK — How is it that one night can make 30 years of waiting feel instantly worthwhile? Only football can do this, because only football delivers the gut-wrenching lows that make the highs so much sweeter.

Aston Villa, who have lost four Wembley finals since 2000, who were a Championship side in 2019 and escaped relegation on the final day a year later, are Europa League winners in 2026.

With Prince William watching on, the 3-0 victory over Freiburg crowns Unai Emery an all-time Villa great, and in winning this competition a record-extending fifth time, the Spaniard has the silverware his tireless efforts to transform this cub deserve.

PRINCE WILLIAM ABSOLUTELY LOVES IT pic.twitter.com/HQyyMyzfJK

— Football on TNT Sports (@footballontnt) May 20, 2026

And it was sealed in royal fashion. Wondergoals from free transfer Youri Tielemans and Emiliano Buendia, who almost left last summer, put Villa in dreamland before Morgan Rogers sealed it, paving the way for future Villa Park statue John McGinn to become the first Villa captain to lift a major trophy since Andy Townsend in 1996.

Villa’s journey under Emery had dominated the build-up, so too the sense his reign needed something more tangible than a top-four finish and wins over Paris Saint-Germain and Bayern Munich.

It made for a claret-and-blue air of hopeful expectation in Istanbul, and in the city where continents collide two rival tribes gathered in the narrow streets off the main shopping strip on Tuesday night – ex-Villa players Stiliyan Petrov, Ian Taylor and Lee Hendrie included – to speculate about the final to come. It was clear both sides knew who the favourites were.

Favourites is an unusual tag for Villa. In the domestic finals since their League Cup win 30 years ago, they had lost to Chelsea, Manchester United, Arsenal and Manchester City. They were the underdogs who left empty-handed.

This time though the onus was on Villa. The free shot was Freiburg’s, who were playing the biggest match in their 122-year history, and the 10pm local kick-off time only added to the tension. “Three hours to go and now I’m scared,” one passing Villa supporter said down to the phone to a loved one.

Thankfully the rain that had turned roads into rivers earlier in the day relented and Villa supporters made their way to Besiktas Park, making the 20-minute walk from the fan park clutching cans and dreaming this would be the night. Parents who remember the 1982 European Cup and the two Coca-Cola Cups in the 90s eager to share a positive memory with a generation who have grown up witnessing near misses and the spiral that led to three years in the Championship.

Sensational from Youri Tielemans

An absolute rocket to give Aston Villa the lead in the Europa League final

TNT Sports & HBO Max pic.twitter.com/zOZAIDXLKg

— Football on TNT Sports (@footballontnt) May 20, 2026

They have their memories now, but amid the rising noise inside the ground, first a concern for Villa before kick-off when goalkeeper Emiliano Martinez clutched his hand during the warm-up. The problem was unclear but tended to, and a thumbs up indicated the Argentine was okay to start.

Once under way, misplaced passes displayed early nerves from Villa, but their first chance arrived inside three minutes when Morgan Rogers forced an early save from Noah Atubolu.

Freiburg were physical, pressing high, and as supporters had noted before kick-off, their best chance of winning was from set-pieces. That almost rang true just 17 minutes in, but from the half-cleared free-kick Nicolas Hofler dragged his shot wide when he should have hit the target.

Early yellows for Buendia and Matty Cash were proof of Villa’s frustration defensively, while going forward decisions were letting them down. Ollie Watkins shying away from a shot, the ball not quite settling for McGinn. Something special was required.

Freiburg meanwhile were growing in confidence. The gameplan was working and 20-year-old Johan Manzambi in particular looked threatening.

Then something special came. Rogers’ cross, Youri Tieleman’s volley, a strike so clean yet so filthy. To even attempt that in a final, let alone score it. The Belgian who had scored Leicester City’s FA Cup winner in 2021 had set Villa on their way.

Then something special again. This time Buendia curling in a stunner to give Villa fans a half-time party. One hand was on the trophy, and just before the hour-mark it was all-but theirs when Rogers poked home.

Buendía brilliance

Emiliano Buendía with a beauty to make it 2-0 to Aston Villa just before half-time

TNT Sports & HBO Max pic.twitter.com/sVmWF0Leoa

— Football on TNT Sports (@footballontnt) May 20, 2026

It had been too long, but this coach in this competition with this core of players. It was the perfect match, and in the line of dominoes leading up to this moment – the 2018 takeover, the 2019 play-off win, the 2022 appointment of Emery – a nod must go out to Thomas Bramall.

Last year referee Bramall controversially ruled out a Villa goal at Manchester United on the final day of the Premier League season. It meant Villa missed out on the Champions League and played they Europa League instead.

Villa were furious then. They won’t be now.

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The appropriate way to assess Mikel Arteta’s season is to conceive what might have happened had Arsenal finished second for a fourth straight season. How could his players ever truly believe him again? Another lead, chance, season all gone. The bridesmaid may have hung on, for a while, but the doubts would be too deafening.

That is the right starting point because it contextualises everything else and because for a while it was our mistaken assumption. It lifts Arteta higher because of the sheer risk involved. Too often we are guilty of melodramatising the fine margins between success and perceived failure. Here there was no other conclusion to draw.

There were doubts, within the fanbase and within the media because Arsenal, and their manager, had become the personification of just-not-quite. And then they went top of the Premier League in early October and never went anywhere else.

The Brent-ian elements of Arteta’s managerial persona have certainly become a bit much at times – the lightbulb, the whiteboard drawings, the actual fire. Don’t get me wrong, Eddie Nketiah is a lovely bloke but should he be working here? We’ve all winced at a few press conferences and it has lost Arteta many supporters amongst those who would previously have considered themselves broadly neutral.

But they were also constructs, tangible visualisation tools to persuade a group of young men to believe in intangible concepts: pressure, desire, hope, fight, camaraderie. When Arsenal finished second three times in a row, Arteta had to abandon or turn up the heat. He chose the latter. He probably knows that some of it sounds silly, but doesn’t care.

And, sorry to burst the bubble here, but this is how lots of people in elite sport think and talk. It deflects much of the pressure off players and focuses the spotlight on the manager, who copes better with the control and the pressure than having neither. Your hero probably owns a Steven Bartlett book: this is life now.

Arteta’s principal strategy is relentless positivity in front of the media. It can be grating to outsiders: every challenge is a beautiful opportunity, every battle a privilege, every opponent a great warrior that it will be an honour to face, every moment in training a sliver of family love.

But Sir Alex Ferguson used to describe how his press conferences were primarily a tool to speak to his players and I think that’s basically Arteta’s modus operandi. He demands a huge amount from his players. He has taken them to three second-place finishes in succession and he has to maintain absolutely positivity to eliminate all doubt.

Related: who was the last player to want to leave Arsenal that Arsenal would have been unhappy to lose? Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang in 2022, perhaps? For four years, Arteta has seemingly kept a squad that has won nothing happy and kept them convinced in their title credentials. There must have been interest in Bukayo Saka, Martin Odegaard, William Saliba, Gabriel Magalhaes and Declan Rice. It never seemed a possibility that any would leave. That is a masterclass of man-management.

Arsenal have played with control but far less often with penetration this season. Arteta backed the team to produce either individual moments of brilliance in open play or set-piece prowess to rule all and maximised their impact through rigid defence. Arsenal built their way into matches, leading only 17 times at half-time (Manchester City, by contrast, had a half-time lead in 23 games).

That was so inherently risky that it staked Arteta’s entire reputation. Had Arsenal finished second again, having narrowed the margins at their manager’s behest, it would have been understandably interpreted as tactical cowardice with lasting repercussions.

Read more

• Pete Hall: Arsenal crowned champions for first time in 22 years
• Kat Lucas: The four ways Arteta transformed Arsenal from bottlers to champions

Not only that, it wilfully railed against Arsenal’s modern traditions. The last dynastical manager here ruled through tactical idealism and a philosophy for how football should be played. Arteta doubled down on his own pragmatism and watched on as that became the perfect paradigm of the league itself. Either that’s a stunning coincidence or else Arteta has bent the division to his own will.

So put away your memes. Silence those barbs. Make peace with the fact that you (and I) got this one wrong. Arteta heard the criticism, took a breath and transformed it into his fuel. Arteta willingly walked the tightrope and ended that journey as a king. He will be lifted on the pitch on Sunday by those who never doubted him.

And update your records. Arteta is the second youngest Premier League-winning manager in history. He is the first manager to win the title in his first job since Kenny Dalglish in 1990. He is a Premier League champion, 22 years after he arrived in England and 22 years after Arsenal last managed it. The Premier League landscape is now his playground.

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STAMFORD BRIDGE – It is never wise to celebrate too early. Winning the lottery before the cheque has cleared. Fancying yourself to have signed Eberechi Eze before the paperwork is finished. Or believing you have stayed up at the expense of a West Ham side who have inexplicably proven even more chaotic.

For Tottenham, every one of those anxieties, every imaginable kind of neuroses will follow them into the final day of the season. It bears repeating: Tottenham Hotspur will go into the last gasps of this campaign of misery fighting for their Premier League lives.

Whatever happens next, that is a damning indictment of an appalling situation which may yet turn into a catastrophe for this grand old football team.

A glimmer of hope

Those Spurs supporters crammed into a corner of Stamford Bridge hoped they had suffered enough indignities for one evening upon hearing news of Arsenal’s coronation, a sorrow they have not had to endure for 22 years. It was about to get even worse.

We do not yet know whether Chelsea will welcome them again next season, or whether they will tour the string of teams definitely consigned to the Championship: Portsmouth, Preston… Southampton.

But in the present day the Bridge was treated to an exquisite effort from Enzo Fernandez, hit with his left to leave a powerless Antonin Kinsky – in goal over a fit again Guglielmo Vicario – rooted to the spot. In the away end, heads wilted into shaking hands as Randal Kolo Muani’s careless pass set away Cole Palmer to spark the move for Andrey Santos and Chelsea’s second.

In Richarlison, there is always hope. Without him Tottenham would have been gone long ago. He picked the ball out of the net in a gesture to epitomise Spurs’ current feel: they are not finished, it is not over, but goodness, are they in a bad way.

A treacherous race to the bottom

Their record here is so abject the pain was simultaneously familiar and newly injurious. When Roberto De Zerbi’s men face Everton on Sunday they will begin two points clear of West Ham, who play Leeds.

Even if they are favourites to escape, for a group who have looked so fragile and bereft of confidence as this one there are no guarantees of the point they need.

And ultimately that is the logical outcome of this treacherous race to the bottom, where trying to run your football club mildly better than David Sullivan is the aim. De Zerbi has injected bite but that is the minimum requirement and has not yet overridden the most glaring issue – a simple lack of quality going forward. Kolo Muani and Mathys Tel took turns blazing over. “That’s why you’re going down,” delighted the Chelsea fans.

Read more

• Pete Hall: Aston Villa and Newcastle lead four-way race for £40m goalkeeper
• Michael Hincks: The cost of Tottenham relegation: 75% pay cuts, key sales and £200m lost
  

That darkest of chapters in Tottenham’s history may not materialise. Relegation would be utterly unthinkable. Yet if you were to peruse the results of a team who failed to win a game between 28 December and 25 April, it is undeniable how terrifyingly fine they are cutting it.

In the desperate tension of the dying minutes, there was no full reenactment of the Battle of the Bridge but the reality of that ominous plight was setting in.

Should the worst happen, this will have been a demise inflicted not here at Stamford Bridge but in a north London boardroom over years of neglect and complacency. Tottenham have 90 minutes to save themselves from their own shadow.

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Over six-and-a-half years, Mikel Arteta has taken a side once derided as a “banter club” and turned them into champions of England.

There are plenty of people at Arsenal who still recall Arteta’s arrival as a player. When he signed from Everton, they recall meeting a much more forthright character than they expected. In spite of that, his first meeting as the club’s manager in December 2019 still took them by surprise.

He had inherited a strange mishmash of unproven and under-delivering players -but in a stark, direct exchange, Arteta did not address the personnel in the squad but the culture. Angry, unsettled, jittery.

The word he kept repeating in those early days was “respect”. He demanded it from players, coaches, fans alike. There were clearly the bones of a project to work with but few took Arsenal particularly seriously.

The culture

One of his early moves was to arrange for players to be given food from their home countries at the training ground, mindful that over half of his squad have come from overseas. While he needed to help them settle, on the flip side he had to identify those who were never going to be there for the long haul.

Mesut Ozil was one of the high-profile casualties of that policy, left out of Arteta’s first full Premier League and Europa League squads in 2020. Ozil was furious but their exchange was a transformative moment for a manager who was still in his 30s.

Arteta had witnessed Arsenal up close as assistant to Pep Guardiola at Manchester City. It was impossible not to notice that the Emirates could be a hostile place for home players, rather than for their opponents. So upon hearing Louis Dunford’s anthem North London Forever, Arteta was struck with an idea – he requested that it be played before kick-off to improve an often-mocked atmosphere. The “Ashburton Army”, clad in black, played their own part behind the goal.

The recruitment

The strange disconnect between the supporters and the club most often played out in dissent towards the Kroenke ownership. The European Super League made that fissure worse but the relationship was already at breaking point after what fans perceived as years of underinvestment. It became a vicious circle – the more Arsenal spiralled, they fell out of the Champions League, and the longer they fell out of the Champions League, the bigger the financial hit.

In the Arsene Wenger days, chief negotiator Dick Law had so often been the one to identify key signings. He left in 2017 and a string of poor choices followed. Nicolas Pepe for £72m. Shkodran Mustafi for £35m.

Outgoings raised eyebrows too. Serge Gnabry’s sale felt premature, a view vindicated by his Bayern Munich career since. Some felt Lucas Perez was never given a fair shot. In fact Perez’s situation in the final throes of the Wenger era summed up everything Arteta felt was wrong with the dressing room, the forward’s No 9 shirt given to Alexandre Lacazette without him being told. Arteta arrived just as Unai Emery had stripped Granit Xhaka of the captaincy for screaming “f*** off” at the crowd.

When Vinai Ventakesham (then managing director) and Edu (then sporting director) sacked Emery, they also axed his entire backroom staff.

The coaches

Arteta welcomed the opportunity to start from scratch. He brought set-piece coach Nicolas Jover with him from City. Goalkeeping coach Inaki Cana is just as instrumental in preparing for corners at the other end, jostling with David Raya in the box in training. Raya’s evolution has been central to Arsenal’s more direct football, playing more long passes than in any other season.

Assistant coach Miguel Molina was a relatively young addition, but he would employ a masterstroke borrowed from US sports, preferring to sit up in the stands to gain a technical viewpoint unavailable to the head coach in the dugout.

Appointing Gabriel Heinze was an even bolder move. He was known as a huge personality who had ruffled feathers in his previous jobs, where he had been No 1, rather than assistant. Arteta had to navigate other exits, losing his main physio Jordan Reece to Manchester United, assistant Steve Round and goalkeeping coach Sal Bibbo.

The kids

To be more accessible to his existing staff, Arteta moved his office at Colney. He immediately took a keen interest in the academy. Those who work within Premier League academies speak of a loop – if there is no path to the first team, the youngsters start to stutter.

Of the current squad, 68 per cent come from overseas but Arteta has maintained a homegrown element.

For a long time Bukayo Saka and Emile Smith Rowe were Hale End’s flagship graduates. More recently it is Max Dowman and Myles Lewis-Skelly. Ethan Nwaneri, Eddie Nketiah and Reiss Nelson were given opportunities.

Conversations are already ongoing over which youngsters might be allowed out on loan next season – including to Jack Wilshere’s Luton Town.

The final piece of the puzzle

The purse strings have loosened too as the Emirates has come of age. The ground was initially an enormous financial burden. In the five years after it opened, Arsenal had an outlay of just £100m combined on transfer fees.

Even allowing for the inflated fees of today’s market, that is a staggeringly low amount. Under Arteta, more than £1bn has been spent, much of it under former sporting director Edu, who was replaced with James King in 2024.

It has taken that overhaul, three second-placed finishes, 77 months and plenty of heartache to get here. Arsenal are champions again and Arteta has the ultimate vindication.

Read more

• Daniel Storey: Why David Raya is my Player of the Year
• Kat Lucas: The new age of Mikel Arteta

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VITALITY STADIUM — Arsenal’s agonising 22-year wait for a Premier League title is finally over after Manchester City drew 1-1 at Bournemouth.

City needed to secure victory on the south coast to take the title race to the final day on Sunday, but Erling Haaland’s injury-time equaliser after Eli Junior Kroupi’s opener was not enough for Pep Guardiola’s side.

Preparation for the vital clash was far from ideal, with news breaking on Monday night that Guardiola will leave City at the end of the season, something he and the club hoped to keep under wraps until the title was decided.

Arsenal had done their part in securing a nervy victory over Burnley, edging one step closer to that elusive title crown.

The Arsenal. Your Premier League champions. pic.twitter.com/gNnfzesrhP

— Arsenal (@Arsenal) May 19, 2026

After three seasons finishing second in a row, Arsenal supporters were fearing the worst not so long ago, as City did what they usually do at the business end of a season and put together a long unbeaten run, which is now at 15 after their draw at the Vitality Stadium.

Arsenal had been eight points clear after 29 matches, only for City to overhaul that gap and climb to the summit of the table for the first time since August late last month.

But while City have dropped points, Arsenal have not buckled this time, shedding their “bottlers” moniker to put together four successive wins to pile the pressure on City as they travelled south for their do-or-die trip to Bournemouth.

In the end, it was City who wilted, ensuring Guardiola will head off into the sunset without the perfect ending to his trophy-laden decade in the Premier League.

Agitated Guardiola departs without the finale he wants

After Monday night’s news, this all felt somewhat inevitable: some closure.

City did have a shot at giving Guardiola the perfect send-off by completing the domestic treble, but not really.

The perennial bridesmaids have finally become the bride, ending the North-West’s nine-year stranglehold on the Premier League trophy. Andoni Iraola, while guiding Bournemouth into Europe for the first time in their history in the process, should also never have to buy a pint again anywhere north of Kensington Gardens as a result.

But was City’s downfall as a result of the seismic ruptures caused beforehand? You can see why the club were so desperate to keep Guardiola’s decision under wraps.

Against a Bournemouth side unbeaten in 16 league games – the longest run in Europe’s top five leagues – Guardiola looked agitated, his charges somewhat distracted.

Full-Time scenes as Bournemouth hold Man City to a 1-1 draw which confirms Arsenal are Champions! pic.twitter.com/w0qGAyARSj

— Sky Sports Premier League (@SkySportsPL) May 19, 2026

A weary City, who deserve immense credit for even keeping the title race alive this long, having looked dead and buried a month ago, cannot blame themselves too much for failing to beat a team as vivacious as Bournemouth. Very few come away from here with anything. Perhaps the outcome had been preordained.

“One more year, Guardiola,” came the cries from the visiting City supporters upon kick-off. Nobody could escape the least shocking, surprise news. Some City staff were frosty with the media after the cat had been let out of the bag on the eve of such a crucial encounter at the Vitality.

All camera lenses focused on one man throughout the first half, with Guardiola’s main gesticulation a simple head shaking as City struggled to put the hosts under any pressure.

Antoine Semenyo, on his old stomping ground, did have the ball in the net, only to see the offside flag raised. Bournemouth were instead good value for their lead at the break, given to them by a super strike from young superstar Kroupi, who now has the most goals as a teenager in a debut Premier League campaign.

Read more

Analysis: Pep Guardiola: Football’s greatest manager or sportswashing stooge?

Daniel Storey: This is the end of Man City as we know it

Guardiola shuffled around his technical area, rubbing his head as he looked for one last roll of the dice. On came Rayan Cherki, Phil Foden and Savinho, but the chances just didn’t present themselves often enough.

The lively home ground celebrated every last-ditch tackle as if it was a goal. Haaland’s stoppage-time finish threatened the most Pep-like dramatic finish, but a draw was enough to set fireworks off all over North London.

Amid scenes of euphoria, one man cut a more sullen figure. Guardiola’s final season in England, while still having garnered two trophies, will end without the finale everyone at the club so desperately wanted for him.

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When Thomas Tuchel named his bumper England squad in March, the most questionable striker omission was Danny Welbeck.

Ollie Watkins could have few complaints. Out of form for Aston Villa – without a league goal in six games – call-ups instead for Dominic Calvert-Lewin and Dominic Solanke were justifiable, even if Welbeck’s own omission was unfortunate.

To borrow Michael Jordan’s The Last Dance catchphrase, Watkins took that personally, bottling the disappointment and responding where it matters most: in front of goal.

Now, a purple patch. Since that squad was announced on 20 March, Watkins has scored 10 goals in 11 games across all competitions, more than Calvert-Lewin, Solanke and Welbeck combined (eight) in that same period.

So when Tuchel names his World Cup squad on Friday, Watkins should expect to see his name. It is no longer a debate, but a no-brainer.

And it is not merely because of how Watkins has reacted in the last couple of months that makes him the ideal back-up to Harry Kane in North America, but also previous tournament experience.

If this really is a close call then Watkins edges it for his role at Euro 2024, where he delivered one of England’s moments of the tournament when scoring the winner in the semi-final against the Netherlands.

With previous few minutes as Kane’s deputy – 58 minutes in all at Euro 2024 – Watkins seized his chance to the point where some called for him to start the final. Kane was out of sorts, clearly injured, but Gareth Southgate stood by his captain, and Watkins could not have the same impact off the bench in the 2-1 defeat to Spain.

Fast forward two years and England’s prospects without Kane are scarcely worth thinking about, such has been the forward’s form for Bayern Munich this season – 58 goals, 50 games.

That also means a lot of minutes, 3,960 in total, meaning Kane will have to be carefully managed at the World Cup, particularly now there is an extra knockout game – the round of 32 – in this tournament’s new 48-team guise.

Tuchel therefore needs not only an able back-up to Kane, but someone he can rely on to start, especially if England beat Croatia and Ghana in their first two Group L (yes, there’s a Group L) games.

Watkins fits the bill for that final Group L game against Panama. His hold-up play rarely dips even if his finishing can fluctuate, while his understanding with Morgan Rogers at club level could also pay dividends on the international stage.

It could be the ideal chance to rest Kane, and give Watkins more minutes than he managed in the earlier stages of the Euros.

Add to that the March friendlies where both Solanke and Calvert-Lewin failed to make the most of their chances.

Tuchel had addressed dropping Watkins at the time, admitting he knew the qualities the Villa striker could bring, whereas the two Dominics were greater unknowns to the German.

Against Uruguay and Japan though neither shone and while they were not alone in struggling, Watkins’ stock rose by his very absence from a double-header that cooled World Cup expectations.

Read more

• Daniel Storey: England have a serious Harry Kane problem
• Michael Hincks: Nine options to replace Ben White as England right-back – and who I would pick

In the weeks since, Watkins has been integral in Villa’s run to the Europa League final, scoring three goals across both legs of the Bologna quarter-final, then scoring and assisting in the 4-0 semi-final second leg win over Nottingham Forest.

He was as close to unplayable that night against Forest as he has been all season, playing with a point to prove and silverware to chase, while in the league a return to form included two goals and an assist in the Champions League-sealing 4-2 win over Liverpool last Friday.

The timing has been perfect, and a star turn in Wednesday’s final would only further rubber stamp Watkins’ place at the World Cup.

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“He changed world football,” Xavi Hernandez said in a Sky Sports documentary when Pep Guardiola was appointed as Manchester City manager. Xavi was one of the defining players of his generation at Barcelona and perhaps the ultimate Guardiola disciple: he knew.

“He did not just change Barcelona, he changed world football,” Xavi continued, smiling. “And I think he is one of the few people who can change English football too.”

Points spectacularly proven, in every place you look. The impact at the top of English football, where Guardiola’s Manchester City usually sat, is patently obvious. And then you watch Newport County pass the ball around the back on a bitter November night, concede a goal doing it and the universality of the Guardiola effect is reinforced.

It’s easy to forget that that legacy was not always guaranteed. Guardiola arrived in England having produced brilliance but grew weary at Barcelona and failed to win the Champions League with Bayern Munich. There was a faint whiff of “Our league” exceptionalism to greet him. Guardiola’s “I don’t coach tackling” line sparked a cavalcade of snorts and shaken heads. This guy doesn’t even get English football, Jeff!

Then, the nonsense accusation was that Guardiola only took on easy projects. Risible: elite football is an extraordinarily pressurised working environment, and one in which few thrive and even few thrive for years on end. If Guardiola chose to manage elite clubs, it is because those in power at those clubs considered him to be the best in the business at managing those pressures with a monastic commitment to tactical expertise that allowed his players to flourish.

It turned out Guardiola did get English football and bent it to his own will when needed. The notion that rampant, repeated success was inevitable is obvious only in hindsight. That is what the best do: normalise exceptional performance until exceptional becomes expectation.

Never before had an English team won four straight league titles. Never before had an English team taken 100 points in a top-flight season. Never before had a manager stayed so long at a club and won a higher percentage of their matches. Whatever the result of the 115 charges case and City’s squad-building during that period, it barely alters Guardiola’s brilliance in every aspect.

And when greatness steps aside, it leaves a hole many times the size of their physical frame. The 115 charges become of even greater relevance. Depending upon the result of that case and how the saga then unfolds, Manchester City could be thrown further backwards.

This matters at a club that, with respect, has got plenty wrong. The ticket price rises that froze out sections of a loyal, local fanbase started before Guardiola’s time but his success became a robust argument for avarice. If that all falls away, City will count the cost in empty seats and it will be an issue entirely of their own making. The Harry Kane club, as Guardiola once called Tottenham Hotspur – did this not deliberately become the Pep Guardiola club?

There has clearly been some future-proofing. Antoine Semenyo and Marc Guehi were landmark arrivals in January. Rayan Cherki and Abdukodir Khusanov came before them and are still only 22. City have the fifth youngest starting XI in the Premier League this season, 12 months on from having the sixth oldest. Erling Haaland will likely be the fourth longest-serving player next season. That reflects an internal understanding that Guardiola wouldn’t stay forever.

Enzo Maresca too is proof of evolution chosen over revolution. Ordinarily we would need to take care on this point, but Maresca literally told reporters that he had twice spoken to City when under contract at Chelsea. Maresca was in the dugout when City won the Champions League final in 2023 and is a student of the Guardiola tactical school. It is a grab at a business-as-usual short-term future.

Read more

• Pete Hall: Pep Guardiola to leave Man City with replacement waiting in wings
• Pete Hall: Pep’s astonishing FA Cup record another reason he’s the greatest ever

But that in itself is highly risky. Moving away from Guardiola would be a mighty wrench but it would at least allow the replacement to be their own person, a defined cut-off point where one era ends and another begins. To attempt replication without an exact replica is dangerous because it allows easy comparison and contrast. “Weird,” a player’s subconscious flashes – “Pep didn’t do it quite like that.”

But then nobody else ever has. Guardiola is one of the great pillars of modern management, a reputation and personality so all-encompassing that City built the church from which he preached. Few inside the club expected him to stay so long. Nobody is sorry that he did and nobody will feel happier without him.

And now a dynasty must be rebuilt, if that’s even possible and with other uncertainties swirling around Manchester City. Certainty is no more. English football will deeply miss Guardiola, although supporters of those clubs unfortunate to collide into him may disagree today. City will miss him more. Nothing will ever quite be the same again.

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