Manchester City, Friday, confirmed Pep Guardiola will step down as manager at the end of the 2025-26 season, bringing a defining era in modern football to a close after a decade that reshaped the club’s identity, standards and global standing.
In an official club statement, City announced that Guardiola will depart following the final Premier League match of the campaign against Aston Villa.
The decision ends months of speculation over his long-term future and closes a tenure that began in the summer of 2016, when he arrived from Bayern Munich after already establishing himself as one of football’s most influential coaches at Barcelona and in Germany.
City described his spell as transformative, and the numbers underline that assessment. Guardiola leaves as the most successful manager in the club’s history, having delivered sustained dominance across domestic and European competitions while overseeing one of the most consistent teams English football has ever seen.
His first season at the Etihad was a period of adjustment. Despite high expectations and significant investment, City finished without a trophy in 2016-17. However, that year became the foundation for what followed, as Guardiola reshaped the squad, refined its structure and embedded a positional style built on control, pressing and technical precision.
