Txiki Begiristain’s impact and legacy at Manchester City deserves endless credit and analysis but, in the current climate, his impending departure probably elicits one immediate thought.
Does that mean Pep Guardiola is leaving as well?
Well, that was the plan a few months ago, yes. Begiristain’s departure has been long planned. It was even discussed in the middle of the treble year and, essentially, he has been looking forward to some form of retirement for a while now. The decision was finalised in the summer and it is believed that City have a replacement lined up already.
You’re still thinking about Guardiola, aren’t you?
The thing is, City will always try to change his mind and try to convince him to stay, and as everybody close to Guardiola says, “With Pep you never know”. There are those in football who believe he has been considering signing a new contract, after all, and that is what he hinted at during pre-season.
He is in Abu Dhabi right now, which is where he has been when convinced to sign new deals in recent years, so that is bound to stir some excitement, although he is there as part of routine commercial agreements.
What is for sure is that, at the end of last season, the plan at City was that both Guardiola and Txiki, as he is exclusively known around the club, would leave in 2025.
Begiristain is unlikely to change his mind now as he is set on spending more time with his family and everything else that comes with retirement, plus maybe a bit of consultancy work. Many of Guardiola’s staff would not mind the idea of a break, either, but the relentless machine at the forefront of the club (Guardiola) has always wanted to keep going and going, not afflicted by things like fatigue or contentment.
Guardiola’s future has been at the top of the news agenda in the past few days because fans clubbed together to fund a banner reading, ‘Pep Guardiola volem que et quedis’ (we want you to stay, in Catalan), that was hung from the south stand before Saturday’s game against Fulham.
The City boss knew it was coming because he was asked about it during his pre-match press conference on Friday, but he is said to have been moved by the sentiment and the effort taken by fans to show him how they feel.
“They have to bring me the bill,” he said when asked. “I will pay, I don’t want them to spend money for that.
“What can I say? Thank you so much. I fell in love since the first day I was here. What’s going to happen is going to happen.”
Most fans trying to glean any clues from his answer did not feel it sounded especially good, and with Begiristain now known to be leaving, too, maybe the end really is nigh.
With apologies again to Begiristain, who is a heavy loss in his own right, at this point it is hard to imagine City without Guardiola, let alone if the trusted director of football were to leave at the same time.
The process of replacing Begiristain is apparently already taken care of, although the process of replacing Guardiola is hard to fathom. There are no guarantees that these things will work out smoothly — it is inevitable that, in the event that both men do leave, you will hear the words ‘Ferguson’ and ‘Gill’ constantly — and even if City have a much more robust structure than Manchester United had back in the day, finding two men capable of even going close to replicating what Guardiola and Begiristain have achieved together is going to be close to an impossible ask.
And because of everything they have achieved, anything short will probably be regarded as failure, knowing how the media and those on the terraces analyse the sport.
What City can be confident in is that while at least one of the fundamental pieces will soon be moving on, the man guiding the vision, chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak, will have no appetite to allow the club to relinquish its dominant position.
It is fascinating to consider how City move forward, though, given that Sheikh Mansour, the owner, had one global vision when he took over the club and that they have been living that dream for the past eight years.
What he wanted, essentially, was to make another Barcelona. They brought in people to bring a possession-style of play to the academy, and that has been bearing fruit for years, in conjunction with the talent spotters who bring in most of the best players in Manchester.
Ferran Soriano, the former Barcelona vice-president, was brought in as CEO in 2012 and has since put together the biggest multi-club model in the world, one which is being copied the world over.
Begiristain arrived very shortly after and had two major briefs: the owners wanted Guardiola — they made their first approach to him in 2012, while reigning Premier League champions — and they wanted Lionel Messi.
The Argentine is the one that got away, despite coming close to signing for the club on at least two occasions, but that has hardly hindered their progress on the pitch, with players signed by Begiristain becoming some of the most important and decorated in the club’s history.
Fernandinho, Kevin De Bruyne, Ilkay Gundogan, Rodri, Bernardo Silva, Ederson, Kyle Walker, Raheem Sterling, Ruben Dias, John Stones and many others have been brought to the club having been identified by Begiristain as fully compatible with Guardiola’s ideas.
Soriano, Begiristain and Guardiola have been such central pillars at City it is difficult to imagine the club, and its current dominance, without them, although Al Mubarak will not be content to rest on what has already been achieved.
It took Begiristain a while to earn his reputation in Manchester; the players who now have statues outside the Etihad Stadium — Vincent Kompany, David Silva and Sergio Aguero — as well as other legends like Joe Hart, Pablo Zabaleta and Yaya Toure, were all brought in before the Basque arrived.
When the Manuel Pellegrini era began to flounder after his initial success, some of the less successful signings of that time — Jack Rodwell, Scott Sinclair, Maicon — were held against him, basically until the Guardiola era took off.
But that is all ancient history now, such has been the success of the last nine years, and the vast majority of the players signed. In fact, City signings have fit in so well for such a long time that it is genuinely a surprise when they do not work out.
It was a little surprising that City did not make more moves during the summer, given they knew (or at least expected) both Begiristain and Guardiola to leave in a year’s time, but ultimately the squad was more or less exactly how the director of football had planned it.
He has always wanted each position to have two strong candidates for the role, one of them quite a bit younger than the other. Therefore, a succession plan is already in place within the squad, with the likes of academy players Phil Foden, Rico Lewis and Oscar Bobb, as well as recent arrivals like Josko Gvardiol, Jeremy Doku and Savinho, already in place for when players like De Bruyne and Walker move on.
They have long known the difficulty of finding somebody to come in and replicate Rodri’s role and, working to a budget this summer, that was one gap they could not fill, and one that could have a big impact on the title race this season.
Begiristain’s City legacy is assured; he is his own man but his successes are inextricably linked to those of Guardiola. City fans will hope that that is not the case for their futures too.
(Michael Regan – UEFA/UEFA via Getty Images)
