The day English football changed: 10 years on from Manchester City naming Pep Guardiola
0
85
It wasn’t quite without fanfare but when Manchester City announced, 10 years ago on Sunday, that Pep Guardiola was to be their manager from the next summer, it was a banal, bald press release that brought English football the news that would change it for ever. That was a simpler time, pre-Brexit and Donald Trump’s presidency, and before centre-halves in League Two would split wide for the keeper to pass out from the back to the holding midfielder, dropping in to receive the ball as a false 9 came deep to link with full-backs stepping into midfield. “It’s not about coaches adapting to English football,” said Jordi Cruyff in 2016 as Guardiola began to make his mark on England. “It’s about...