Pep Guardiola has dropped major hint over next job with boss 'set to leave Man City'

Pep Guardiola has already revealed his plans for after leaving Manchester City. The Spaniard is out of contract at the Etihad next year.

He’s staying to see out the final season of his deal, but it looks like he won’t be putting pen to paper again with City. According to the Daily Mail, Guardiola is expected to exit at the end of the 2024/25 campaign.

He’ll likely seek a break having not been out of a job since leaving Barcelona in 2012. But he’s made clear his intention to move into international management before he retires from the dugout.

Asked what he has left to achieve in football by ESPN Brasil in February, Guardiola replied: “A national team. I would like to train a national team for a World Cup or a European Championship. I would like that.”

He didn’t specify which nation, but his native Spain would be an obvious bet. Their current boss Luis de la Fuente is contracted until the end of the 2026 World Cup.

Guardiola went on to say: “I don’t know who would want me! To work for a national team they have to want you, just like a club. I would like to have the experience of living through a World Cup, or a Euro or a Copa América, or whatever it is. 

“I would like that. I don’t know when that would be, if that is five, 10, 15 years from now but I would like to have the experience of being a manager in a World Cup.”

While it seems his mind is made up at City, he remained coy on his long-term plans when speaking after their record-breaking fourth consecutive Premier League triumph. “The reality is I am closer to leaving than staying [after next season],” he said. 

“We have talked with the club – my feeling is that I want to stay now. I will stay next season and during the season we will talk. But eight or nine years – we will see.

“Right now I don’t know what exactly the moti­vation is to do it [next season] because it’s difficult to find it when everything is done. But knowing the players and myself, I know that when we are there we will say why should we not win today? Why should we not work as much as possible to do what we have to do? And I know we are going to do it.”

Guardiola also alluded he was ready to leave after their treble achievement last year, only staying because he’d committed himself to doing so. He revealed: “After Istanbul (where City won the Champions League) I said: ‘It’s over, there’s nothing left.’ But I have a contract, I’m still here.

“Some moments I’m a bit tired but some of the moments I love and we are here winning games, looking good with new players. I start to think that no one has done four in a row, why don’t we try? And now I feel it’s done, so what next?”