Butter. Guardiola surpasses Ferguson as the greatest manager in history

Interesting point of view

Liverpool legend Jamie Carragher sparked widespread controversy with his article in British newspaper The Telegraph after he confirmed that the Spaniard. Pep Guardiola He surpasses the legendary Sir Alex Ferguson as the greatest coach in the history of football.

Carragher based his opinion on the technical and tactical legacy of the Manchester City manager, in addition to his domestic and European achievements and his huge influence on the development of the modern game.

The text of Karager’s article in the British newspaper was as follows.

Who is the greatest historically?

Pep Guardiola bids farewell to English football as he faces his latest battle with old rival Sir Alex Ferguson.

At the start of Guardiola’s coaching career, head-to-head confrontations allowed judgments to be made based on performance and results. Now, the debate over the question “Who is the greatest?” Predictably divided by affiliation.

Manchester United fans stand by their belief that Ferguson is number one. Meanwhile, everyone in the world admits that Guardiola is superior to him in every possible way.

The evidence supporting Guardiola is compelling and his unprecedented achievements set him apart from the rest.

Guardiola’s achievements

No Premier League champions have collected more points than Guardiola’s City, who set new standards by breaking the 100-point barrier in 2017-18. No other manager has won four consecutive Premier League titles. Only Bob Paisley has achieved so much success in such a short time in this country.

Guardiola arrived in England with Manchester City far behind United and Liverpool with a league record of 18 titles up to 2016. Adding another 20 titles, Guardiola changed English football forever, cementing City’s status as a giant, synonymous with a beautiful style of football against which all those who came after him would be judged.

This was the mark he had already left at Barcelona with three consecutive La Liga titles and two Champions League triumphs.

Those who rank Ferguson ahead of Guardiola baffle me as I find it hard to agree with a single reason to support this claim.

Anyone who suggests otherwise is so blinkered that they seem to have forgotten that when the pair met in the biggest club matches, Guardiola was the decisive winner.

Guardiola’s Barcelona beat Ferguson’s great United 2-0 in the 2009 Champions League final. Two years later, the Spanish champions delivered a football lesson that has changed the way football has been played at all levels for the past 15 years, beating a good United side 3-1.

During 26 years at Old Trafford, Ferguson perfected the winning habit, winning 38 trophies. However, Guardiola’s winning record in 10 years at City is higher.

Granted, he is still a long way from Ferguson’s 13 Premier League titles. But do we judge a duo’s greatness based on how long they stay at one club?

At the age of 55, Guardiola has won titles in three major European leagues. If he has the stamina to work until he’s 71, like Ferguson, he’ll end up winning more based on his current trajectory.

The legacy of the Catalan maestro is no less important. He is on another level as he was the biggest footballing influence of the 21st century, covering an era when Ferguson was at his peak. No coach has inspired so many imitators. Guardiola rewrote the training manuals and created a new football dictionary.

Coaching off the field

It’s a cliché to criticize coaches for trying to “reinvent the wheel.” From his first day in charge, Guardiola was a leader, not a follower. He was inspired by his mentor Johan Cruyff when he adopted the “false striker” and “attacking winger” during his days at Barcelona. But how many of us have considered the fact that the dominant English club rely on hybrid centre-backs and full-backs that morph into playmaking midfielders? Or goalkeepers who can’t stay in the elite team without legs as good as hands.

Some of the greatest coaches have excelled by perfecting existing ideas. Ferguson is a direct descendant of Sir Matt Busby and his mentor Jock Steen, imposing an exciting, direct style of attacking football based on an aggressive 4-4-2 formation.

Paisley is rightfully included in the “all-time greatest” groups because of the number of titles he won. He is usually overlooked as a number one because, by his own admission, he is praised for building on the foundations laid by Bill Shankly, whose footballing philosophy still dominates at Anfield. Paisley conquered Europe, developing the best of Shankly’s ideas after watching and learning from Rinus Michels’ great Ajax. Ajax’s 5-0 win over Shankly’s Liverpool in the mid-1960s influenced the Anfield approach, ushering in an era of European and domestic dominance.

Guardiola follows the line of Michels through Cruyff, but surpasses the pair as the most successful practitioners of ‘total football’. He created a Barcelona team that was close to perfection. He then repeated it at City with his excellent first team, multiple Premier League winners with no flaws.

Ferguson’s supporters always point to his success at Aberdeen as their trump card, insisting that Guardiola did not take a club with limited resources and guide them to titles and European success.

You can’t compare the differences between the richer and smaller clubs in the 21st century to the more even playing fields of the 1980s. This was the era when Gothenburg could win the UEFA Cup in 1982 under Sven-Goran Eriksson and Dundee United could reach the semi-finals of the European Cup in 1984 and the UEFA Cup final in 1987.

This is not meant to detract from Ferguson’s extraordinary achievements in Scotland, but using it to denigrate Guardiola’s coaching prowess is laughable. Unfortunately, it will be impossible for any modern manager to replicate what Ferguson did at Aberdeen, or Brian Clough at Nottingham Forest, in a world where billionaires rule and football’s hierarchy is becoming clearer. Now, when a less fortunate side emerges to challenge the elite, they are dismantled over the course of two transfer windows as the rich make offers they can’t refuse.

Managers like Ferguson and Guardiola could not sustain an upward trajectory at a club like Aberdeen for eight years because they would have to constantly replace their best players and rebuild, as happened when Leicester City won the Premier League and lost N’Golo Kante in the same summer, or when Monaco bid farewell to the sensational Kylian Mbappe by winning the Champions League.

If Aberdeen’s Ferguson stood out today, Willie Miller, Alex McLeish and Eric Black would have joined bigger clubs for huge fees and wages before they had the chance to win a European title at Pittodrie.

Any Champions League club will welcome any manager who shows first glimpses of brilliance at this level.

An illogical argument

Another argument used to support Ferguson is that he built several teams to win many of his Premier League titles.

An overlooked aspect of Guardiola’s tenure is how often he seamlessly replaces some of England’s greatest ever players and keeps the winning machine running. Yaya Toure, Vincent Kompany, David Silva and Sergio Aguero left, but the trophies continued. He leaves City having recovered from the loss of arguably the greatest player at Guardiola’s City, Kevin De Bruyne.

Those who say the Guardiola era was built on Abu Dhabi’s billions and could be left tainted if Premier League rules are broken must separate the club’s administrators from the coaching genius. Whatever the outcome of the investigation, Guardiola’s brilliance remains intact, no matter how tainted that era.

United have spent more than City on transfer fees over the past 10 years. United have spent big under Ferguson, breaking British transfer records more often than Guardiola.

There are enough examples of clubs spending big and then stopping, proving that accusing Guardiola and Ferguson of being ‘check’ managers is nonsense. They used their resources brilliantly to build empires.

The true measure of greatness is often simpler than the latter. United still haven’t recovered from Ferguson’s career and if Enzo Maresca can replace Guardiola, City won’t be as strong.

There would be a void in English football without him.

This exit ended the golden era of the English Premier League. Guardiola leaves City as the greatest football coach in history.

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