This season, Manchester City Manager Pep Guardiola and Manchester United boss Jose Mourinho will revive a rivalry they had while both were coaching in Spain’s La Liga.
Back then Guardiola led Barcelona while Mourinho was in charge at Real Madrid. Today, Pep played down the motion of this rivalry and instead maintained the notion that the Special One inspired him. What a special time truly is for Manchester; having two of the world’s brightest and best football minds in the same city.
Said Pep Guardiola: “To speak about one manager, one club, and I don’t like the word but one ‘enemy,’ is not right.”
“One thing is that you are in a competition like I was in Spain when it is a two-horse race. In Italy it was three teams. But in the Premier League it doesn’t make sense at all.”
“I don’t see it as a question. We are both here. He wants to win. I want to win.”
“I think Jose said it pretty well in his press conference — it is not about him or me, so we are not focusing on each other.
“What I saw from the distance is it is so tough to win the games here. We played many times against each other. I can say, they help me, the big coaches, and Jose is one of them, they help me to reach another level.”
It is the opinion and sentiments of one United club legend that the blue side of Manchester, not the red, now has the superior boss.
Eric Cantona believes that Pep Guardiola is the superior coach, and he wasn’t 00% impressed with the idea of this hiring decision either.
“I love José Mourinho, but in terms of the type of football he plays I don’t think he is Manchester United,” Eric Cantona says in an exclusive to The Guardian, a few weeks ago.
“I love his personality, I love the passion he has for the game, his humour. He is very intelligent, he demands 100% of his players. And of course he wins things.”
“But I don’t think it’s the type of football that the fans of Manchester United will love, even if they win. He can win with Manchester United. But do they expect that type of football, even if they win? I don’t think so.”
Cantona, back on the small screen this summer as the face of ITV’s marketing campaign for its sports coverage, believes Mourinho’s once and future nemesis would have been a much better fit.
“Guardiola was the one to take. He is the spiritual son of Johan Cruyff,” he says, praising the late Dutch master for having overseen “two revolutions” – one as a player at Ajax and another as a coach at Barcelona.
“I would have loved to have seen Guardiola in Manchester [United]. He is the only one to change Manchester. He is in Manchester, but at the wrong one.”
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net, partnered with FOX Sports Engage Network. and News Now. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, currently contributes regularly to the Chicago Tribune’s RedEye publication.
He also consistently appears on numerous talk shows all across the country. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram