Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola has declared that he will retire in a few months if his team successfully defends last season’s Premier League, FA Cup, and Champions League treble.
Despite having a contract at the Etihad Stadium until 2025, Pep Guardiola surprised many by stating that he will walk away at the end of this campaign if City achieves a second consecutive treble, he said on Amazon Prime TV.
City, just the second English club to accomplish this feat, won the Champions League for the first time last season, alongside Guardiola’s second FA Cup triumph.
Guardiola had previously achieved the treble with Barcelona in his inaugural season as a senior-level head coach, joining the ranks of other successful clubs like Inter, Celtic, Ajax, and Bayern Munich.
Achieving a treble again in 2023/24 would be a remarkable feat, especially as City aims for a fourth consecutive league title, a feat never before accomplished in 135 years of English football history.
No team, whether in England or abroad, has ever secured consecutive trebles. Even among those that achieved this remarkable feat twice, the second treble typically occurred more than five years after the first.
Considering Manchester City’s current challenges in maintaining their previous Premier League dominance – with only three victories in their last nine games and a winless streak of four following the recent defeat to Aston Villa – Guardiola may come to realise that the likelihood of fulfilling his retirement promise is slim and diminishing.