Pep Guardiola in Position to Change the Culture of Manchester City Forever

“I can stay more time or less than three years,” said Pep Guardiola earlier this month when asked if he would consider staying on as Manchester City manager beyond his initial three-year contract.

“Less might happen if the results are not good or if the chairman is not happy with me or my job. But if after that period I am happy, and they are happy, why not longer?

“For now, I am so happy here, and I’m not just thinking about, ‘Will it just be three years?’”

It was the first time Guardiola had suggested he could extend his stay at the Etihad Stadium. He tends to do short cycles as a manager, having been in charge at Barcelona for four years before completing a three-year stint at Bayern Munich.

At City, though, the task before him is greater.

Whereas Barcelona and Bayern Munich both had established winning mentalities, a history of domestic and European success and academy systems with entrenched values and philosophies, at City he finds a club at the embryonic stage of their development.

They want to enter the European elite and have made great strides domestically since the takeover in 2008—but they require much more work if they want to dine at the top table of European football.

Guardiola’s appointment was one the club’s directors felt they needed if they were to make that leap and join Europe’s best.

Alex Livesey/Getty Images

They want sustained success, and Guardiola—who has a clear idea of how he wants his sides to play—is the man to lay the groundwork for years of winning, not just short-term gain.

He has the chance to change the culture of the club in a more drastic way than he has before. He turned Barcelona into the best side in world football—but the style of football he encouraged and the club’s ability to produce their own world-class youth prospects was already well established. At City, they are only just beginning the process.

City laid the foundations for Guardiola before he arrived. They opened a new youth and first-team training centre 21 months ago at great cost after extensive research by football administration officer Brian Marwood that saw him travel the world to draw inspiration from top music and sports academies, blending ideas and innovations he felt could give City’s new facility the edge. The result is a spectacular, 80-acre site that cost £150 million to develop.

The idea was to replicate aspects of Barcelona’s La Masia and encourage every single age group (from the under-eights right through to the under-23s) to play the same style of football—the style Guardiola, a disciple of Johan Cruyff, favours.

Attacking, possession-based, high-intensity football that demands technically gifted players to work hard without the ball. Passing and movement is vital, as is the ability to excel in one-vs.-one situations. Players must be comfortable on the ball. They need to occupy spaces between the lines and have the vision and passing ability to create when they receive the ball. 

The hope is every player understands that way of playing so that when they are physically ready for first-team football, the transition into the senior setup is seamless, much like at La Masia, where young players are developed with an assured understanding of the demands of the Barcelona first team. 

At first, the new ideas took some time to take hold—but the City Football Academy (CFA) is now enjoying success at every level. With the foundations laid, Guardiola has the chance to accelerate its progress. He regularly visits training sessions to watch the young players in action, and his job now is to identify the talent he can bring through into the first team.

"That's one of the reasons why Pep was so highly considered," City chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak said in his summer address to fans. "He has done that with Barcelona, he has done that with Bayern Munich.

"Even with the abundance of talent he had with both first teams, Pep always has a knack for talent and he loves to find young players that have incredible talent.

"We have that at our club. We have incredible talent today. This is an organisation that has won the under-10 national championship, the under-13s under-15s and the under-18s this year.

"We are competitive with a lot of talent across all age levels going all the way to EDS [Elite Development Squad] and Pep, I think, will enjoy that and will find a lot of gems we are going to produce.

"I think that has always been the objective and the premise behind the investment we have made in the City Football Academy and the infrastructure we have in place today.”

The style of football seen across City’s academy was established before Guardiola’s arrival and will outlive his time in charge of the club. However, his appointment was vital in entrenching the ideas and encouraging a belief that it is the right kind of football to achieve the club's lofty ambitions.

If his first team play that way and get success—and the early signs are good—then it confirms to the club’s young players and academy staff that it's the right approach. And if he can bring one or two of the best talents into his squad, that will send a message to the other young players at City that they, too, can make it at the top of the game. 

City’s progress since the 2008 takeover of the club has often been turbulent. They have won a clean sweep of domestic honours, including two Premier League titles, and last season made it to the semi-final of the Champions League for the first time. If you had asked any City fan on the day of Sheikh Mansour’s takeover whether they would have taken that level of success over the next eight years, not one would have expected more.

However, a feeling persists it could have been even more, and Guardiola’s appointment is viewed by many inside the club as a watershed moment. He is a man capable of brilliance, of raising standards and establishing a clear way of playing that will live on long after he departs. In basic terms, he is the man they wanted to lead them into the most difficult stage of their journey towards becoming a European superpower.

His status as the world's best tactician means top players will want to join the club. He guarantees success and improves the players he works with. That is attractive to every top professional. The club want him to attract the best, play beautiful football, deliver European success, help develop the club's academy and bring through the best youth prospects and turn them into world stars.

It's a difficult remit, but the Catalan will have the resources available to realise the club's dreams. If he does, he will have created a culture of success, rather than continued one like he has done in his two previous managerial posts. 

Guardiola is a visionary, an obsessive student of the game whose attention to detail, desire to win, clear thinking and bold ideas have already improved City at every level. Whereas at Barcelona it was about returning them to the pinnacle of the game, and at Bayern is was about maintaining their position as one of the best club sides in the world—at City his task is far greater.

But if he can achieve the club’s ambitions, in three, four or more years, the rewards will be far greater, too.

Rob Pollard is Bleacher Report's lead Manchester City correspondent and follows the club from a Manchester base. All quotes and information were obtained firsthand unless otherwise noted.

Follow him on Twitter @RobPollard_.