Pep Guardiola Confirms Manchester City Exit, 'It Has Been So F--king Fun'

Manchester City's golden era is coming to a close. The club confirmed on Friday that Pep Guardiola will step down as manager after 10 years at the helm.

"Don't ask me the reasons I'm leaving," Guardiola said in a statement. "There is no reason, but deep inside, I know it's my time. Nothing is eternal, if it was, I would be here. Eternal will be the feeling, the people, the memories, the love I have for my Manchester City.

"This is a city built from work. From graft. You see it in the colour of the bricks. From people who clocked in early, stayed late. The factories. The Pankhursts. The unions. The music. Simply the Industrial Revolution and how this changed the world. And I think I grew to understand that, and my teams did too.

"We worked. We suffered. We fought. And we did things our own way. Our way."

Enzo Maresca is reportedly set to be tapped as Guardiola's successor.

For all of the many rightful doubts about the legitimacy of City's accomplishments in the past decade—given the 115 charges levied against them by the Premier League primarily regarding potential breaches of Financial Fair Play—there is no question that Guardiola's tenure has been full of hardware.

Under his watch, Manchester City have won the Premier League title six times, the Champions League once and have claimed 20 total trophies.

It's been quite the 10 years for Guardiola at City, unquestionably one of the finest managers of his generation, if not the finest.

His likely predecessor, the 46-year-old Maresca, will have enormous shoes to fill. His time at Chelsea was rocky. A fourth-place finish and UEFA Conference League title in the 2024-25 season was a promising start, but tensions behind the scenes led to him departing the club this past January. City will hope to foster a better relationship with the manager if he indeed steps in for the departing Guardiola.

City have the players, and the budget, to support him. But there's little doubt that the man he's replacing, Guardiola, got the very best out of the ample resources he was provided.