In the wake of last Friday’s historic success over Fluminense in Saudi Arabia, City get back to domestic affairs on Wednesday night when we resume the defence of our Premier League title away at Everton.
That memorable 4-0 success over the Brazilian Copa Libertadores winners in Jeddah set the seal on what has been a stunning and historic 2023 for City and Guardiola.
It saw the Club create yet more history in becoming the first English side to win the major five trophies of Premier League, FA Cup, UEFA Champions League, UEFA Super Cup and FIFA Club World Cup in a single calendar year.
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But rather than reflecting and dwelling on what has the most incredible 12 months in City’s 129-year history, Guardiola insists the focus now is all about the here and now and seeking to navigate the next challenge.
When asked what there was left to achieve and what continued to drive him on, the boss was unequivocal in his response.
“To try it again. Not to try it again to win five titles but to try again in the next game,” Pep declared.
“The players teach us and teach me and we try to also drive them.
“The greatest athletes and everything forget as quick as possible the success.
“Today, we celebrate it and it belongs to us but around the corner is another competition and a game you have to try it again.
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“The satisfaction will remain, what we have done, but the reality, the daily days... we have to do it again.
“Football gives you some things and pulls the other ones.
“I’m more than pleased and satisfied with what we’ve achieved and the way we’ve done it for many years.
“I reflect on the five Premier Leagues, four Carabao Cups, FA Cups and all the semi-finals where we compete really well.
“But it’s nice to see now all the five trophies and people taking pictures, then you realise the amount of work and effort behind them.
“It’s nice, I have the feeling the job is really done. I thought about it when we won the Champions League but then Super Cup, we didn’t have it, Club World Cup, we didn’t have it, now we have everything.
“Now it’s (time) to go to the book shop to buy one and start to write again.
“This is what we have to do.”
During his stellar six and a half years at the City helm, Guardiola has always stressed how our success has been a collective effort – and one underpinned by those who have gone before as well as the current incumbents of the shirt.
And he said the past setbacks the Club had suffered under his watch – especially those in Europe – also formed a vital part of an evolutionary process that had helped drive City on to achieve the greatest year in our history.
“The reason why we are here, I said this to the team, is not Istanbul or Inter,” Guardiola asserted.
“It’s not why we’re here. It’s Monaco, it’s Liverpool, it’s Tottenham, it’s Lyon, it’s the Champions League final against Chelsea loss, the last minute against Real Madrid when it was closed with five minutes.
“It hurts in that moment but now it helps us, that helped us to win against Inter. It’s a process at a Club who had never [been] used [to] it.
“For Madrid, Bayern Munich, Barcelona, the big, big clubs in European competition, they’re used to that. But for us everything was new, to feel how we can do it and believe and win it.
“It’s not just ‘Bring Pep here and immediately it happens’, it’s a process to change it.
“Sometimes we were close, sometimes we were further back, but in the end it’s a process.
“That’s why we arrived here to finish eight years of the job with a lot of disappointments but it’s part of life and the sport.
“That makes us feel that: ‘OK, let’s go for the last one’ and the players did it again.”
