0:00 Pep Guardiola might have one of the most ridiculous coaching family trees football has ever seen. Look around Europe right now. Some of the biggest clubs in the world are being managed by guys who played for Pep, worked under Pep, or studied Pep. Every great manager takes something from somebody else. Pep himself did, because before Guardiola there was Johan Cruyff. Cruyff completely changed Barcelona. Positions became more fluid. And one of the players sitting in midfield watching all of this was a skinny little guy named Pep Guardiola. Yes, back then he had hair. Pep absorbed everything. Cuz later he took Cruyff's ideas, mixed them with his own, and dominated football in three different leagues in three different countries: Barcelona, Bayern, Manchester City. But I actually believe that Pep's legacy and impact is so much greater than the trophies that he has earned. His ideas have escaped, and the Pep DNA,
0:45 it's everywhere. The most obvious branch of Pep's coaching tree is Mikel Arteta. Their relationship actually goes way back to Barcelona. Arteta was coming through the academy while Pep was already established in the first team. And then years later, when Pep takes the Manchester City job in 2016, one of the first calls he made was to Arteta. Pep knew the football, Arteta knew England. He had spent years playing for Everton and Arsenal. He understood all the weird little Premier League stuff that Pep was about to discover for the first time. So Arteta becomes his assistant. >> There was a lot of things that obviously Pep was very interested, and I spent 14-15 years of my life in in this country. So he was very interested on that. So
1:30 >> From 2016 to 2019, he was getting the greatest possible managerial internship ever. He saw how Pep prepares for opponents, how he uses possession, how he structures pressing, all of it. Then Arsenal come calling in 2019. Arteta leaves, and at first his Arsenal struggle. The squad was not good enough yet. But slowly, as he replaced the squad with players he actually wanted, you started seeing the Pep influence everywhere. 4-3-3, dominating possession, fullbacks moving inside. But this is where Arteta becomes interesting, because he took those lessons, but made his Arsenal team way more physical and more defensive. There are many times where you watch Arteta ball and it feels like anti-Pep ball, because he's so much more pragmatic, and the football is far more boring. But, you do have to give him credit, his Arsenal side are very good defensively. They are incredibly annoying to play
2:17 against. When Arsenal lose possession, they can drop into this really compact 4-4-2. Then, suddenly you are trying to play through Rice, Bruno Guimaraes, and four center-backs in the backline. Yeah, have fun. And then, there are the set pieces. Arteta absolutely loves them, whether it's corners, free kicks, blocking routines, crowding the goalkeeper, anything that might give Arsenal even half an advantage, they take. For Arsenal, corners are like penalties, which again is hilarious considering his whole football philosophy comes from Pep Guardiola, the guy associated with a thousand passes and beautiful football. Then, his student comes along and says, "Yeah, that's cool, but what if we had Gabriel bulldozing the back post and the keeper?" Now, Pep actually defended him for it. When people started complaining that Arsenal were too reliant on set pieces or using the dark arts, Guardiola said that adapting is a part of being a
3:03 great manager. And that tells you something about their relationship. Pep clearly respects the fact that Arteta took the ideas, then changed them. And eventually, Arteta did the one thing every apprentice wants to do. He beat the master. In the 2025-2026 season, Arsenal finally won the Premier League, their first title in 22 years, and they did it by finishing above Pep's Manchester City. They also reached the Champions League final that season before losing to the Baguette Warriors PSG on penalties. So, the project Arteta spent years building finally reaches the level everyone was waiting for. Then, you have Xabi Alonso, and his relationship with Pep is completely different from Arteta's. Arteta learned from Pep Guardiola on the touchline. Xabi learned from Pep by literally starting in the middle of the park for him. By the time he joined Bayern in 2014, Xabi was already a legend, World
3:48 Cup winner, Champions League winner, so you would think there was not much left to teach him. Pep disagreed. Xabi has talked about how Guardiola completely changed the way he understood space. >> He spent so much time putting um emphasis on certain things that before maybe I I I didn't thought that much about about that and he changed many things in my football perspective as well. >> There was one lesson in particular that stuck with him. Xavi would sometimes move towards the ball because he wanted to help the build-up. Pep told him, "Stop moving. The ball will come to you." And you can see that thinking all over Xavi's teams now. His coaching career exploded at Leverkusen. When he took over in 2022, they were 17th in the table. A year and a half later, they went unbeaten and won the Bundesliga, which is still completely ridiculous. Bayern had owned Germany for more than a decade. Then Xavi turns up and ends the
4:34 entire thing without losing a league game. They scored 89 goals, won the German Cup as well, a cheeky domestic double. Then came Real Madrid and this is where things became more complicated. You see, Xavi's football is very structured. He wants everyone buying into the system. Then he walks into Madrid, a dressing room full of superstars who are used to a lot more freedom. As you can imagine, that Madrid experiment did not last long. Now he's at Chelsea where once again he's proving that if you buy into a system, he will make you football club. He will help you win games. Vinicius should be taking notes. Tactically, Xavi is probably one of the most interesting managers in Pep's wider coaching tree cuz he does not really copy Pep's 4-3-3. He prefers a back three. Usually something close to a 3-4-2-1. Of course, at times his Chelsea side do play with a back four, but it's not the system that's usually associated with him. But the Guardiola
5:20 influence is still everywhere. It's just Xavi added his own personality. So more vertical passing, faster attacks through the middle, more freedom between players in possession. He learned Guardiola's language, he just speaks it with a different accent. Then you have Vincent Kompany. Kompany spent years playing under Guardiola at Manchester City. He was the captain. And because he was a center-back, Pep forced him to understand every little detail of how the team builds attacks. Then he retires, starts managing, and his career has been a bit of a roller coaster. He starts at Anderlecht, then goes to Burnley, absolutely destroys the Championship, gets promoted, but then immediately gets relegated from the Premier League. After that, Bayern Munich somehow look at him and say, "Yep, that's our guy." Which at the time sounded insane. Bayern paid Burnley around 10 million pounds just to get him, a manager who had literally just been relegated. But Kompany completely shut everyone up. His first season at Bayern wins the Bundesliga, only loses
6:07 twice. Then the next season gets even better. Another Bundesliga title, DFB-Pokal Supercup, domestic clean sweep. Suddenly the appointment that was laughed at by everyone turns out to be one of the smartest moves that Bayern have made in years. Then you actually watch the football and you understand why they wanted him. Extremely high defensive line, aggressive pressing, loads of possession, constant movement around the ball. And when Bayern pin you back, it feels suffocating. You cannot get out. Bayern lose the ball, everyone jumps on you immediately. You clear it, their center-backs are already waiting near midfield. Then Bayern just start the attack again, over and over and over again. Their attacking numbers are ridiculous. In the 2025-2026 season, Bayern scored 122 Bundesliga goals. And the passing numbers somehow looked even more Pep-like. Against Heidenheim, Bayern completed close to 1,000 passes,
6:53 which had not happened in the Bundesliga since Pep himself was managing Bayern. Kompany was Pep's captain, and now he's carrying his football philosophy into the new generation. Then you have Enzo Maresca, and out of everyone in Pep's coaching tree, he might have been the most obvious successor. Maresca spent years learning Manchester City from the inside. He started with City's under 23s, wins the title with that. And Guardiola immediately notices how good he is tactically. Pep even compared his football brain to Arteta. Then Maresca goes to Parma, that does not really work. Comes back to City, and he's working directly underneath Pep. He's not just watching training sessions here, he's actually helping run the first team. And he comes back at the perfect time, the 2022-2023 season. City win the treble, Premier League, FA Cup, and the Champions League. So while Pep is building the greatest Manchester City side that we have ever seen, Maresca is literally right next to him learning
7:39 every single detail. Then he leaves again, takes the Leicester job, wins the Championship with 97 points, gets promoted. Then Chelsea come calling. And Chelsea was probably the first real test of whether Maresca could take all that Pep knowledge and make it work somewhere completely different. He had some really good moments. Chelsea won the Conference League, then beat PSG in the Club World Cup. But the Premier League form was a bit inconsistent. Chelsea would look amazing against stronger teams, then draw points against teams they should have really been beating. Then Maresca decides that it's time for him to literally become Pep's successor because he walks away from the Chelsea job mid-season knowing full well that Pep is going to step down as Manchester City's manager at the end of the 2026 season. You are never finding another Guardiola. So, instead, you hire someone who understands everything Pep built and has experience working within the city structure. Maresca ended up having one
8:25 of the greatest starts to a season for a manager at a new team as he won 10 games in a row in all competition and put City at the top of the Premier League table. I actually kind of felt bad for him because all of this City cheating news overshadowed what a great job he was doing as the manager. Then you have the Barcelona side of Pep's coaching tree. Xavi is the obvious example. He was the heartbeat of Pep's Barcelona. From 2008 to 2012, everything went through this guy. So, by the time Xavi became a manager himself, you already knew what kind of football he wanted to play. He had openly talked about Luis Aragonés and Guardiola being two of his biggest influences. And then he takes over Barcelona and you immediately start seeing the old positional play principles again. Wingers staying wide, midfielders occupying the half spaces, trying to create numerical superiority in the middle. It was very clearly Barca football and it worked. Xavi brings the
9:11 La Liga title back to Barcelona. Keep in mind, these guys were ninth when he first joined them. Now, Xavi has taken that same knowledge and is applying it at the international level for the Netherlands. Then you have Cesc Fàbregas. And I actually find his path even more interesting because Cesc did not even spend his whole career under Guardiola. He had Pep at Barcelona, but he also had years under Arsène Wenger at Arsenal. So, tactically, he grew up with two very different football philosophies. Under Wenger, he learned about freedom. Under Pep, he learned about structure. And now at Como, you can see both. There's a lot of positional play influence, but his football does not feel as rigid as some of Guardiola's other disciples. There's more freedom. And the job he has done at Como has been ridiculous. This is a club that was nowhere near the traditional giants of Italy. Now, they are playing and shining in the Champions League. >> And tossed with a little BIT OF FREE
9:57 BALL. THAT'S A BEAUTY. TWO MINUTES BANG ON ON THE CLOCK. >> HE'S IN THE MIDDLE of the park. HERE'S DUVIKAS FOR TWO. >> [cheering] >> AND COMO NOW BELIEVE THEY COULD GET a third, and they have done. Could get worse for Manchester United. It has done. It's four. >> It's one thing to play beautiful positional football with the likes of Xavi and Iniesta and Messi. It's another thing to take those exact same principles and apply to a Como squad and make them good. This is Pep Guardiola's real legacy. It's not the trophies, it's not the records, it's the fact that his ideas are now everywhere. Another generation is learning from Pep, and eventually those managers will influence the coaches who come after them. That is how football evolve. The funny part is
10:43 Pep once said that he just wants supporters to remember enjoy watching his teams play. I think he's gone a little further than that. To see just how good his successor Enzo Maresca has been doing, you have to watch this video right here.
