Football Presse

Guardiola's agent rules out return to management this season

·By Paul Vegas
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Guardiola's agent rules out return to management this season

Manchester City/X.com

Pep Guardiola will not take charge of any club or national team this season, according to his agent, ending speculation over an immediate return to management.

Josep Maria Orobitg, Guardiola's representative, moved to shut down rumours linking the former Manchester City manager with a shock return to the dugout this season.

Speaking to the Winwin portal, Orobitg dismissed talk of Guardiola taking the vacant job at Trabzonspor, the Turkish club that Mohamed Salah joined this summer after his Liverpool contract expired, and who had reportedly offered the Spaniard a lucrative salary to take charge.

"Pep will not coach any club or national team this season," Orobitg said, closing the door on speculation that had also linked Guardiola with the role in Turkey.

Guardiola stepped away from the game after ending a hugely successful decade in charge of Manchester City, choosing to take time out to focus on his personal life following years of relentless success in English football that yielded numerous major honours for the club.

The Catalan had already made his intentions clear before his departure was confirmed over the summer.

"Now I want to discover life, be happy doing other things that have nothing to do with football," Guardiola had said. "I will return to coaching, but that feeling needs to come from within me, and I don't feel it today."

His name had also been linked in recent weeks with Italy's vacant national team job, generating significant debate in the Italian press and beyond, though that approach was also unsuccessful, according to reports in Italy.

A number of other national federations were also said to have made contact with Guardiola's camp over the summer as his sabbatical began to take shape, underlining the level of interest in his eventual next move.

Guardiola has not closed the door on a return to the dugout in the future, but for now he prefers to recharge after an extraordinary career that included triumphs with Barcelona, Bayern Munich and, most notably, Manchester City, with whom he won the club's first-ever Champions League title and dominated English football for close to a decade, redefining the way the game is coached along the way for a generation of imitators.