Pep Guardiola has set Barcelona fans dreaming about the good ol’ days by joking about a potential return to Barça as president and saying he’d fancy the partnership of Aitana Bonmati as his sporting director.
Pep and Aitana are greats who have impressed Culers in their respective roles. And it’s been all fun for both of them in a new documentary about Barcelona Femeni superstars, during which Aitana revealed she’d like to be the club’s sports director.
The Ballon d’Or Féminin 2023 winner then suggested that if she got the job, she could tempt Pep back to Barcelona to take charge of the first team again, saying, “I’ll be there, and since you’ll train until you’re 80…”
But trust Pep to always give the best reply: “I assure you that I am not going to train until I am 80! I’ll come for free; don’t worry. It won’t be a financial issue. But I’ll be the president. And I’ll be the one to sign you as sporting director.”
Aitana then went on to speak about her ambitions and a potential future in some type of club management.
”I’m excited to be able to create the structure myself, to decide who does and who doesn’t, and to be the leader of the process. Who knows if I’ll end up as a coach? I close no doors,” she added.
“There is still progress to be made in football in the sense that there are few women in important positions.”
Will Pep Guardiola return to his childhood club, FC Barcelona?
There’s a high possibility of that happening, and the signs are all over the place. Pep is one of the smartest coaches and arguably the greatest of all.
His decisions are mostly unimaginable, and surprisingly, they’ve all worked out fine. No one had a signal that he would be leaving as Barcelona head coach when he did.
No one as well perceived his resignation at Bayern Munich at the time, and now at Manchester City, where he has accomplished more than expected of him [winning the league back-to-back and handing the club their first ever UEFA Champions League trophy], there’s a chance he would be returning home.
He had won it all. The only manager to win the continental treble twice, the youngest to win the UEFA Champions League, and the coach with the most consecutive league games won in La Liga, the Bundesliga, and the Premier League. That’s milestone!
With that already accomplished at the young age of 52, there’s nothing more to prove other than to look back home. Maybe not as a head coach for FC Barcelona, but even an administrative position would still be a good fit for the great one.
