Europe trembles as Guardiola and Begiristain plan signings
The coach of Bayern, and soon to be of City, met secretly in Amsterdam with the director of football of the English giants to plan the season ahead. [Video in Spanish]
Pep Guardiola has one eye on Munich, but already another one on Manchester. Although still in all three competitions with Bayern (league, cup and Champions League), he slipped away to Amsterdam to meet with Txiki Begiristain, the City director of football, to plan for next season. The meeting was meant to be secret but how often does that mean very little with such a frenzied media presence across the world looking for a scoop. Pictures shared by the website Telesport and also in the British paper, the Mirror, caught the get together.
This is just another stick for the German press to hit him with as they are convinced that he has not been fully focused on his current club since signing the contract for next season with the English giants.
Given the financial potential of Manchester City and owner, Sheikh Mansour Al Nahyan, European clubs may begin to concern themselves a little that Pep and Txiki want to turn the club into an unstoppable force with a major target winning the Champions League of 2017. It's not been a competition with much joy for them in recent years.
It appears that Guardiola and Begiristain spoke about two players in particular, both defenders, who play in the Dutch Eredivisie: Riechedly Bazoer (Ajax) and Jetro Willems (PSV). But many other names have been banded about including some of the huge stars in the world of football, Messi, Neymar, Pepe, Lewandowski, Pogba, Laporte, John Stones. In fact, here at AS we decided to construct a team with those that are being seriously linked to "Guardiola City".