City slicker: how Guardiola's housing demands almost halted Man City move
Pep Guardiola's move to Manchester City almost never happened due to the coach's specific accomodation demands, a new book has revealed.
A new book has revealed that Manchester City feared they would lose out on Pep Guardiola due the coach’s very specific housing demands.
Then-Bayern manager Guardiola was in the height of talks with City while he was still living in Munich, where he and his family lived in “a spacious mansion” on Sophienstrasse in the heart of the city centre, recall club officials Pol Ballus and Lu Martin in their book: Pep's City: The Making of a Superteam.
Before putting pen to paper at the Etihad Stadium, city slicker Pep had insisted on a luxury pad in Manchester’s city centre – something which almost became a deal breaker for the club as they struggled to find something matching the standards of his upmarket Sophienstrasse home.
Guardiola's pad demands were "becoming deal-breaker"
“Pep demanded accommodation of a similar standard in Manchester and the issue was in danger of becoming a deal-breaker,” wrote Ballus and Martin, revealing details of a crunch meeting between Guardiola and City’s then-player liaison manager David Quintana in Munich.
"Quintana and Pep met over a leisurely three-hour lunch in a local Vietnamese restaurant... Lunch was spent discussing key elements of the club's organisation, infrastructure, players but the issues around the Guardiolas' new home remained unsolved.
"The problem was that Pep was refusing to live anywhere but the city centre and there just wasn't the right property there to suit him. It didn't exist. [Tixi] Begiristain (City's director of football) could see all his plans going up in smoke. The deal to bring Pep to City was under threat."
Pep sets urban-living trend at City
Eventually City found the Guardiola family a plush apartment in a 16-story complex in the trendy Deansgate area, much to the delight of Quintana, who had gone as far as promising to build Pep whatever he wanted in order to secure his signature, the book reveals.
“If we have to, we'll build you what you want. It might take a few more months but we'll make it happen,” Quintana said in his meeting with the ex-Barcelona coach, according to Ballus and Martin’s book.
Guardiola soon prompted a trend for urban living among his squad, with several players, including Gabriel Jesus, Bernardo Silva and Sergio Aguero, opting to give up their luxury rural mansions in leafy Cheshire in exchange for the hustle and bustle of Manchester’s city centre.