Guardiola's dilemma

He is arguably one of the best coaches on our planet today and probably of all time but he is at this moment facing a defining dilemma. Yes, Josep Guardiola’s dilemma is: what will he do next?

Guardiola has steered Barcelona to 15 titles in four years, not only winning titles but winning them in style. His leadership has produced, in Lionel Messi, a thee-time world player of the year winner.

Guardiola himself was recently voted Fifa’s coach of the year, beating arch rival Jose Mourinho of Real Madrid and Sir Alex Ferguson of Manchester United to the honours.

Guardiola‘s contract with Barcelona runs out in a few months and he is yet to renew it. Rumour has it that he might be heading to Inter Milan, where Coach Ranieri is under pressure or to relieve Roberto Mancini of his post in Manchester City. Some even believe he has his sights set on Manchester United. The possibility of him becoming the next coach of Qatar’s national team as they prepare to host the world soon is very much a possibility too. Speculations without end. So what will Guardiola do next and why is it a dilemma what he does next?

Guardiola is a son of the soil in Barcelona, had all his success as a player with Barcelona, his departure from Barcelona to little known Brescia in Italy in 2001 was the beginning of the end of his playing career, that eventually ended in 2006. In fact, unfortunately, he was only able to play 56 games in years for the four subsequent clubs he played for post Barcelona.

As a coach he has been successful in a very short period with Barcelona, winning everything winnable and now will he leave to try his luck somewhere else and risk failure? That is Guardiola’s dilemma.

Many feel he will have an uphill task getting any other team to play like Barcelona – sleek passing, meticulously choreographed routine team moves, incessant runs with and without the ball, aggressive defending, monopolised ball possession. Those are just some of the qualities on display each time Barcelona plays.

Will he be able to have an assembly of the kind of players he enjoys in Barcelona to put into practice his beautiful philosophy?

Will he have or be given enough time to inculcate his philosophy into a new team that has not been “schooled” all their life in La Mesia (Barcelona’s Youth Academy out of where came the likes of Xavi,Fabregas,Messi,Iniesta and Bousquets)?

Last week I was fortunate to watch Barcelona play live in Leverkusen and I must confess that this team is so well organised, hard-working, humble and constantly orchestrated by Guardiola from the sidelines. Their success is out of nothing but hard work plus talent.

The football world is a very demanding and unforgiving world. One is as good as his last game and Guardiola, being a very intelligent man, knows this and must be feeling tormented now as regards what his future should be.

His “Best Friend”, Jose Mourinho, has openly urged Guardiola to sign a lifelong contract with Barcelona because he is tailor made for this club. In fact, he is mocking Guardiola indirectly. He is indirectly taunting him to try and leave Barcelona and see if he will be as successful as he is now.

Barcelona is a team that has played attractive football for decades. Be it the Cruijff era, or lately the Frank Rijkaard era, never has Barcelona been this good, complete, sovereign and world-dominating as under Guardiola. In short of four years, in a more complex modern era of football, Guardiola’s Barcelona has won more titles than the legendary Johan Cruijff could do in a longer time frame, making him the most successful Barcelona Coach ever.

I honestly think Guardiola has it in him to make whatever top team he decides to coach play attractive football but as successfully and in such a short time as he has done with Barcelona I doubt it.

Something tells me Guardiola is fully aware of this and could be using his delay tactics to sign a new contract just to improve his bargaining power and maybe raise his earnings, draw some more attention, etc . He really must be very careful as regards what decision he takes concerning his professional future, because this could be a fatal defining move in the history and life of Pep Guardiola.

What a beautiful dilemma to have anyway, by one of football’s greatest coaches of all time.