In December, with Liverpool near a victory that increased the advantage in the leadership of Premier League, fans decided to provoke the rival coach. The popular singing in England has the “Guantanamera” melody and says: “Sacked in the Morning, You’re Getting Sacked in the Morning” or “You will be fired tomorrow morning.” The target was Pep Guardiola.
The Manchester City coach smiled and made the number six with his fingers – the English championship titles he won since he took over in 2016.
City has no chance of winning the Premier League and, with a team aging and with injuries, is unrecognizable season for their standards. The final blow was the elimination this week in the Champions League for the powerful Real Madrid. But Guardiola is fired, only in a cheerleader.
It’s not just because he has credit for what he has achieved. It is because, in other European leagues, or in Brazil, perhaps not one of the best technicians of all time would survive.
The tone of the English press on the duration of Premier League coaches is always of concern. “It never fired so much,” the headlines say. But it is a matter of perspective.
According to a report in The Athletic May 2024, the average time of an English championship coach in office is 787 days. Guardiola has been in eight and a half years and is the longest at the moment. Thomas Frank followed just over six at Brentford, and Mikel Arteta has been in Arsenal for five.
Not to mention the legendary Sir Alex Ferguson, at Manchester United for 21 years, and Arsène Wenger, who led Arsenal 22. The London team is the least exchanged coaches since the creation of Premier League in 1992 – times. In 133 years of history, Liverpool only had 22 coaches.
Of course there are exceptions. Chelsea and Tottenham have a bad reputation, with 18 technicians each in the 33 seasons of the league. But in general, the tendency is to give the coach time to implement his ideas. There is patience and planning.
A few days ago, TNT Sports reporter Fred Caldeira asked Guardiola what he thought of 20 technicians were fired in Brasileirão clubs in 2024.
Amazed, he replied, “I don’t know why this happens, but clubs also need to think that when they live a season with three or four different coaches, the problem is the one who chose these coaches. So they should fire the leaders who chose them.” . He added, “In my first year, I didn’t win. If they had fired, we wouldn’t have lived the eight, nine years as we lived. Now they didn’t fire me this season because we earned a lot in the past.”
It makes sense. In its first year, City was eliminated from the Champions League in the round of 16 for Monaco, left the England Cup in the semifinal and was third at the Premier League, 15 points behind the champion, Chelsea. It has not won anything. If managers and cheerleaders had been impatient, the six league titles, the Champions League and the Club World Cup, among others, would probably not exist.
“Things are not eternal,” admitted the Spaniard after the melancholy elimination this week. But no team, as rich as it may be, thrives without a key ingredient in this recipe of success: stability.
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