Pep Guardiola’s list of symptoms is long and disturbing. He can’t sleep. He can only eat light meals in the evening. Some days I don’t eat at all. He finds reading difficult because his mind keeps wandering. He sometimes feels extremely lonely. Things can get so bad that they start to take physical forms, including back pain and skin rashes.
They are not isolated in a moment like the one the Manchester City manager found himself trapped in. With his team in disarray, he spent the better part of two months trying and failing to keep from stopping. By his own admission, he’s always been like that. Even though things are going well for Guardiola, he can’t sleep, eat, or rest.
Manel Estiarte, perhaps Guardiola’s most trusted confidant, used to call this ‘the rule of 32 minutes’. Estiarte spent enough time with Guardiola to calculate exactly how long his friend would talk about other subjects – literally other subjects – before he refocused on football.
That image has long entered Guardiola’s mythology. He is an obsessive genius. His brain is forever buzzing and buzzing, his synapses permanently firing. His teams at Barcelona, Bayern Munich and City embody his ideas and express them in perfect form. His brilliance was limited only by the limits of his imagination.
But the cost of that commitment has been revealed over the past few months. As City’s form declined, Guardiola gave at least two gloomy interviews. First was Spanish chef Dani Garcia, then his former teammate and long-time friend at Prime Video Sport, Luca Toni. He spoke to the former about “the loneliness of being a football manager” and how he knew there was “no comfort” when you “close your bedroom door and turn off the lights” when you lose.
Meanwhile, he detailed to Tony the impact on his health – skin problems, sleeping and eating issues he has been experiencing for “two (or) three years”. “I no longer digest food properly,” he said, as if the metabolic changes were permanent. Sometimes, he said, “I lose my mind.”
Guardiola during Manchester City’s 2-2 draw with Crystal Palace this month (Ryan Pierse/Getty Images)
The reason he was so serious about it (so much so that he could insist he was “fine” just a few days later) may be because none of it was new. He struggled to sleep during his final year at Barcelona. He had long since stopped eating on matchdays when City beat Liverpool to win the Premier League title in 2019. Speaking at the University of Liverpool in 2018, he said he couldn’t read books to relax “because I started reading and before I knew it I was reading a book about Jurgen Klopp”.
But it may also be because it has become the standard reality for people in his profession. Management has always been stressful. Many of Guardiola’s most famous predecessors – Bill Shankly, Arrigo Sacchi – resigned or retired due to the strain of their work. Klopp, who he said was the greatest opponent he had ever faced, left Liverpool for similar reasons.
It has also always been a calling for single-minded, pathological and fanatical people. But even those who choose to do it over and over again will admit that it seems extremely bad to you.
Leyton Orient manager Richie Wellens said: said athletic this year that I can no longer grow a beard because of job stress; Nathan Jones, who once played for Stoke City and Southampton, was so feverish that he would bite his fingernails, causing them to bleed. As far back as 2002, a (vaguely unscientific) experiment found that some coaches were so stressed during games that they suffered irregular heartbeats.
“I felt unwell when my time at Chelsea ended,” Emma Hayes, now in charge of the U.S. women’s team, said last month. “I don’t want to say it’s a burden. I think it’s stress. That’s the price it took on me.”
Given the size of the football industry, the money involved and the unwavering scrutiny from the media, I would say this is inevitable. But in a sense, executives should now be less stressed, not more.
Hayes left the job in March after an altercation with then-Arsenal Women manager Jonas Idewall (Marc Atkins/Getty Images)
Most clubs have relieved the burden of the position. The technical or sporting director is responsible for recruitment. The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) is responsible for negotiating the contract. An entire department exists to analyze games and coordinate scouting. Shankly couldn’t call in a psychologist, a professional set-piece coach or a nutritionist.
But it seems to have little effect. Management has never become more manageable. Tottenham Hotspur manager Ange Postecoglou may have exaggerated the touch when he said it was “the hardest job of all classes”, but it wasn’t hard to follow his reasoning.
“You could say politics, but this is harder,” he said. “The tenure and longevity of this role means there are now very few people who go into it and come out without scars.” When asked to compare him to the prime minister of an actual country, he said, “How many elections are held? There’s one every weekend, buddy. “We hold elections and we vote for it or we vote it out.”
In part, this may be down to the fact that football delegates responsibilities behind the scenes but not in front of the cameras. Especially in England, where the manager often remains the only public face of the club.
“They have to comment on everything,” said Michael Caulfield, a sports psychologist who works with Brentford among other clubs. BBC Radio 5 Live last week. “From Covid to Brexit, everything you want to mention: potholes, traffic, the price of burgers. Football isn’t very good at sharing the workload. “It’s too much for one person to handle.”
Brighton manager Fabian Hurzeler reveals his appearance in July (Steven Paston/PA Images via Getty Images)
This anachronism has real benefits. As one club executive privately noted, life becomes easier when you ask specific questions to managers who you can legitimately say don’t know the answers to. The well-being of the club rests on the shoulders of one man.
But much more importantly, football inherently actively discourages managers from playing football. Guardiola may seem like an exception, but he is also presented as a model. The obsession that has been at the core of his legend for the past 15 years has created a blueprint for what a manager should be like.
For example, Brighton’s 31-year-old manager Fabian Hurzeler says he doesn’t watch television or movies, but rather reads books on “mindset”.
“What are the mindsets of high performers? People like Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, and Mark Zuckerberg. “I want to understand how they behave and how they become so successful,” he said of this season. Fabian Hurzeler’s reading material is his own business, but this doesn’t sound like a switch off.
In fact, most Premier League managers struggle to explain how they relax. Of course there are many exercises. A notable proportion are very fond of padding and Hurzeler is one of several people lobbying clubs to build courts at their training facilities. But real outside interest appears to be lacking.
Nuno Espirito Santo likes to “go to the window and look out at the River Trent.” Gerry O’Neill allocated time to watch the film Wonka with his children the night before he was summarily sacked by Wolves. He knew that “it’s important to switch off your brain.” But he also knew exactly how much time he had left. “We will try to turn it off for one hour and six minutes,” he said.
The River Trent runs alongside the Forest grounds. Their manager Nuno finds solace in looking at the river. (Michael Regan/Getty Images)
Caulfield described Brentford head coach Thomas Frank as exceptionally well-rounded for a manager. He plays paddle (obviously), skis, spends time at home in Spain, and has friends who have nothing to do with football. — but even he admitted that almost every waking moment during the season, “my brain is thinking about the next game.”
He said he sometimes watches interior design programs on television with his wife. But only because she “forces” him to do it. Roberto Martinez, who currently manages Portugal, told the Telegraph in 2015 that he had designed his living room to fit a sofa and two televisions. One is where his wife can watch regular TV and the other is where he can watch soccer games.
Of course, none of this is good for your health. The League Managers Association, the body that lobbies on behalf of current and former managers in England, has published a handbook encouraging its members to find work-life balance. It’s painful to point out that when you’re exhausted and tired, you can’t function to your full potential.
“That’s the biggest problem,” Caulfield said. “Football is tiring. The ‘be there 7 days a week’ culture has to stop at some point. Coaches must manage their own energy just as much as players. “We are not designed to work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, under that kind of pressure and scrutiny.”
I think Guardiola will be the proof. Of course, my symptoms as a manager are worse now. He always suffers more after defeat. But when things are good, it doesn’t make much difference. He’s been dealing with them for years. “I think quitting will help me.” he told Chef Garcia in one of his grim interviews.
He knows it, but he won’t do it. He, like many of his peers, will keep coming back for more.
(Top photo: Getty Images)
