Dissecting Pep Guardiola's contract phobia - why won't he commit his future to a club?

Pep Guardiola’s contract at Bayern Munich ends this season and he is yet to commit to a new deal

Like an itch, the question crops up again for Pep Guardiola. Measures to soothe are taken; the inflammation is reduced, hoping against hope each time for that nagging feeling to go.

But there it is again – that question. With every instance it remains unanswered, it grows in stature; increasing discomfort, spreading malaise, threatening to disrupt the body’s functioning. Walking out doesn’t help either.

Transformation of Bayern Munich under Guardiola

Josep Guardiola’s distaste for contracts is well-known. The Catalan had rolling one-year deals at Barcelona, leaving it until the end of the season to decide whether to continue or not. The Cules would not complain – how could they against any man who had delivered them success worthy of a decade in four years, let alone one of their own? That is until, one fine day, the man decided he had had enough.

The Bavarians, on the other hand, do not like to be toyed with. New managers are contacted six months in advance, new signings are ear-marked one year in advance, stadium debts are cleared 16 years in advance. Keeping us blindfolded in suspense, eh Mr Guardiola? Try that on a schoolgirl, we are FC Hollywood.

While the whole affair makes for compelling viewing, football’s own version of ‘Will he/will he not’ if you may, it would make even a Manchester City fan wonder – well, why won’t he? In his third year in charge, the manager admits he knows his team much better.

Robert Lewandowski has flourished under Pep Guardiola at Bayern Munich

The feeling is clearly mutual. Robert Lewandowski, to his relief, no longer has to be a false nine, an inverted forward or anything inverted for that matter. The results have been staggering: facing the ‘real’ Bayern Munich nowadays means a 5-1 hiding for Premier League and Bundesliga title contenders alike.

The process of transforming Die Roten from the 2013 marauders of Jupp Heynckes to a formation-less force of footballing nature finally approaching completion, Guardiola now has the opportunity to bring in youngsters.

With Bastian Schweinsteiger already gone, Xabi Alonso looking more like a coach than a player with every passing game and ‘Robbery’ as well as Badstuber raising injury issues to preposterous levels, the youth brigade of Rode, Gaudino, Kimmich and Kirchhoff must be smacking their lips, raring to have a go at the ‘Game of Positions’.

In other words, Guardiola stands at the cusp of greatness at Bayern Munich. The present team is on its way to a record-breaking fourth successive Bundesliga title and looks hungry for European success while new blood promises to carry the baton with aplomb. The canopy is growing, the trunk is adding new layers of bark, the roots are growing deeper. And, in Rumminegge’s eyes, Guardiola is watering his tree with the elixir of life.

Why won’t Guardiola extend his contract?

The question has been asked by Sir Alex Ferguson: yes, that man, who has been there but actually done that. In his foreword to Guardiola’s biography “Another Way of Winning”, the great Scot pondered on the former’s exit from Barcelona in 2012.

“It seems that he reached a point in his coaching career where he was conscious of the importance of his job at Barcelona while experiencing the demands attached to it. I am sure he spent time thinking, ‘How long is it going to last? Will I be able to create another title-winning team?’

Personally, I think it’s about keeping going. So, why go? It might be a question of controlling the players, of finding new tactics because teams have started working out Barça’s style of play. Or a question of motivating them.

If Pep were to go to another club the questions would be the same as those he has faced so far. The expectation would follow him around.

So, why? Why would he decide to leave? Perhaps Pep underestimated his motivational abilities?”

The reason, possibly, has nothing to do with anything that goes on, on the pitch: it instead resides in the minefield that is Guardiola’s mind. The man says he might find an extended stay at Bayern boring. This when just about every other stalwart of the club thinks anything but.

Sir Alex Ferguson has a theory on why Pep Guardiola won’t commit his long-term future to a club

Philipp Lahm wants him to stay, Jerome Boateng wants him to stay. Former coach Ottmar Hitzfeld considers a one-year extension to be sensible. And Rumminegge, replete with his dreams of another Bavarian dynasty, is praying for it.

Yet there he is, questioning himself when nobody else is. He may have a point, too – the perfectionism, the obsession to detail, the seemingly limitless fountain of motivation his players marvel at – all those mental gymnastics perhaps do take their toll, leaving him with no choice but to take sabbaticals, to stay away from the sport that has become the drug that fulfils his life, but consumes it as well.

The aforementioned biography accounts for Guardiola’s state of mind on similar lines, in the process answering Sir Alex Ferguson’s queries.

“Guardiola’s mind is often in turmoil, spinning at 100 rpm before every decision – still questioning it even after he’s come to a conclusion. He couldn’t escape his destiny (as a coach, going back to Barcelona) but he is incapable of living with the level of intensity that would eventually grind him down.

Wherever he is, he is always working, thinking, deciding, always questioning. And the only way he can disconnect from his job (and the huge expectations) is to sever his ties completely.”

Therein lies a psychological hurdle for Guardiola the manager to cross. He may leave a club when he feels he can no longer fulfil what he expects from himself. But wherever he goes, the expectation will be there.

Will Guardiola manage Bayern Munich for a fourth season in 2016/17?

Perhaps, one day, he will realise this sense of expectation is a by-product of the regard the football world holds him in; that the spectacles he regularly delivers spoil his fans; that Bayern Munich brought him not only to win the Champions League, but to show them ‘Another Way of Winning’.

That day, he will learn to accept his and his team’s occasional failings; to manage these monsters called expectations; to step back, take a breath and forgive himself.

And, hopefully for us mere mortals, that day, the question will be answered.