#2 Pep Guardiola and Manuel Estiarte
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Not many managers in the world have the luxury of having an assistant who has participated in six consecutive Olympic Games. But Pep Guardiola is certainly not like many managers.
The Robin to Pep’s Batman, Manuel Estiarte is a former Spanish water polo player. Estiarte has represented his country a staggering 570 times in his 23-year career. It’ll take a whole different article just to list out his achievements in water Polo. So we’ll just stick to his friendship with Guardiola.
Guardiola and Estiarte grew up in the same neighbourhood of Manresa in Catalonia. Estiarte joined Pep when he was managing the Barcelona B side. He was hired to assist Guardiola in bridging the gap between club directors and the squad; a role in which he performed spectacularly, described by Pep himself. Like Pep, “The Maradona of water polo” is known for his intelligence, the ability to adapt quickly and his desire to win.
Estiarte is the first captain of Pep’s ship at Manchester City. A trusted confidant, Pep relies on his fellow countryman to know everything that is going on at City both on and off the pitch.
“He helped me look at my own sport from a different perspective. Sometimes when I was about to make a decision concerning one of my best players, he would tell me ‘don’t, leave him’. And this made me realise that some players, like in life, needed to be treated differently. That has helped me a lot, greatly,” said Guardiola of Estiarte. This perfectly highlights the importance of Estiarte in Guardiola’s life.
The Spanish duo now has a huge task of steadying the ship at Manchester City. While the media have already labelled their debut season a failure, Estiarte and Guardiola would be eager to prove their critics wrong next season.
