{"id":455514,"date":"2026-05-18T21:18:07","date_gmt":"2026-05-18T21:18:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/455514\/"},"modified":"2026-05-18T21:18:07","modified_gmt":"2026-05-18T21:18:07","slug":"guardiola-quits-man-city-as-maresca-reaches-agreement-in-principle-to-replace-him","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/455514\/","title":{"rendered":"Guardiola &#8216;quits&#8217; Man City as Maresca reaches &#8216;agreement in principle&#8217; to replace him"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Pep Guardiola will leave Manchester City after their last game of the season against Aston Villa.<\/p>\n<p>The Spaniard won his 20th trophy on Saturday as Antoine Semenyo\u2019s goal was enough to beat Chelsea at Wembley and clinch the FA Cup.<\/p>\n<p>He\u2019s led them to six league titles, including an unprecedented four on the bounce, and to the Champions League in 2023.<\/p>\n<p>READ MORE: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.football365.com\/news\/16-conclusions-fa-cup-final-manchester-city-chelsea-semenyo-alonso\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">16 Conclusions from the FA Cup final: Semenyo, Alonso, Guardiola, Salah, Haaland fury<\/a><\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s been widely reported that this could be Guardiola\u2019s final season at the Etihad despite him having one year left on his contract at the club.<\/p>\n<p>When asked by TNT Sports about the rumours this could be his last campaign as City manager following the triumph over Chelsea, Guardiola refused to give a definitive answer.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat rumours? Have a lovely evening,\u201d the Spaniard said with a smile, before ending the interview.<\/p>\n<p>Previous attempts to draw Guardiola into confirming his future one way or the other have resulted in the City legend simply stating he has \u201cone year left on the contract\u201d, but <a rel=\"noopener nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymail.com\/sport\/football\/article-15827009\/pep-guardiola-manchester-city-quits.html?ns_mchannel=rss&amp;ns_campaign=1490&amp;ito=social-twitter_dailymailsport\" target=\"_blank\">according to the Daily Mail<\/a>, he\u2019s decided to \u2018quit\u2019 after a decade at the club.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s claimed \u2018City have begun to tell their sponsor partners that the announcement is imminent\u2019 and that \u2018the news has also been an open secret among some of those close to Guardiola\u2019.<\/p>\n<p>His departure is expected to be confirmed \u2018some time on Sunday\u2019 to allow Guardiola\u2019s time at City to be celebrated at the open-top bus parade on Monday.<\/p>\n<p>Enzo Maresca, who worked as Guardiola\u2019s assistant at the Etihad before becoming head coach of Leicester and then Chelsea, looks set to take the reins.<\/p>\n<p>Journalist Nicolo Schira revealed on Sunday that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.football365.com\/news\/maresca-agreement-in-princple-replace-guardiola-man-city\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">the Italian boss has reached an agreement to take over<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>He wrote on X: \u2018Excl. \u2013 Enzo #Maresca has an agreement in principle with #ManchesterCity for a contract until 2028 with the option for 2029. #MCFC have designeted former Chelsea\u2019s manager as #Guardiola\u2019s replacement if Pep leaves. It\u2019s up to Guardiola decides what to do. Maresca is waiting.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>Maresca was sacked by Chelsea in January amid reports claiming he had spoken to City officials about replacing Guardiola at the Etihad.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018The future is bright\u2019<\/p>\n<p>Guardiola insisted after the victory over Chelsea that \u201cthe future is bright\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>He said: \u201cI took time to click, I missed something in the process,\u201d he said. \u201cWe made a lot of different shapes with pressing, this player with the other player. We had the feeling that in the last two months I felt some stability with the team that I didn\u2019t find in the past, but it\u2019s normal with a lot of new players and injured players.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSometimes you need a little bit more time but the highest competitions don\u2019t wait. Top eight in the Champions League, we found one of the toughest opponents in Real Madrid but in the rest of the competitions we have behaved extraordinary in all competitions and the future is bright. I know the guys, I know how they feel, the commitment for the club and very professional. I\u2019m pretty sure we will be there in the next years.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pep Guardiola will leave Manchester City after their last game of the season against Aston Villa. The Spaniard&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":455515,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[42525,914,61,60,8579,43,16909,112],"class_list":["post-455514","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-enzo-maresca","tag-front-page","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-manchester-city","tag-news","tag-pep-guardiola","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/455514","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=455514"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/455514\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/455515"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=455514"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=455514"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=455514"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}