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The money did what it was supposed to. It built Guardiola\u2019s best-ever team. Photograph: Gareth Copley\/Getty Images <\/p>\nThere\u2019s a Pep Guardiola speech that bubbles up every once in a while on the internet, like the gristly foam on the surface of a boiling ham. Taken from one of the Amazon glaze job documentaries, it\u2019s always a good reminder that you\u2019re spending more time than you should in the For You wastelands of X. Sort of like Robin Williams\u2019 gag about cocaine being God\u2019s way of telling you you make too much money, just with added Bernardo Silva.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s from the end of the 2017\/18 season, Guardiola\u2019s second at Manchester City, their first league title won under him. Except they didn\u2019t just win it; they swallowed it in one gulp. They put up 100 points; they set or equalled records for consecutive wins (18), consecutive away wins (11), and consecutive wins in all competitions (20). They scored 106 goals, 22 more than the next-highest. They finished with a goal difference of +79, a full 33 better than the next best.<\/p>\n
It was a Pantera season, a vulgar display of power. And in keeping with the general tone of muscular, macho bravado, Guardiola\u2019s speech to his players, captured by the Amazon cameras, leans into the language of obliteration. The supposed intent of it is to deflect praise from himself on to them, but there\u2019s a serious bang of the humblebrag off it too. <\/p>\n
\u201cCan you imagine a ball boy?\u201d Pep begins. \u201cIn his own country, a small country. Going to the academy when he\u2019s 13 years old. And after playing in the first team, his own team, in his heart, who stayed there a lot of years and after became the manager \u2013 37 years old and in four years he destroyed football. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s me. I had the privilege to live that. I destroyed football like you destroyed the Premier League. Like you destroyed the Premier League this season.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sheesh! Talk about saying the quiet part out loud. Just to put a bit of context around the season Guardiola is eulogising here, City went into it off the back of a summer window in which they bought Ederson, Kyle Walker, Bernard Mendy and Bernardo Silva. They added Aymeric Laporte in January. This was on top of the previous season where they bought John Stones, Leroy San\u00e9, Ilkay G\u00fcndo\u011fan and Gabriel Jesus. Of those nine players, six went on to feature in at least one PFA Team of the Year over the next decade. <\/p>\n
The money did what it was supposed to. It built Guardiola\u2019s best-ever team. Photograph: Gareth Copley\/Getty Images <\/p>\n
They didn\u2019t come cheap either. Ederson cost a world record fee for a goalkeeper. Stones was the world\u2019s most expensive defender until they bought Walker, who held the tag for four months until being passed by Laporte. Silva played 460 games for City, Ederson played 372, Walker 317. Stones, G\u00fcndo\u011fan and Jesus all played at least 200 matches; Laporte played 180. The money did what it was supposed to. It built Guardiola\u2019s best-ever team.<\/p>\n
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Pep Guardiola presumably didn\u2019t mean to be quite so on the nose with all his talk about destroying football and so on, but look where it has all led. Photograph: Molly Darlington\/Getty Images <\/p>\n