OPINION: It’s time to admit Pep Guardiola surpassed Sir Alex Ferguson a long time ago

'In 10 years, Guardiola has done more for the English game than Sir Alex did in three decades'

Manchester United, led by Sir Alex Ferguson, and a side littered with the likes of Wayne Rooney, Ryan Giggs, and Paul Scholes; fresh from winning the Premier League title at a canter, were to face a Pep Guardiola's Barcelona, and many fancied the Red Devils to take their revenge from the final two years ago.

What followed was a lesson in football tactics.

Manchester United were taken apart over the 90 minutes, utterly outclassed on a tactical and physical level.

If the highlights from Barca's 3-1 triumph don't suffice, just read how Wayne Rooney is said to have described the match.

“I did not think we had any chance of beating them,”

“Even when we made it 1-1 before half-time, there was no other game I played for Manchester United where I was on the pitch thinking, ‘There is no way we can win the game.’ We were playing the team which, in my opinion, is the best there has been.” [Rooney is quoted as having made those quotes by Jamie Carragher in an extract from the former Liverpool skipper's book, published by the Telegraph.]

Why though, is this 90-minute contest, that occurreed some five years before Pep Guardiola managed in the Premier League, the deciding factor in determining the difference between two greatest managers in modern English football history?

It's because that match takes place at the perfect moment in both great men's careers.

After perhaps the treble-winners of 1998/99, this was the very height of Fergie-ball.

The Red Devils had dominated all around them over the past decade, even winning four of the past Premier League titles, and picking up a Champions League crown of their own, just a handful of years previously.

Guardiola, on the other hand, was just getting started.

Just as Ferguson was decades into his Manchester United spell, Guardiola was just three years into his career as a manager. And yet, there was one clear and undoubted winner between the two.

Imagine what would happen if that Man United team were to face up against the Manchester City of today, with another decade of development under Guardiola. There would be no contest.

In a microcosm, that match explains why there's never been a real contest between Ferguson and Guardiola, with all due respect to Ferguson, the Catalan simply needed the years to catch up.

This is not to diminish the career of Sir Alex Ferguson, who was the undoubted King of the English game up until Guardiola's arrival, but rather to pay tribute to the fact that in Guardiola, we are dealing with a potential greatest manager of all time.

For example, by his 55th birthday, the Scotsman had won just two of his impressive, and still unmatched, thirteen Premier League titles. Guardiola turned 55 in January 2026.

Guardiola has six of his own title-wins, plus, no one else has reached four consecutive FA Cup finals, won four straight League Cups or won four consecutive league titles, as pointed out by Miguel Delaney.

So in terms of pure wins, Guardiola is still a way behind, but likely would have caught up, had he the stamina to stay in England for another decade. Where the Man City head coach really strides head is in terms of legacy; his impact on English football.

In 10 years, Guardiola has done more for the English game than Sir Alex did in three decades, or at least as much as the Scotsman.

From Guardiola's arrival in 2016, within months, every club in the English football pyramid was talking about 'playing out from the back' and 'ball-playing centre-halves' were at the top of every transfer wish-list, but as Pep has changed and evolved over the past decade, it seems as though the rest of the nation has followed.

When beautiful play and Tiki-Taka pressing wasn't enough, Pep switched to ultimate control. Death by 1,000 passes, and the rest of the league copied. Gone was the "long-ball" speciality of English football, and replaced by technical quality.

By the 2023 Champions League final, Guardiola had switched to defensive power for his strength, beginning with four recognised centre-backs across his back four.

You only have to look to Arsenal's May 2026 1-0 victory over Burnley to see the league-leading Gunners utlilise the very same with all of Mosquera, Hincapie, Gabriel and Saliba starting.

Guardiola's arrival at the Etihad Stadium in 2016 kickstarted a chain reaction that has seen English football — from the Premier League to the local park — adopt creativity and risk-taking over long-balls and caution as their bread and butter.

He fundamentally changed English football for the better, all while winning everything in sight, and no other individual can say the same for the modern era.

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