Pep Guardiola is widely regarded as one of, if not the best manager in football history.
The Spaniard has overseen amazing success at Manchester City over the last eight years, and has changed the face of English football.
He has delivered trophy after trophy, and turned City into one of the best teams in the world to watch in the process.
Guardiola also had highly successful spells at Bayern Munich and Barcelona before touching down at the Etihad Stadium.
Fans are wondering if this could be his last season as City manager, with his contract expiring next summer. It has been reported that he could make a decision on his future midway through the 2024/25 campaign.
City officials will undoubtedly already be looking at possible replacements – and one wonders if there has been any consideration of Lionel Scaloni, a man dubbed ‘the best coach in the world’ by his former manager Javier Irureta.
Lionel Scaloni compared to Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola
Lionel Scaloni has been the manager of Argentina following their failure at the 2018 World Cup in Russia. He was initially employed on a caretaker basis alongside Pablo Aimar.
Scaloni was confirmed in the post and many Argentina fans were highly critical of the appointment. Even the legendary Diego Maradona was against it.
But Scaloni oversaw a third place finish at the 2019 Copa America, and then went on to win it in 2021.
He then led Argentina to glory at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar and just last weekend, he won his second Copa America title as Argentina defeated Colombia.
With three major trophies at international level now under his belt, Scaloni’s profile has grown massively. And he has come in for some big praise from his Javier Irureta, who managed Scaloni at Deportivo La Coruna.
He said (as quoted by SPORT): “For me he is the best coach in the world. I had him with me (as a player at Deportivo de La Coruña) and I think so. I think he is going to give much more to the Argentine team.”
For Irureta, he is not so dissimilar to City boss Guardiola.
“He reminds me of Pep Guardiola. The game they play brings them together a lot. They are very clear, in their heads they always have a good game.
“He is a person who is always very attentive; Already in his time as a player he always saw everything. He was ahead of the curve and helped me a lot. He is a very good person, intelligent and knows and sees football very well.”
City might need to look at Scaloni
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This is high praise indeed from Irureta, for someone who is very clearly a top manager. To have won two Copa Americas and one World Cup in just a few years is an amazing feat.
City fans do not want to contemplate a life after Guardiola. But it is something that is going to happen, and it will now be sooner rather than later.
There has hardly been any talk of Scaloni being a potential successor to Pep at the Etihad.
But he has a win percentage of over 70% as Argentina boss. Granted, some of the teams Argentina play against are far inferior to them.
But perhaps he should be someone worth considering given the comments of Irureta and the notion he isn’t so dissimilar to Pep.
