Appointed as the manager of Manchester City in February 2016, Pep Guardiola went on to lead the Cityzens to extraordinary success over the course of his ten-year stint in the hot seat. Under Pep’s tutelage, City won 20 major trophies, including six Premier League titles and one UEFA Champions League.
While stories of Guardiola’s intense training sessions and motivating dressing room speeches are already well known from his time with the likes of FC Barcelona and Bayern Munich, fans now have a chance to get to know the mastermind even better, thanks to the recently released documentary – “A Beautiful Obsession”.
The show premiered on Prime Video on August 19. Directed by Academy and BAFTA award-winner Kevin Macdonald alongside John De Caux, the four-part docu-series offers valuable insight into the goings-on behind the scenes at Manchester City during Guardiola’s final two seasons at the club.
In addition to all the success the team enjoyed, the show also shows the frustration and disappointment that came with losses and poor runs of form. Alongside all this, footage of Guardiola’s rather unorthodox methods of motivating his players have also been revealed.
Arguably the most memorable instance of this was when 19-time Serie A champions and seven-time UEFA Champions League winners AC Milan caught some strays, as Pep used the Rossoneri’s poor 2024/25 season as an example to rouse Reijnders in front of all his teammates.
He did so in order to motivate Reijnders and the City team as a whole to work hard and secure positive results in order to avoid “having a flop season like Milan did”.
Pep’s full quote from the scene is as follows:
“The big question for all Manchester City players who were also there last season is: do you want to play another season like that? Do you want to believe in the season we had then?” Guardiola began.
He then turned to Reijnders to say, “Do you want to play another season like your final season at that f**king AC Milan, when you did not qualify for Europe? Do you want that? Do you want to go through that again? Remind yourself whether you want to relive our previous season again. If you do not want that, then you will have to act. Otherwise you will not win, my friends.”
While Pep Guardiola’s words sound pretty harsh on first glance, even the most optimistic of AC Milan fans will have a hard time refuting his strong-worded claims.
Practically speaking, AC Milan’s 2024/25 season was a massive failure, from both a sporting and commercial standpoint. After Stefano Pioli left to pursue opportunities in Saudi Arabia, Paulo Fonseca took charge to begin the campaign.
Right from the start of the season, there was plenty of instability surrounding the team, and even though Milan did put together some memorable results, such as beating Real Madrid 3-1 in the league phase of that year’s UEFA Champions League, a game Tijanni Reijnders also scored in, Fonseca ultimately parted ways with the club before New Year’s Day.
Sergio Conceicao stepped in to replace Fonseca, and though it looked like he had steadied the ship for a while, the wheels quickly fell off again. AC Milan ended up finishing the Serie A season down in 8th place.
In the UEFA Champions League, they were upset by Feyenoord in the knockout playoff round, missing out on up to €80 million of European competition revenue, a crucial blow to the financial plans in place for the following summer.
They did get within touching distance of winning the Coppa Italia, but they also blew that opportunity by losing 1-0 to Bologna in the final.
All in all, Guardiola’s assessment was pretty bang on the money, but it was still hard for AC Milan to fans witness such brutal diss –
These days, both Guardiola and Reijnders have moved on from Manchester.
Guardiola decided to walk away from the head coach role at the club ahead of the 2026/27 season, because he felt he no longer had the energy required for the daily demands of elite management after a decade in charge.
Reijnders, meanwhile, was sold to Saudi Arabian side Al-Qadsiah on 19 August for a reported €61 million after failing to establish himself as a regular Premier League starter.
