Pep Guardiola confirms he will ‘take a break’ from football when he leaves Man City

Pep Guardiola has said he will take a break from football when he leaves Manchester City - but he is yet to decide when that might be.

Guardiola signed a new deal at the Etihad Stadium in November, tying himself to the club for two more seasons, which would take his total time at the club to 11 years.

In an interview with ESPN Brasil, the 54-year-old appeared to indicate he would leave City at the end of that deal, but later on Friday he told Sky Sports he said he does not yet know when his time in Manchester might end.

But Guardiola, who took a year out after leaving Barcelona and before taking charge of Bayern Munich in 2013, said he was not planning to retire after leaving City.

"I didn't say I'm leaving now, or the end of season or the end of contract, I said when I finish my time here, be it one, two, three, four, five years I will take a break," Guardiola told Sky Sports before Friday's match against Wolves.

"I won't retire but I will take a break. What I am saying is when I am finished here I will take a break."

In the earlier interview with ESPN, Guardiola had seemed less certain, saying: "I don't know if I'm going to retire, but I'm going to take a break."

Contemplating his trophy-laden coaching legacy, which also encompasses spells at the top of Spanish and German football, the Catalonian added that he was confident supporters of the clubs he had managed had enjoyed watching his sides play.

"In the careers of coaches, there are good and bad ones, the important thing is that the good ones are remembered for longer," he added. "There are new challenges as a coach, I don't know what will happen in the future and in the end that doesn't matter."

City have been off the pace this season, sitting 21 points behind Premier League champions Liverpool and scrambling to stay in the Champions League places, but Guardiola claims he has picked up valuable lessons along the way.

"It has been a year of great learning for me personally," he said. "I knew there would be a moment when we would fall, but we fell a lot.

"Now we have to sit down and learn to try to understand what we need to produce in the future."

PA