I left Pep Guardiola fuming – but he taught me something I’ll never forget at Man City

I left Pep Guardiola fuming – but he taught me something I’ll never forget at Man City

Manchester City will be reunited with former winger Raheem Sterling on Sunday as the Blues take on Chelsea at Stamford Bridge.

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There will be plenty of old faces to catch up with on Sunday as Manchester City open their Premier League campaign.

Pep Guardiola and Chelsea boss Enzo Maresca call each other regularly as friends, and Guardiola defended Maresca after their pre-season win a fortnight ago. Former City goalkeeper Willy Caballero is on the Chelsea staff these days, while Romeo Lavia, Tosin Adarabioyo and Cole Palmer are all City Football Academy success stories now playing at Stamford Bridge.

Then there is Raheem Sterling, arguably the most successful City player of the lot to have swapped Manchester for West London – yet he barely receives more than a polite applause from the Etihad when he returns. It’s almost like his time at City is forgotten, that all parties have moved on.

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Sterling was part of one of City’s most successful-ever teams. He was their number seven and provided 204 goals or assists in 339 appearances for the Blues. He won 12 major trophies for City including four Premier League titles and they wouldn’t have won them without him.

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LONDON, ENGLAND – AUGUST 10: Pep Guardiola, Manager of Manchester City celebrates with Kalvin Phillips (3rd r) after the 2024 FA Community Shield match between Manchester United and Manchester City at Wembley Stadium on August 10, 2024 in London, England.

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But he felt like he had to leave in 2022 because he could see he wasn’t getting the minutes he needed. There had been hints of an unhappy player – publicly and behind the scenes – and it felt like the right time to move on.

A new book released this week by Guardiola confidant Marti Pernarau detailed a blazing row between Guardiola and Sterling when the winger questioned being left out of the team in 2021. “Sterling stormed out of the office twice, only to be called back in again,” Perarnau writes.

“Then, after several more furious exchanges, a clearly livid Sterling exits, leaving Pep sitting in his office. With the lights out. Simmering with rage.”

After that bust-up, Sterling started the Champions League final and won two more Premier League titles with City. Yet when he joined Chelsea, Sterling hinted again at a relationship with Guardiola that wasn’t always plain sailing.

“It was a massive surprise — a change of events all of a sudden,” he said, referring to a drop out of Guardiola’s starting XI. “It’s something I had to handle, and that’s why I’m here. I felt my game time at City was getting limited for different reasons and I couldn’t afford to waste more time.

“Me and the manager and the people at the club know exactly what the reasons were. I tried to play my football and overcome the situation but it couldn’t be done, so I had to move on.”

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“Since I was 17, I’ve been a regular starter and to get to the peak time in my career (and) not be playing regularly was something I wouldn’t accept. My personality is to try to fight and change the scenario, but it didn’t come, and that was it. When I look back in the future, I never want to look back and see a rise then a decline.”

Sterling is someone who trusts himself, but his Chelsea move hasn’t gone to plan – especially at a club whose transfer policy is scattergun (to put it mildly).

Despite the chaos and regular change at Stamford Bridge, Sterling backs Chelsea to get things right on the pitch before long.

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“It’s been, again, an eventful two years,” Sterling told CNN recently. “But one that I’m super committed to, that will get the results that I was expecting.

“It’s been an eventful journey, but I do see the vision and I do see us taking our next step and now really challenging for stuff – slowly but surely.”

And with time, he looks back on his spell working under Guardiola differently – recalling a life lesson he has taken with him to the capital.

“I think it was just the messaging of sleep, eat, breathe football,” he says. “And as you can see from how he is and how successful he’s been, that’s the motto – not just football, any aspect of your life. If you want something and you’re doing it, you gotta be all in and have all your energy and thought process on that.”

Sterling started a charitable foundation to help disadvantages children in London and Manchester while still at City, and says he wants to focus on personal development in young footballers when he finishes playing – if he stays in football.

He also insists he is wiser when dealing with volatile sections of the media that have often targeted him unfairly.

“If I can have some part in football, it will definitely be something along those lines, helping younger individuals to seek their pathway in the game. That’s something that brings me joy.”

“As you get older, and then you do look back on stuff and probably there was stuff that, knowing how the English culture is, maybe it didn’t align with that,” he says of his relationship with the media.

“So there’s definitely things that I could probably see looking back now, that probably didn’t align with the English culture. Sometimes, it’s tough, but at the end of the day, we sometimes look at things and think it’s 10 times worse than what it actually is and focus on things that you can’t actually control.

“And I think that the most beautiful thing in football is you’re the one in control. So when you’re on that football field, it’s you that’s in control. So I think that’s definitely something I’ve learned in the later years of my career that, you know, don’t focus on what you can’t control.”

There are no regrets for Sterling, and he will always get a good reception back at the Etihad for his service. Time will probably heal in how he is remembered at the Etihad, too – inside the dressing room and outside on the terraces.

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