5 managers Pep Guardiola has had beef with over the years: Mourinho, Simeone…

While Pep Guardiola tends to be fairly level-headed, the Manchester City boss has had beef with a handful of managers throughout his career.

Having won 12 league titles since he began his managerial career in 2007, the 53-year-old has firmly established himself as one of the best managers in football history.

We’ve taken a closer look at Guardiola’s career and have found five managers who he’s had beef with over the years.

Jose Mourinho

The rivalry between these two was especially fierce during their time together in Spain with Guardiola at Barcelona and Mourinho at Real Madrid.

Things reached boiling point between the pair after Barcelona knocked Real Madrid out of the Champions League semi-final in 2010-11.

“One day, I would like Josep Guardiola to win this competition properly. If I tell UEFA what I really think and feel, my career would end now,” Mourinho said in a stunning rant back in 2011.

“Deep down, if they are good people, it cannot taste right for them. I hope one day Guardiola has the chance of winning a brilliant, clean championship with no scandal.”

Even to this day, the pair can’t help but throw a cheeky jibe at one another when they get the chance.

Following Man City’s recent 2-0 loss at Anfield, Guardiola channelled his inner Mourinho and held six fingers up at the crowd in reference to the six Premier League titles he’s won.

When asked about the comparison to Mourinho, Guardiola said: “Maybe in the end we are quite similar, (and I’m) like Jose. But he won three, I won six.”

Mourinho didn’t take that jibe lying down as he promptly responded by saying: “I want to win, but I want to win cleanly and fairly. He (Guardiola) won six trophies and I won three, but I won fair and clean.

“If I lost, I want to congratulate my opponent for being better than me. I don’t want to win by dealing with 150 cases.”

Ouch.

Sergio Conceicao

The former Porto boss butted heads with Guardiola during a Champions League clash back in 2020.

Guardiola was animated on the sidelines throughout the gane and Conceicao described his attitude as “extremely unpleasant”.

“I’ve got a lot to learn from Pep Guardiola, in the way he pressures referees, talks to opposition players and opposition dugout,” Conceicao told reporters after the game.

“He (Guardiola) spoke about our country using ugly words. Guardiola’s attitude was extremely unpleasant.

“The whole Manchester City dugout was because if anybody should have been complaining, it was the Porto bench, because we were extremely hard done by.”

Guardiola later responded by saying: “He can say, maybe it’s his opinion but I’m not agreeing that we pressure the referees. It’s not the way that we in the history speak for ourselves. We are not the type of team to do this, honestly. I would admit it.”

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Paul Cook

After Fabian Delph was shown a straight red card on the stroke of half-time during an FA Cup clash at Wigan Athletic, Guardiola got into a heated exchange with Cook.

The managers continued to argue down the tunnel and eventually had to be pulled apart as Guardiola continued to rage.

At the end of the game, Guardiola played down their bust-up and Cook insisted that he had ‘no problem’ with the Man City boss following Wigan’s historic 1-0 triumph.

Diego Simeone

Following Man City’s Champions League quarter-final clash with Atletico Madrid in 2022, Guardiola aimed a dig at Simeone’s “prehistory” defensive tactics.

“‘He [Simeone] has put [Antoine] Griezmann on the far right and Joao Felix on the far left, and they have gone 5-5-0,” Guardiola told reporters after the first-leg clash.

“Two lines of five. And in prehistory, today and in a hundred thousand years, attacking a 5-5 is very difficult.”

While Guardiola’s comments didn’t sit well with plenty of the Atletico players, Simeone himself rose above the noise.

“I always put myself in their position. I understand that there are various ways to play each game. So when one [coach] is derogatory, I don’t believe in that,” Simeone said when responding to Guardiola’s comments.

“We can all have an opinion but between fellow coaches no. Everyone has a certain ways of doing things and I respect my colleagues, always, always, always.”

READ: 8 players who have fallen out with Pep Guardiola: Cancelo, Eto’o, Zlatan…

Rafa Benitez

In a similar vein to his comments about Simeone’s Atletico side, Guardiola fired a jibe at Benitez back in December 2017.

“We did absolutely everything but it is difficult to play when the other team doesn’t want to play,” Guardiola said following Man City’s 1-0 away win at Newcastle.

Benitez came out after the game and defended his tactics, claiming: “When you play against Manchester City, you have to be aware of the way they are doing things now.

“We were in the game right until the end, it was very close. Our fans are clever and they know we needed to do things this way.”