Saturday, April 2, 2022 at 13:16• Jeroen van Poppel

Josep Guardiola expanded himself at the Manchester City press conference and spoke highly of Erik ten Hag. ‘s manager the Citizens previously worked with Ten Hag at Bayern Munich, is a great supporter of his football philosophy, and also has an excellent human relationship with the Ajax coach. “He’s an incredible person,” Guardiola said.

The English press is asking more and more questions about Ten Hag, now that Manchester United’s interest is emphatically increasing. Guardiola can tell from personal experience about the Ajax trainer, who led Bayern’s second team between 2013 and 2015, when Guardiola held sway in Munich. “We spoke quite regularly,” says the Catalan. “I was amazed at how humble and good he is. For that you only have to look at the Ajax of the last few years: that was a pleasure to watch in many, many things.”

“Not just the year they reached the semi-finals of the Champions League,” Guardiola continues. “In football it’s all about small details, that’s how it goes sometimes, but otherwise they would have made it to the final.” Guardiola calls the game that Ajax put on the mat two weeks ago against Benfica (0-1) loss ‘exceptional’. “I don’t know how many a team, twenty, thirty wins, but you can always lose one or two duels.”

Guardiola believes that Ten Hag’s qualities speak for themselves. “Look at Ten Hag’s teams. To define a manager you have to look at his teams for a long time and determine: ‘Okay, this is the team and this manager lets them play this game’. And there is no doubt about that. possible. The relationship we two had was incredibly good. And when we talked about football in the second team, the players, or whatever, it was always exceptionally pleasant.”

Guardiola and Ten Hag first met Bayern on June 27, 2013.

The big question is whether Ten Hag could handle a transfer to Manchester United. Guardiola, highly praised up to that point, is not sure. “Nobody knows,” he says. “If I was 100 per cent sure I would call Man United and tell those people to take him. But I don’t know. So nobody knows. When I got here at City I didn’t know, nobody knows. “He’s going to try and he’s a good manager, there’s no doubt about that. But in the past, other managers have left after Sir Alex Ferguson. We can’t say David Moyes is not a good manager. Louis van Gaal, Jose Mourinho , or currently Ralf Rangnick… So I think all the managers who have been at United have been excellent. We can’t deny that.”