Over the years, Pep Guardiola’s reputation as one of the greatest football managers of all time has been built on his tactical genius, of which there are few – if any – parallels in the football world. The likes of Jose Mourinho, Jurgen Klopp or Diego Simeone are the managers known to wear their heart on their sleeve, leaving Pep’s successes largely attributed to an excellent but almost mechanical, or robotic, tactical understanding of the beautiful game. It is here where Amazon’s new documentary – ‘Pep Guardiola: A Beautiful Obsession’ – works as a terrific myth-buster.
It’s a welcome shift in narrative. Guardiola led Manchester City to six Premier League titles, including four in a row, along with a historic European treble and a centurion season, turning the world’s biggest league into a near-formality every year. The most hard-hitting scene comes in the first episode, where Guardiola tries to motivate his side with a striking anecdote of his own personal divorce. As the documentary progresses, the importance of interpersonal relations to Guardiola becomes clear, be it from his frustration at club captain Kyle Walker deciding to leave midway through a tough season, or his decision to emphasise the farewells of club legends Bernardo Silva and John Stones over his own. Given this, there builds an intrigue to see the behind-the-scenes of some crucial moments of Guardiola’s final year. And while Pep’s deep care for his players is evident, the opposite – particularly how they celebrated him on his farewell – is also missing to a large degree.
But as his kingdom disintegrated over the 2024-25 and 2025-26 seasons, the documentary manages to depict the human side and the vulnerabilities of one of football’s greatest winners. The raw emotions after a devastating 3-0 loss to Real Madrid in the Champions League are not shown.
Guardiola’s various emotions are on show in the rawest sense possible, as his Manchester City side handles obstacles previously foreign.
