Patrick Vieira interview on Pep Guardiola’s Man City legacy, why he’s under pressure and winning trebles

Patrick Vieira has spent time with Pep Guardiola and believes the Man City manager could win the treble again if he achieves that feat in tonight’s Champions League final.

Manchester City have bucked the trend in recent years, going well season after season to maintain their astonishingly high standards under Pep Guardiola and keep the baubles rolling in.

There have been five league titles in six seasons now and 11 domestic trophies since Guardiola arrived at the Etihad in 2016, but tonight is the one they really want.

A second Champions League final in three seasons has presented City with a gilt-edged opportunity to conquer Europe. By doing so they would become the second English team to win a treble. The history books await in Istanbul.

But if a first European Cup is won and 2023 is etched into City folklore just like 1999 is now forever associated with Manchester United, what happens next? Is it the end of something, or just a glorious chapter in the story?

There are likely to be some farewells on the pitch. Ilkay Gundogan could depart and every summer features the possibility of a Bernardo Silva departure, but Guardiola has also refused to rule out the idea of riding off into the sunset if he wins the trophy he cherishes above all others.

But former Inter Milan and City midfielder Patrick Vieira knows Guardiola well and he believes this is now all about legacy for the Catalan. And if City do win the treble Vieira expects them to try and repeat it again next season.

“To do it again, that’s gonna be the challenge. I don’t have any doubt that this is a football club that is hungry for success,” Vieira told the Manchester Evening News in Istanbul.

“You’re looking at the last six years in the league they finished between first and second. That consistency is not easy to have in a football club.

“Now they managed to win the league three times in a row, they’re gonna try to do it four times. And then if they win it again, they’re gonna try again, because that is how you build a legacy and this is how you build a winning mentality.

“This football club know finishing second is not good enough now. If they managed to win the treble, they will try to get the treble again next year and try to do it again next year and that is what this football club is about. Winning silverware, winning the competition. Losing the final is not good enough.”

Vieira, who was speaking at the Expedia Live immersive football experience at the Champions League fan park in Istanbul, went to visit Guardiola when he was in charge at Bayern Munich and although the midfielder had left his coaching role at the Etihad before the former Barcelona boss arrived, they have remained in touch.

They came up against each other in the Premier League when Vieira was managing Crystal Palace, but it is Guardiola who is often accused of overthinking things, especially in the Champions League.

The biggest example of that came in the final in Porto two years ago, when he picked neither Rodri or Fernandinho and saw City lose 1-0 to Chelsea. There have been fewer of those unusual selections in recent seasons, but Vieira doesn’t expect the overthinking tag to depart Guardiola just yet, because that eye for detail is who he is.

“It’s been like that since he was at Barcelona. Since he was in Munich,” he said. “I went to spend a week with him in Munich when he was looking at work and I went to watch a game, he is not gonna change and he is gonna keep winning like that.”

Guardiola knows he is under pressure to deliver the Champions League to the Etihad this season and that his reign will be judged on whether he wins this competition.

But Vieira insists there is another metric by which to judge him – and it’s one he comes out well on.

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“There’s a pressure of him winning the title, the Champions League because, that is what the manager wants to achieve,” he said.

“And I think what drives him to coach is to win all the big trophies there and the Champions League is one of the biggest ones so I don’t have any doubt about the passion and under pressure that is going to be there because that is a level of competition that that you want to win.

“I personally believe that there’s always a different way as well to judge success is about how the team is playing. Look at the number of fans who love watching Manchester City play football, not just the City fans, the fans worldwide I think, the way they played they managed to win fans worldwide and I think that is for me as for the success to how the team has been progressing.

“When you look at where the club were behind all these big clubs off the field and where they are now and how they compete against big teams, big history in the game. I think that’s the success of everything. I think he’s in the cream for Manchester City and of course winning the Champions League takes this club up to a different level.”