Pep Guardiola’s success can’t be divorced from his privilege

A season after winning the Premier League with 98 points, and following a summer of major purchases, Manchester City was deemed by ESPN to be the first club in world football to spend more than €1 billion on their current squad:

The numbers reinforce a criticism that has followed Pep Guardiola throughout his career: That he is a “fraud,” someone who only succeeds because he manages teams with greater resources — Barcelona, Bayern Munich, Manchester City — than any of their opponents. His success comes down to money, his critics say, rather than his sheer individual brilliance.

Guardiola, more than any manager, suffers from the inseparability of acumen from privilege. It’s hard to separate what he’s accomplished from the resources that have always been available to him.

Guardiola has done incredible things at every club he managed. He wins the league title more often than not, and though he’s struggled to win the Champions League away from Barcelona, the teams he creates are such devastating organisms, merging aesthetics and the science of the sport, it’s hard to deny his genius. His teams don’t just win, they play the most beautiful football as they do it.

At the same time, unlike his rivals — like Jose Mourinho, Jurgen Klopp, Mauricio Pochettino, and most other great managers — he has never had to prove himself away from the incredible resources his three teams have had. Usually as a manager rises to prominence, they spend years at a middling club proving themselves. In these formative years, the value of their ideas is determined. Then hopefully, as a reward, they are given a bigger platform to showcase the full breadth of those ideas.

Guardiola never had that. He started at the top, and has stayed there. The only way Guardiola could prove his ideas have contributed to his success, it seems, would be to manage a smaller team. If those ideas propelled that smaller team to new heights, he would validate his genius. If he failed, then we might finally know for certain he is nothing without nearly unlimited resources.

In Guardiola’s defense, managing a big team is a different kind of pressure from trying to elevated a small team. The idea anyone can succeed at teams like Barcelona, Bayern, and City is easily refutable. Tata Martino failed badly at Barcelona. Carlo Ancelotti was laughed out at Bayern. And though Roberto Mancini and Manuel Pellegrini had success at City, they never accomplished anything close to what Guardiola has.

Failure at a big club is more difficult, but the job also comes with an expectation of success against the likes of Real Madrid, Borussia Dortmund, and Liverpool. The clubs Guadiola has managed would not have allowed him to remain if he had gone too long without winning titles. Since 2008, he has won 25 trophies, which makes him the eighth-most decorated manager of all time, and he’s done so while winning games at a higher percentage than almost anyone else. He’s better than his predecessors and those who have come after him at those clubs with the same resources available to them (I know, I know, Champions League and all of that).

The suggestion Guardiola still hasn’t proven himself stems from the myth of individual and transcendental genius — in essence, the idea that a true genius could find a way to win at any club of any size, regardless of resources.

The idea ignores how much transcendent success depends on both resources and coaching talent. There are likely many managers, now and in the past, with the capability to equal or surpass Guardiola, who never got the same opportunities to fully realize their ideas. When Manchester City are imitated by smaller clubs, it’s endearing, but the product isn’t as forceful. You can’t build a style meant for Kevin de Bruyne and Sergio Aguero without De Bruyne or Aguero.

The fact some managers may never be given the resources they need to fulfill their potential is an unfortunate reality. Even after his success at Dortmund, Klopp has been able to show the world the full extent of his genius at Liverpool, where he has access to better players, more money, and better facilities than almost anyone. He’s won the Champions League, and managed to go a season with only one loss. More accurate than saying he improved as a manager, though that may be true, is saying he is in a better position to be the best manager he can be.

Guardiola, in his short career, has built three record-setting and often breathtaking teams. But saying that isn’t a defense of Guardiola’s privilege. The fact his first first-team appointment was at Barcelona is a good example how the system shuts out those other talented managers who are grinding at smaller clubs. And in that sense, Guardiola’s career is a good example of why that system should be more open: If Guardiola can do this, what else might available beyond the confines of nepotism?

But to dismiss Guardiola is to overlook the fact that coaching acumen needs proper support to be effective. In Guardiola’s case, he has an institutional foundation that many don’t, but he has also large done more with his teams than those who have come before and after him.

There can be no real resolution to the question of whether Guardiola is a fraud, because the argument must first overcome the inherent inequality of football and a misunderstanding of how genius leads to success. It’s possible he would fail at a smaller club, but also true that he has been tremendous at the big ones. It’s not fair he never had to prove himself as others do, but that’s the result of a system of privilege that is much bigger than him.

The unsatisfactory truth is the process of opportunity to become one of those best managers is unequal. But after being chosen, it’s up to the individuals to then maximize that opportunity. An effort in which many fail, and Guardiola has succeeded.

Now, if only he could campaign for more equality in hiring practices, rather than gesticulate in the technical area while dressed like a recently divorced dad, he could really bring justice to the problem of privilege.