CAST OF A THOUSAND GAMES

Pep set to take place alongside all-time greats

- BY SIMON BAJKOWSKI

WHEN Pep Guardiola breezed through the doors of the Etihad and told Manchester City supporters to fasten their seat belts, nobody could have expected that he would still be here almost a decade on and about to complete his 1,000th game in management.

Yet tomorrow, the League Managers Association will add the Catalan to a list of 38 legends of English football that includes Sir Matt Busby, Brian Clough, Sir Alex Ferguson and Arsene Wenger.

"I think when he arrived, he thought about staying three or four years," said Manchester City captain Bernardo Silva. "That's what people say. Then he felt at home. He felt that this team still had a lot of things to do.

"I keep hearing every year that it's his last one - I've been hearing that for five years - and he keeps going.

"Because he feels that he still has the energy to put this team in a place where we can fight for titles. It's a massive achievement, unbelievable."

If the Barcelona elections in 2003 had gone as expected, Guardiola would have become a sporting director long before he agreed with Txiki Begiristain to begin his coaching career with Barcelona B in the Spanish fourth division.

If Begiristain and Ferran Soriano had had their way, Guardiola would have followed them to Manchester in 2013 rather than heading to Bayern Munich.

And while Guardiola was weighing up his next move in 2012 and 2015, with practically every top English club wanting him, he had to disappoint Ferguson and Roman Abramovich to turn down Manchester United and Chelsea in favour of City.

Even when the shock announcement came in February 2016, the fact he is still in Manchester - the Liverpool game is also his 550th match in charge of City - has astonished everybody.