Pep Guardiola has hailed Manchester City as the team of the decade of the 2010s as he admitted one of his regrets from the 1990s was that he did not sign for Carlo Ancelotti.
City host Everton on Wednesday, pitting Guardiola against the triple Champions League winner Ancelotti, who revealed he tried to take the Catalan to Parma in 1997.
But while Guardiola was pleased he stayed at Barcelona, he admitted he wondered what it would be like to play for an all-time great like Ancelotti.
Both have won the Champions League in the last decade while City were the only side to win the Premier League four times and took 818 points, 61 more than the next best, Manchester United.
And Guardiola said: “This in the last decade was the best team in terms of points, in terms of goals, in terms of everything, titles even, so congratulate Manchester City for that. They were fighting with huge elephants here in England, big, big clubs with the biggest history.”
Parma represented Ancelotti’s first major job before he went on to Juventus, AC Milan, Chelsea, Paris Saint-Germain, Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, where he replaced Guardiola, and Napoli.
But friends and rivals could have linked up, with Guardiola saying: “I was curious to go abroad. We were in touch, a bit with Carlo, a bit with the sporting director. Parma had that team with [Lilian] Thuram and [Gianluigi] Buffon.
“In the end Louis van Gaal came to Barcelona and I was excited to train with him and learn his methodology because Van Gaal had been one of the greatest managers of all time and he came to Barcelona with Ajax philosophy but always I had this regret. I was so happy staying in Barcelona with Van Gaal but at the same time I would have loved training with Carlo.
“I was never in his locker room but he’s one of the greatest. At the end of his career everyone will talk about him as one of the greatest managers of all time.”
John Stones and David Silva are fit again to return and Ederson is available after serving a one-match suspension, while Aymeric Laporte, who has been out since August with a knee injury, is back in training and could join in with the team next week.
Guardiola also insisted that summer signing Joao Cancelo, a reported target for Bayern Munich and Valencia, will not leave this month. “We bought him for many years,” he said.
