Maria Guardiola’s beautiful tribute to father Pep wins Manchester City fans’ hearts | OneFootball

Maria, the daughter of Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola, has sent a heartwarming message to her father after his final game in charge of the sky Blues.

The Guardiola family were in attendance at the Etihad Stadium as Pep, 55, managed his last game in Manchester City colours on the final day of the Premier League campaign against Aston Villa on Sunday.

In his post-match farewell on the Etihad Stadium pitch, Guardiola spoke about his pride over bis father Valenti, 95, attending his final match as City boss after club bosses renamed the newly developed and expanded North Stand as ‘The Pep Guardiola Stand’.

The Catalan expressed his love for the Manchester City fans in an address after the 2-1 loss to Aston Villa, who gave a classy guard of honour to outgoing stars Bernardo Silva and John Stones upon their substitutions in the second-half of the defeat.

Maria: We blinked and it’s been 10 years!

In a captivating Instagram tribute to her father Pep, Maria Guardiola has won the hearts of Manchester City fans as the family call time upon a very successful decade in England.

“Papi ♥️, we blinked and it’s been 10 years. 10 seasons. Hundreds of away games, trips to Wembley, too many Bernabeu nights, and millions of memories,” Maria wrote.

“Football was never just a sport. It decided where we lived, how often we moved, the languages we learned, the friends we made and the emotions we felt.

“From as long as I can remember, it was football stadiums. Moving to Doha, Mexico, Rome, Brescia, Barcelona, New York, Munich and Manchester. Thank you for giving us a childhood built around sport, something so rare and special.

“We moved again, for the eighth time in 14 years. Manchester is very hard to put into words. You changed the most respected league in the world. You achieved things and broke records that may never be repeated. And we got to experience all of it from the closest seat possible.

“The happiest and saddest tears came from football, because watching you live every second so intensely made us feel everything with you. Those 90 minutes where the world feels like it stops.

“We think people forget quickly because football moves fast and a new season always starts. But as time passes, we’ll realise just how impossible those numbers really are. Forty one trophies in 16 years.

“Years from now people will talk about football and try to explain what this era felt like, they’ll talk about your teams, the way they made people feel. Because beyond the trophies, you gave us memories we escaped real life for.

“It has been a privilege to watch and support you for almost 25 years. Thank you for always bringing us close to everything, for including us in it all. The biggest privilege has been to live it all beside you.

“As Citizens, football fans and rivals we will miss seeing you on our screens every week. Because without realising it there is a final match, a final whistle. And none of us are ever really ready for that moment.

“Thank you papi and mami, the beautiful things in our lives always trace back to this game. For the world these were historic football moments, for us they were family memories, and I don’t think any of us realised while living it, that we were inside football history.

“And that stays long after the final whistle ♥️”

Guardiola has started moving out of his Manchester city centre apartment and is expected to take a sabbatical to rest and recuperate from a gruelling, consuming decade in management, with City expected to confirm Enzo Maresca as their new head coach this week.