(Video) “He’d destroy me” – What Pep Guardiola said about Jurgen Klopp on UEFA coaching course | OneFootball

Pep Guardiola shared many an epic duel with Jurgen Klopp in the Premier League, and the Manchester City manger has been raving about his former adversary to candidates on a coaching course.

The duo spurred each other on to new heights over the past few seasons, twice being locked in title races which went down to the final day and saw both teams surpass 90 points, with the Spaniard coming out on top in 2018/19 and 2021/22.

However, he had no answer to a rampant Liverpool side in 2019/20, when the Reds obliterated everyone before them and became champions with seven matches to spare.

Guardiola lauds Klopp as toughest manager he’s ever faced

In a video for a UEFA Pro Licence course with the Spanish football federation, Guardiola spoke about how Klopp gave him more headaches than any other manager he’s faced during his lengthy career in the dugout with Barcelona, Bayern Munich and Man City.

The 54-year-old said (via Juani Jimena): “Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool have been the toughest I’ve ever faced in my life. I haven’t had an opponent with whom I’ve spent so many nights and afternoons with my [coaching staff], with many of those who were there, figuring out how to stop them.

“There were days when I thought, ‘I’ve got him’, and the next day he’d destroy me again. He was the toughest by far because of his way of playing, his transitions, because he was very direct, because he attacked with a lot of players.”

Guardiola went on to summarise how Klopp would get the better of him tactically before adding: “I give a lot of credit to what we’ve done these years, to the league titles we’ve won, due to the incredible quality of the opponent we’ve had to face.

“Now Arsenal have taken that step, Liverpool are still there of course, but those three or four league titles we won [against] Jurgen Klopp are the greatest success we’ve achieved due to the impressive level…there hasn’t been a tougher opponent I’ve ever faced.”

(Photo by Michael Regan/Getty Images)

Klopp and Guardiola shared many epic battles in England

In Guardiola’s 17 seasons coaching at senior level, no manager has beaten him more often than Klopp (12 times, eight of those with Liverpool). That’s just one defeat fewer than Jose Mourinho and Carlo Ancelotti combined, and no other coach has bested the Spaniard more than four times (Transfermarkt).

It wasn’t just in the Premier League that the two esteemed adversaries had some monumental battles, either. The German scored famous wins over his Man City counterpart in a famous Champions League quarter-final tie in 2018 and a rip-roaring FA Cup semi-final four years later.

There have been some special managerial duels in the English top flight over the past 30 years – Alex Ferguson and Arsene Wenger is one which particularly stands out – but no two managers in the division ever simultaneously pushed each other to such sustained levels of brilliance as much as Guardiola and Klopp.

Such has been the intensity of trying to thwart Liverpool or so long that the Spaniard is planning to take a lengthy break from football once his current contract ends in 2027, and he’s also spoken quite highly of the current iteration of the Reds under Arne Slot.

There’s been an intense rivalry between the Merseysiders and Man City over the past decade, but it’s one fuelled by a healthy respect between two managers who drove each other to scale unprecedented heights.

You can view the footage of Guardiola praising Klopp below, via @JimenaJuani on X: