Party City: Why Guardiola will be way more fun in Manchester than Munich

Today was like any other winter transfer deadline day – with scant loan deals being approved and Arsene Wenger buying players off his own bench – until Manuel Pellegrini ended his pre-Sunderland press conference by cutting harder than he would in a cone drill.

Unprompted, Pellegrini announced he would be leaving his position as Manchester City’s manager when his contract is up this June. Barely minutes after doing so, the club confirmed the worst-kept secret in the sport and announced Bayern Munich manager Pep Guardiola would succeed Pellegrini on a three-year deal.

This is a seismic move for a number of reasons. It proves once and for all City is no longer a pauper in the world game. It further signals that while the very best players ply their trade in other leagues, the very best managers keep picking the Premier League to ply theirs. At 45 years young, Guardiola figures to have two more decades of opportunity to add to a case already stuffed with major trophies.

But for fans, this move is going to be fun. Way more fun than Guardiola’s time in Germany.

Back in January 2013, when Bayern Munich announced Guardiola would succeed the retiring Jupp Heynckes as manager, it seemed like the marriage would turn the club into a trophy-hoarding monster.

There was only one problem: Bayern already was. In his final season in Bavaria, Heynckes won the Bundesliga, the Champions League and the DFB-Pokal (Germany’s chief domestic cup competition, akin to the FA Cup), becoming the first manager to win the treble with a German side.

Heynckes’ success, in a way, spoiled the party. Guardiola had already won a treble himself while overseeing Barcelona’s rise to world domination, but Heynckes sapped that luster a bit. The question, more or less, became could Guardiola win a treble every year with this team of all-galaxy talents?

The answer, even then, was obviously no. Soccer is too unpredictable, too variant to allow that.

Instead, Guardiola simply settled for runaway Bundesliga championships. His teams have topped the last two league tables by an average of 14½ points, and he’s only lost eight league games in three seasons. All while the Bundesliga has surpassed the Premier League in European coefficient, which more or less measures the overall strength of a league.

Even if he departs this summer without wresting the Champions League crown back to Munich, Guardiola has been far from a failure. But for all of Bayern’s brilliant play under his watch, a ceiling of sorts has lingered during his time there.

That will not be the case at Manchester City.

For all its recent success – City has won five trophies since being purchased by Abu Dhabi United Group in 2008, including two league titles – the club hasn’t even sniffed Champions League success, the final and ultimate frontier for the game’s big-spenders.

Maybe that changes this year (though City is hardly a favorite). It definitely figures to change under Guardiola, and winning the Champions League at a club truly, truly starved of European success is a mouth-watering proposition for neutrals.

A student of Johan Cruyff’s “Total Football” and champion of Spain’s death-by-paper cuts “tiki-taka” strategy, Guardiola favors the kind of tactical flexibility the Premier League has lagged in implementing, and City has the talent and money to make it work.

Witness, for example, how Guardiola’s Bayern sides have overwhelmed opponents with wide attacking talents like Arjen Robben, Douglas Costa and Franck Ribery. Now imagine City operating in similar fashion with the likes of David Silva, Kevin de Bruyne and Jesus Navas. Thomas Muller has thrived in a variety of attacking positions at Bayern under Guardiola, and the same treatment could do wonders for City’s Raheem Sterling.

Perhaps most importantly, Guardiola’s trademark intensity figures to light a fire under City’s stars, who can sputter just as much as they can shine. Guardiola has gotten in the face of Xavi, Andres Iniesta and Philipp Lahm. You think he’ll be intimidated by his ex-Barca player Yaya Toure?

Furthermore, there’s a belief that Guardiola can’t succeed in the Premier League because of the grinding nature of its seasons, which are physical, colder, wetter and absent of a winter break. Guardiola’s fiery demeanor will allow City to push through those obstacles.

In theory, it all adds up to a Manchester City squad with showstopping flair and the toughness to back it up.

The league is ripe for the picking, too. Chelsea is in shambles. Manchester United is in directionless transition. Arsenal still seemingly lacks the teeth and the spending to break through.

One could make an argument the biggest impediment to Guardiola winning the league every year would be Jurgen Klopp, an old Bundesliga rival who’s attempting to translate Liverpool’s more limited resources into the success he enjoyed at Borussia Dortmund.

One could also make an argument that Guardiola’s arrival will force the hand of City’s rivals from a managerial standpoint. Imagine if United hires Jose Mourinho, rekindling hostilities between the two managers when Guardiola was at Barcelona and Mourinho at Real Madrid.

Or imagine if Diego Simeone leaves Atletico Madrid to take the Chelsea job, guaranteeing at least two annual meetings between arguably the two best managers in the world. Or maybe Pellegrini goes to Chelsea and a new subplot emerges.

It sounds intriguing. Enthralling. Fun.

The blue half of Manchester is sky-high today. Guardiola can’t get there soon enough.