Pep Guardiola's Future as England Manager: A Missed Opportunity

Pep Guardiola once shook hands on a future as England manager. Now, as the inquest into another World Cup heartbreak rumbles on, his name is back on English lips.

The Catalan had a “verbal agreement” to take over from Gareth Southgate before choosing to stay at Manchester City, according to The Athletic. That decision altered the course of England’s planning. The FA pivoted, talks accelerated with Thomas Tuchel, and by January 2025 the German was in the job.

Fast forward to this week and the mood is very different.

England’s semi-final defeat to Argentina — a late collapse after leading, a night dripping with regret — has turned the spotlight harshly on Tuchel. His tactics have been hammered, his game management questioned. A place in the last four has not softened the anger of those who watched a World Cup slip away in the closing stages.

The reaction has been swift. Calls for the FA to sack Tuchel have grown louder, and the obvious fantasy replacement has emerged: Guardiola, now a free agent after leaving City at the end of last season. The man they almost had. The one many supporters now want.

Guardiola has long fascinated the FA. The idea of wedding his positional play and obsessive detail to England’s talent pool has been discussed in the corridors of power for years. That earlier verbal agreement to succeed Southgate was the closest it came to reality before City persuaded him to extend his stay.

When that door closed, England turned to Tuchel. The former Chelsea and Paris Saint-Germain coach arrived with a Champions League title on his CV and a reputation for tactical sharpness. He was presented as a long-term architect rather than a short-term firefighter.

The FA have behaved accordingly. Tuchel was handed a contract extension earlier this year, tying him to the job through Euro 2028. Internally, he has been viewed as the man to carry a generation of England players through the next major cycle, not just this World Cup.

There were safety nets built into that deal. Clauses allowed both parties to walk away if England crashed out before the quarter-finals in this tournament. Those escape routes were designed as a hard performance line in case the project imploded.

It didn’t. It wobbled, it frustrated, but it did not collapse.

When it became clear England were likely to face Mexico at the Estadio Azteca in the last 16, another exemption was added. The unique demands of that fixture — altitude, atmosphere, history — meant the FA were not prepared to let a single knockout tie at that venue dictate the manager’s fate. Tuchel’s side survived it anyway, edging a wild 3-2 win.

From there, the picture changed again. Reaching the semi-finals put England in territory they have rarely visited. This is only the fourth time in their history they have reached the last four of a World Cup. Those contractual clauses that might have opened the door to Guardiola have stayed firmly shut.

The FA, for now, are standing by their man. After Wednesday’s defeat, senior figures reaffirmed their commitment to Tuchel and to the long-term plan built around him. A procedural post-tournament review will take place, as it always does, but it is not expected to become a referendum on his job.

Tuchel, for his part, has shown no sign of being restless. Earlier this year he rebuffed an approach from Manchester United, who sounded him out after sacking Ruben Amorim. The pull of club football, even at Old Trafford, was not enough to drag him away from St George’s Park.

That leaves England in an unusual position. The manager under fire is the manager the FA still believes in. The dream alternative, Guardiola, is on the market and — having once agreed in principle to take the role — would “presumably” still be open to it. The timing, though, is all wrong.

Unless the FA tears up its own roadmap in a burst of post-Argentina emotion, Tuchel will lead England into Euro 2028. Guardiola, the one that got away, waits on the outside. The question is simple: how many more near-misses can this regime survive before that old verbal agreement starts to feel like a missed turning the FA can no longer ignore?