Pep Guardiola became the first manager in European football history to secure two treble-winning campaigns, as he led Manchester City to their first Champions League title on Sunday.
Speaking to DAZN, outgoing Barcelona star Sergio Busquets heaped praise on Guardiola, suggesting his time under the Catalan mastermind hugely benefited his development.
Busquets also spoke about the criticism Guardiola received during his time at Man City and how it was similar to ones he received at Barcelona and Bayern.
“Pep received a lot of criticism. I think Pep would think: ‘I work a lot on tactics, but I also want to be on top of my players, give them instructions and having this noise doesn’t help me. Everything we show are clues for the rivals,” Busquets told DAZN (h/t Diario SPORT).
Busquets, who will leave Barcelona at the end of the month, had played almost 200 competitive matches under the leadership of Guardiola.
“I have had good coaches, but they did not go further and especially in lower categories, in which they are also almost more educators. I believe that Pep was more than a master’s degree, an accelerated course in what it is to be a professional,” he said.
“I was very young, it was my first few years. I came from being in the subsidiary with him and I also had that advantage,“ he added.
Talking about his overall outlook on his spell at Barcelona, Busquets confessed the last few years were the most bitter for him. “The final stretch has been the most bitter part of my career. When you don’t win titles it’s because you haven’t competed well, and in the end the players are responsible, but add to that the situation of the club It wasn’t the best on a social level,” he said.
“At an economic level, we weren’t all united. For a person like me, who has been there for so many years, who feels this as if it were yours, seeing that everything was going like this was one disappointment after another, it became very complicated”, the midfielder added.
As he prepares to leave Camp Nou, there has been a lot of noise in the media over the future of Busquets. The veteran midfielder will soon make a decision on his future, with Inter Miami emerging as one of the favourites to sign him this summer.
