A clue was caught on camera. Would the interviewee be Manchester City manager in five or six years? “Absolutely not,” smiled Pep Guardiola. He proved true to his word. But, in Prime Video’s A Beautiful Obsession, a last glimpse into the City dressing room in the Catalan’s reign revealed some unexpected sights: City losing every week, Guardiola emotional and befuddled by the loss of his powers. It became a time of farewells, some bitter, some sad, some sudden, some drawn out.
In particular, there is the breakdown of Guardiola’s relationship with Kyle Walker, manager finding his captain culpable for goals, the right-back feeling it was wrong to blame him. “You don’t understand, Kyle,” exclaimed an exasperated Guardiola after the December 2024 loss at Anfield. “You keep saying my name, every meeting in every f****** thing. Every f****** meeting, it’s my name,” replied the defender.
Two weeks later, in the Manchester derby, Guardiola warned Walker at half-time to be wary of balls over the City defence. One then led to Amad Diallo’s winner for Manchester United. Walker only played three more times before his City career came to an abrupt end, the right-back eyeing a move abroad, his manager omitting him.
There are other images of everything falling apart. The injured Rodri sat in the dressing room in a hoodie with the slogan “the Untouchables” after City slid to another loss; or Kevin De Bruyne, after the 4-0 home demolition by Ange Postecoglou’s Spurs, walking in and saying “f****** soft, guys”.
Central to it all, there is Guardiola, confounded by the sight of an all-conquering side in relegation form. “If I am the problem, you have to tell me,” he begged his players, voice welling up. After another game, he said: “Make me feel you are here, f****** hell, it is a f****** good team, a f****** good club. Now we have to do more because we are in a mess.” Strangest of all, perhaps, comes after defeat to Juventus when he tells his players he still loves his ex-wife but the passion between them is gone; whether Cristina Serra hoped that such details would be revealed in team-talks is sadly unrecorded.
All of which nevertheless is a welcome antidote to some of the more sanitised footballing documentaries, particularly those produced by City themselves chronicling their successes. But Kevin MacDonald, director of The Last King Of Scotland, understood there is something more interesting in watching the serial winner lose. City tasted victory in 33 games of the 2024-25 season and 30 of them are not featured. The first episode draws heavily on City’s autumnal meltdown of nine defeats in 12. The four episodes, it should be noted, contain no mention of City’s 115 charges; although, perhaps, because nothing changes.
But there are plenty of other developments. Characters are written out of the drama brutally; but some with more regret. “It kills me,” Guardiola said of the decision to release De Bruyne at the end of his contract. Chief executive Ferran Soriano added: “Kevin spoke to Pep and he understood the message but was sad about it. He really doesn’t want to go.” The midfielder goes further than before in underlining that, partly for family reasons, he wanted to stay.
The task of rebuilding City occupies much of the club’s attention. Chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak admits that the club did too little in the transfer market during the summer of 2024, an approach Guardiola had then endorsed. “We paid a price,” he said.
They paid in a different way afterwards: by buying more players. The challenge of replacing De Bruyne is documented. City ran 43 metrics on their software to look at prospective signings, to find No 10s with a similar profile. They alighted on Rayan Cherki, despite concerns about his character. “The information on Cherki was not so positive,” said sporting director Hugo Viana. “There was this idea he was chaotic.” Viana and his predecessor Txiki Begiristain investigated, saying the only negative reference they got about the Frenchman came when he was young, and Guardiola spoke to the playmaker on a video call to persuade him to sign.
Even with Cherki, however, City’s own AI quality index only rated them third favourites to win the Premier League last season. The software picked Arsenal; the computer turned out to be correct.
It proved Guardiola’s final year. “I had energy that I will not have any more,” he admitted in his belated explanation to his players. Even before then, there are a couple of clips which set up the ending and, indeed mean Guardiola was considering quitting even around the time in November 2024 when he signed his last contract.
“To lose five six seven in a row, that doesn’t happen to me,” he said. “I said to the club, ‘maybe it’s over’.”
It wasn’t yet but Al Mubarak was accustomed to his manager contemplating his own departure. “Pep was the boy who cried wolf,” he said. And eventually City reached the point where “this time he is actually the wolf” and where, former director of football Txiki Begiristain felt, Guardiola had to discover what comes next. “He needs rest and he needs to see there is a life after football,” said his former Barcelona teammate. “If he knows only football and football people, he will be on the same rollercoaster he has been living.” Sage advice, perhaps particularly as another recent documentary showed the rival who never found that other life: Jose Mourinho.
:: A Beautiful Obsession launches exclusively on Prime Video in UK & Ireland 19 August 2026