Bayern Munich have once again express with their confidence that manager Pep Guardiola will sign a new contract since his current deal expires in 2017. The future of star manager has made under speculation for almost 12 months, but Guardiola has not yet put the pen on the paper.
The former Barcelona manager came to the club a few years ago with the ambition of matching the achievements of Jupp Heynckes. Even though the Spaniard has been extremely successful in the domestic competitions, Bayern have struggled in the Champions League. Those struggles have been more pronounced in the latter stages of the competition.
Heavy defeats against the likes of Real Madrid in the semi-final appear to have cast some doubt in the mind of Guardiola if he can match the successes achieved at Barcelona. At the Catalan club, Guardiola became one of the most revered managers in world football. He managed to combine beautiful football along with a winning mentality.
Many have since tried to replicate his style without much success. The fact that even Guardiola himself has been struggling to repeat the same at Bayern Munich may have put him at doubt when it comes to signing a contract.
For the time being, Guardiola was focussed on the Champions League group stages with a win against Shakhtar Donetsk. “I’m very pleased about qualifying. Huge credit to all my players. We wanted to win the group and we’ve finished first.” Bayern are now third favourites in the betting with StanJames, behind just Real and Barcelona.
“We’ve scored plenty of goals at home again so I’m satisfied. We weren’t perfect in possession, but we were very good without the ball. The players have great character. The Champions League is now done and dusted until February. My experience told me that here in Munich we needed to play with many attackers to score a lot of goals,” said Guardiola.
