The relaunch of Manchester City goes through having two Peps instead of one. Pep Guardiola has signed another PEP: Pep Lijnders. The last name will differentiate them, also their origin (one Catalan, the other Dutch) and the real name: Josep and Pepijn. Duality is an anecdote: the crux is that the new signing cityzen It has been for ten years of Liverpool for ten years. With the rivalry that has existed.
The second revolution begins in the City, conversion 2.0, After the season has finished with the team in third place of the Premier, the same classification that motivated the first. The effects of this transformation should be seen as of Wednesday, when the celestial debuts in the Club World Cup in front of the Wydad Casablanca de Morocco in Philadelphia (18 h.).
It will be very soon, however, to know if it will be the City that ended three weeks ago the Ninth Campaign of Guardiola or the team that will open the tenth with the Santpedor coach.
Manchester City players, with Ederson in the first place, arrive in Fort Lauderdale (Florida) where they concentrate to play the Club World Cup. / Leonardo Fernández / Getty Images via AFP
Bench signings
Lijnders, 43, is acting as a second coach and is responsible for training the training. The Catalan PEP has also incorporated another Liverpool ex -technician, James French, playing the sky blue of the shirt, and that will be in charge of the ball plays. There have been no misgivings or controversies in the transfer from Anfield to Etihad.
Lijnders left with Klopp, and signed for Salzburg, which fired him in December. The lack of agreement for the termination (he had two years of contract), prevented him from accepting the Norwich offer in May. A week later he called him Guardiola and agreed his new and unusual relationship. Unusual because PEP's seconds had previous affective links with him. The third incorporation into the group is Kolo Touré, former City and Liverpool player. Brother of Yaya Touroé, former Pep Disciple in Barça and whose representative, Dimitri Seluk, cracked the coach in his day.
The latter change
Manchester traveled accompanied by Domènec Torrent, who was already attached to Barça and Bayern Munich, along with Carles Planchart, Lorenzo Buenaventura and Manel Estiarte, They are the only ones who resist by their side. Mikel Arteta joined the original coaching staff, recently retired, in 2016, and lasted until 2019 when they offered the arsenal bench. A year earlier (2018) he had left Torrent, who is also at the Club World Cup at the head of the Monterrey Rayados, where Sergio Ramos and Sergio Canales play.
Next to PEP sat, in addition, Rodolfo Borrell, who was already in the City, and Enzo Maresca, the current chief of Chelsea, Between the two stages of Juanma Lillo (20-22 and 23-25), that leaves the club along with his assistant Iñigo Domínguez. In additionhas left Manchester Carlos Vicens, the head of the strategy plays, which has become the first trainer of the Braga.
Pepijn Lijnders Junto a Jürgen Klopp, Durante Su Etapa and El Liverpool. / PETER POWELL / EFE
A small Viana Releva
The two Peps contacted friends and acquaintances before the yes. Klopp, of course, attended both and surely pushed them to join. The Catalan convinced the Dutch to the first about work and future responsibilities, although Lijnders had the added, unnecessary deference, of speaking with Arle Slot, the Klopp substitute in Liverpool and old friend and compatriot when he began his career in the Cambuur, a very modest team of the Netherlands.
For once, in the City there are as many draft signings in the band as in the game rectangle. The new era begins with Hugo Viana acting as a technical director in substitution of small respecting, that has retired. Viana, 43 -year -old Portuguese from Sporting de Lisbon, is the one who appears in the photos of the new signings.
Rayan Cheki, playing in the middle of Lyon's fog in front of Saint Etienne in the last campaign. / Laurent Cipriani / AP
128 million in signings
One per line. Has posed next to Marcus Bettinelli, 33 -year -old English goalkeeper, who has arrived free from Chelsea; The Algerian left side Rayan Aït Nouri, of the Wolverhampton (24 years and 36.8 million cost); The Dutch midfielder Tijani Reijnders (26) and for whom 55 million plus 15 have been paid in variables to Milan and the French end Rayan Cherki (21), from the Lyon prior payment of 36.5 million.
A total of 128.3 million are charged in Viana's account for four players; Somewhat less than the German Florian Wirtz will cost when Liverpool accepts the price set by Bayer Leverkusen plus the variables, even to add.
Tijani Reijnders Pugna with Phil Foden, his new partner at the City, in the semifinal of the Eurocup between the Netherlands and England. / DPA via Europa Press
New faces
The four new ones come to complement the rejuvenation undertaken by Begiristain in the winter market, advanced in part by the avalanche of injuries that decimated the workforce.
The first was Nico González (60 million) To try to cover, without success, the enormous emptiness left Rodri, lend and recovered already to resume the helm. The Brazilian Vitor Reis appeared from El Palmeiras with 19 years (37 million) and arrived from France, with 20, the Uzbek Abdukodir Khusanov (40 million to Lens).
The most expensive was the most productive: Omar Marmush cost 75 million, that were paid to the Eintracht Frankfurt. Already contrasted (26 years old), without his goals he would not have reached the City in third place that guaranteed participation in the next Champions. The Argentine Claudio Echeverri was even claimed, Bought in January 2024 and that he was ceded at the River Plate, to give a hand.
Omar Marmoush celebrates his third goal to Newcastle in the presence of Erling Haaland in Etihad in February. / ADAM VAUGHAN / EFE
“Every year it is more complicated to qualify, it is the most important title in England,” he said Guardiola before playing the golf legends trophy that he sponsored in his brief vacation. Now he is in the United States without the old emblems of his stage (Kevin de Bruyne signed for the Naples, Ilkay Gündogan can go to Galatasaray, Kyle Walker and Jack Grealish stayed in England) eager to demonstrate himself that he is able to hinder the City again. Now they will be two Peps.
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