It's interesting that Xavi often considers it an honour that he is compared to somebody like Scholes and would have fitted in well at Barca.
So what do people think of Guardiola as a manager? Obviously having such a strong team can make it look pretty easy to win everything, but it's because of that is the reason I don't think he has it easy at Barcelona, if they don't live up to expectations, then he will be out on his arse pretty quickly. I'm not saying he is bad or anything like that, but I think the best way to properly judge him is when he eventually manages a different team, one not as awesome as the one that he has now.
That does a huge disservice to the job Guardiola's done at Barcelona. They finished 3rd in Rijkaard's last season and Rijkaard's team didn't play football anywhere near to the level Guardiola's had his players playing at for the last 3 years.
Guardiola IMO was and is the perfect fit for Barcelona. Yes, he's had some excellent players to work with but it was Guardiola who was responsible for the signings of Alves, Pique and Villa. As 'B' team manager before he got the first team job, he was also responsible for developing both Busquets and Pedro away from the glare of the first team and he's continued with their development since they broke into the side. He was also a huge influence on Xavi as a kid, the pair of them played together for Barcelona and IMO it's no coincidence that over the last 10 years La Masia has been a school for great midfielders looking up to Guardiola, and more recently being coached by him. As well as Xavi, Iniesta and Busquets, La Masia has also produced Cesc Fabregas and Mikel Arteta. That's a phenominal group of midfielders to have come through one academy.
Barcelona's success is what happens when you have a youth academy that works and players who all come through the system playing the same way. Given the influence Guardiola's had in the development of so many of his players, be it as a team-mate, youth coach or first team coach, it's doing the guy a huge disservice to say 'oh, winning things is easy with such a great team.' That completely ignores the role that Guardiola's played in shaping those players to play in a particular way.
Having said that I doubt he'd be as big a success away from Barcelona. He's been the right man at the right time for the club, but I think if he was to move elsewhere you'd need to give him about 5 years before you could expect him to deliver results the way he has at Barcelona. To expect more would be to misunderstand why he's been so enormously successful at Barcelona.
Not that Barcelona necessarily need to worry about losing him. His influence has been such that anyone could now walk into that job and carry on winning things with the current team. It'll be interesting to see how Luis Enrique does if he replaces Pep and what his influence, both on the current squad and the next batch of talent, is likely to be like.
.
). If not for the Swans John Toshack would never have managed Real Madrid.