Sir Alex Ferguson has revealed that Pep Guardiola was his first choice to replace him as Manchester United manager, not David Moyes.
The Scot stepped down at Old Trafford in 2013 after 27 years and David Moyes was appointed as his successor on a six-year deal.
However, in his new book titled ‘Leading by Sir Alex Ferguson with Michael Moritz’, Ferguson spoke about how he was keen on Guardiola, who beat him in two Champions League finals with Barcelona in 2009 and 2011.
“I had dinner with Pep Guardiola in New York in 2012, but couldn’t make him any direct proposal because retirement was not on my agenda at that point,” said Ferguson.
“He had already won an enviable number of trophies with Barcelona…and I admired him greatly. I asked Pep to phone me before he accepted an offer from another club, but he didn’t and wound up joining Bayern Munich in July 2013.”
Ferguson also revealed that by the time he was leaving, United had a long list of managers they were considering, but who were unavailable in the end.
He added: “When we started the process of looking for my replacement, we established that several very desirable candidates were unavailable. It became apparent that Jose Mourinho had given his word to Roman Abramovich that he would return to Chelsea, and that Carlo Ancelotti would succeed him at Real Madrid.
“We also knew that Jurgen Klopp was happy at Borussia Dortmund and would be signing a new contract. Meantime, Louis van Gaal had undertaken to lead the Dutch attempt to win the 2014 World Cup.”
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