Former Liverpool midfielder Dietmar Hamann has indicated that Pep Guardiola needs to emulate Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho’s feat of winning the Champions League with more than one team to be regarded as one of the best managers in the world.
Guardiola’s Manchester City side exited the Champions League in the quarter-finals after Liverpool thrashed the Premier League leaders 5-1 over two legs.
He won two Champions Leagues managing Barcelona, but despite coaching Bayern Munich and Manchester City, teams with vast resources, Guardiola has not reached the final of the competition for the last seven years.
Hamann pointed towards Mourinho’s Champions League wins with unfancied teams such as FC Porto and Inter and stressed the Spaniard cannot be regarded as a true great if he does not win the trophy again with a team other than Barcelona.
However, the former Red insisted that Guardiola remains an outstanding coach and deserves respects for his team dominating domestic leagues.
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Hamann wrote in his column for Sky Deutschland: “I’m not really big Mourinho fan, but he won the Champions League with Porto and Inter.
“Also [Carlo] Ancelotti and [Jupp] Heynckes have managed to win titles with several teams.
“If Pep wants to rise to the ranks of the very best coaches, he must also win the Champions League with another team.”
He added: “Of course Pep is an outstanding coach – we like to talk about the myth of Guardiola.
“But the fact is he has not reached the Champions League final in the last seven years. He has not trained village teams, but Barcelona, Bayern Munich and Manchester City.
“That he dominates the domestic leagues with his teams is great and deserves respect.”
