Pep Guardiola won't return to manage Bayern Munich in future, although he did open up on his admiration for the club ahead of a reunion with Manchester City on Saturday.
City face Bayern in Green Bay on Saturday night (Sunday morning in the UK), and it will see Guardiola reunited with some old faces from the club he used to manage.
However, while Guardiola was full of praise for Bayern, even revealing he still owns an apartment in Munich, he dismissed the idea of returning to manage them after leaving City.
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"No. I will be too old," he said, regarding a hypothetical return to the Allianz Arena. "They have an exceptional manager now and they make good transfers for him. That’s why we will be longer. I will come back to visit.
"Of course it is a love. I was so incredibly happy there. I am looking forward to seeing so many people. It was an incredible part of my life. I still have an apartment in Munich, and after the pandemic maybe now I have time to visit. I have big, big memories there; I was so happy with my family."
Many have tipped Bayern boss Julian Nagelsmann as a potential successor to Guardiola at City, and the two have been in contact in recent years to discuss tactics and their footballing philosophy. So it's no surprise that Guardiola was full of praise for Nagelsmann, backing him to cope with the loss of talismanic strike Robert Lewandowski.
"He is a really, really young manager but with enough experience at RB Leipzig and he is at Bayern, where demands are high," explained the City boss. "He did really well last season winning the Bundesliga, and the standards at Bayern Munich are so, so high - you have to do more, and more next season."
But Guardiola wouldn't be drawn on discussing Lewandowski's transfer to Barcelona in much detail when asked about City's signing of a prolific number nine as Bayern have lost theirs.
Guardiola said: "I can talk about us. Erling and Julian are here and will have a positive effect on our game. We scored a lot of goals last season; we won the Premier League and got the semi-finals of the Champions League. We were one of the most top scorers in Europe.
"They have the quality to score goals and that for us is most important. Lewandowski is difficult to replace, but Julian is a talented manager with plenty of ideas, and he will find the right movements."
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