Ferguson reveals 2012 Guardiola dinner and admits he could have lured him to Man Utd

Sir Alex Ferguson has revealed that a private dinner with Pep Guardiola in New York in 2012 left him with a lasting regret — that it did not happen sooner, when he might still have convinced the Spaniard to become his successor at Manchester United.

Writing in his new book, Games of My Life, Ferguson recalls meeting Guardiola roughly a year before his own retirement. By that point, Guardiola had already committed to Bayern Munich, having just completed a celebrated four-year spell at Barcelona that included a continental treble and a Champions League and La Liga double. Ferguson, who had not yet made a firm decision to retire, believes the timing was the decisive factor.

“Over the past ten years, I have often wondered what might have happened if the dinner I had with Pep in New York in 2012 had taken place a couple of months earlier,” Ferguson wrote. “If I could rewind time, we would have dined some months earlier, I would have poured plenty of Tignanello and I would have tried my hardest to convince him that his future lay in Manchester. Unfortunately for us, it did. Enough said.”

Ferguson ultimately retired in May 2013 after nearly 27 years at Old Trafford, a tenure that produced 13 Premier League titles, two Champions League crowns, and a string of domestic and international honours. The decision to step down was shaped in part by personal circumstances — the death of his wife Cathy’s sister in December 2012 prompted him to reconsider his future.

David Moyes was chosen as his successor but lasted only ten months in the role, departing in April 2014. Guardiola, meanwhile, went on to win seven major trophies at Bayern before moving to Manchester City, where he has since claimed six top-flight titles and the Champions League, among numerous other honours.

Ferguson was generous in his assessment of the City manager’s legacy. “Pep has set a breathtaking standard for the current generation of players or anybody aspiring to become a manager,” he wrote. “During his playing days, Pep had more” — the passage trails off in the available excerpt, but the admiration is unmistakable.

The revelation adds a striking footnote to one of English football’s most consequential managerial transitions. Had the dinner taken place earlier, and had Ferguson been able to make his case over a bottle of Tignanello, the trajectory of both Manchester clubs over the past decade might have looked very different.