Guardiola calls Klopp's Liverpool a 'nightmare' and plans first dinner with old rival

Pep Guardiola has described facing Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool as a ‘nightmare’ at every turn, while admitting the two managers have never once gone for dinner together despite years of intense rivalry — a situation he is now eager to remedy.

Speaking in a reflective interview with Noel Gallagher, Guardiola looked back on his time at Manchester City and singled out Klopp’s Liverpool as the most demanding opponent he faced in England. “For the quality of the opponent we faced, we faced a lot, but Liverpool was a nightmare,” he said. “Every time, it was a nightmare.”

The rivalry between the two managers stretches back to the Bundesliga, where Guardiola’s Bayern Munich and Klopp’s Borussia Dortmund clashed repeatedly between 2013 and 2015. It intensified further once both moved to the Premier League, with City and Liverpool trading blows at the top of the table for the better part of a decade. Despite City claiming four of the five league titles in the final years of Klopp’s tenure at Anfield, the matches between the sides were rarely straightforward.

Guardiola was particularly candid about the challenge Anfield posed. “Anfield has a history that no stadium has,” he said. “It’s a really tough place for me for the fact of the way they play, not just for the stadium. They were such a special team. You sleep one second and they punish you. The three up front…”

He also spoke warmly about the personal dimension of the rivalry. “The relationship is one of the things I am proud of the most, I would say,” Guardiola said. “It was really good, it always has been really good — even back in Germany.”

Klopp stepped down as Liverpool manager in the summer of 2024 after nearly nine years at the club, citing a need to step away from the demands of management. He has since taken on the role of global head of soccer for the Red Bull group.

With both men now operating outside the week-to-week pressures of club management — Guardiola having seen City’s dominant Premier League era come to a close — the Spaniard says a long-overdue dinner is finally on the cards. “We have not been for dinner once but now it is going to happen,” he said.