A new documentary, A Beautiful Obsession, revisits one of the most turbulent stretches of Pep Guardiola\u2019s Manchester City tenure, with a confrontation involving Kyle Walker among its most striking scenes.<\/p>\n
City entered 2024-25 as history-makers, having become the first side to win four straight league titles. But the season quickly unravelled. From October into December, Guardiola\u2019s team went seven matches without a win in all competitions, losing six of them. By the end of 2024, that poor run had stretched to just one victory in 13 games.<\/p>\n
The Walker incident came after City\u2019s 2-0 defeat to Liverpool at Anfield on Dec. 1, 2024. With Arne Slot\u2019s side already top of the Premier League and later crowned champions by a wide margin, the result carried added weight. Guardiola blamed R\u00faben Dias and Walker for Liverpool\u2019s decisive second goal, prompting a heated exchange.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou keep saying my name in every meeting and every f—ing thing. Every f—ing meeting, it\u2019s my name,\u201d Walker hit back after blowing his fuse.<\/p>\n
When Guardiola pointed out Walker\u2019s role, the player responded: \u201cYou didn\u2019t want me to be a captain. I\u2019ve reacted to someone else, I lost the ball, you somehow bring my name into it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Guardiola replied: \u201cIf you\u2019ve taken it personally, Kyle, I\u2019m sorry, This is my defeat – if I am a problem you have to tell me. I won\u2019t stay here for the money or for the fact just to stay, I don\u2019t want to feel that I have to run away from you.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf I am a problem, tell me. That is not going to change the love I have for you, not one second.\u201d<\/p>\n
Walker would start only three more games before leaving on loan to AC Milan in January, then joining Burnley permanently that summer.<\/p>\n
The documentary also shows the wider personal strain around Guardiola, who told his players he was getting divorced. Manuel Estiarte said the squad \u201cwere worried because Pep was nervous, sad, different and only I knew the reason.\u201d Guardiola later called it a \u201cconfession\u201d after the Juventus defeat on Dec. 11, 2024, telling them: \u201cI am f—ing divorced from the most beautiful woman in your planet, my wife, my ex-wife. I love her unbelievably but we lost the passion. I love her? Yeah, absolutely. She loves me? Yeah, but we lost the passion.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow do you play football? Because you play, or for something inside? In your lives, whatever you are going to do, do it with passion. I don\u2019t want good players, I want players with passion.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kevin De Bruyne also appears in emotional scenes after being told his contract would not be renewed. \u201cIt\u2019s really hard,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Guardiola\u2019s City crisis, Walker fallout and divorce confession are all revisited in A Beautiful Obsession.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18579,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1647,238,172],"tags":[1836,1047,59],"class_list":["post-18580","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-champions-league","category-manchester-city","category-epl","tag-2026-27-premier-league","tag-champions-league","tag-featured"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18580","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18580"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18580\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18579"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18580"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18580"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18580"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}