Nineteen seasons. Nineteen titles.
1,000 games. All of them here. 17 league titles, 40 cups. 17 in a row in the First Division, 2022 to 2038. Spanish League Head Coach of the Year 15 times. French Head Coach of the Year 10 times, for a job I have never done in France. Levante away on Saturday.
Spain have offered me the job again. €7,265,000 a year, replacing Unai Medina. Third time of asking. Unai Emery's job in 2030, Guardiola's in 2036, now this one. Same line every time: the European League Div. A "isn't high on their list of priorities" and they'll judge me on the other competitions. Three times a country has asked. Three times I have had a Levante game on the Saturday.
Renewing Haaland. He's 35 and the game has started describing him as a "legendary striker", which is the word you get instead of years. He wants 24.49m a year, a 5.75m loyalty bonus and a release clause at 129. His agent's relationship with me is listed as "Hates you", and his opening line was that my offer is too far apart from his client's demands for him to consider negotiating. Coach report: "important player but may be past his best". 61 goals in 34 appearances. Eight Golden Balls. Past his best.
Vinicius Junior's testimonial. Sixteenth year at the club, second spell, 415 league games since he came back. 49,438 in on a warm evening for a friendly. Rodrygo, Gutierrez and Militao all came back for it. Haaland scored, obviously. 2-0. Nobody was counting.
19 shots to 16. Ten on target to six. xG 2.51 to 1.60. Barcelona 3 Real Madrid 2. Haaland scored twice in seven second half minutes, both from El Hachimi, and got an 8.6. Thompson got theirs on 2 and 84. Staff report says we put in "a good performance". I'm aware.
1st in the world Hall of Fame. 5,425. Guardiola is 2nd. 5,423. Eleven league titles, five European Cups, eleven years, and it comes down to two points.
600 games. Ten league titles, twenty-four cups. The piece mentions in passing that Real Madrid was my first non-playing job. I've never coached anywhere else. I've never coached anywhere smaller. 39 caps, 3 goals, and then straight to the Bernabeu.
Haaland's won the World Golden Ball. Again. 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025, 2026, 2027, 2028, 2029. Eight in a row, all of them here. Mbappe finished second and outscored him, 62 to 61, with 22 assists to his 12. I've had to explain that to Erling this morning and neither of us enjoyed it. Before this run the list reads Lewandowski, then a year where they didn't give it to anybody, then Messi.
478 games in charge. 400 won. 34 drawn, 44 lost. 1,487 scored, 298 conceded. Looked at that this morning and genuinely checked whether the screen had loaded properly.
Quiet window, and I'd argue that's the point. Timmermans from Salzburg at 45.5. He's 23, elite, and gave us 10 goals and 15 assists at 7.39 in his first year. Miguelito from Bayern at 61 to sort the back line out. That's the window. Two players. The board graded the Timmermans deal a B+, mostly because he took less money than he could have got elsewhere.
