Pep Guardiola series reveals pain of divorce and fiery row with Kyle Walker
Pep Guardiola series reveals pain of divorce and fiery row with Kyle Walker
James DuckerTue, August 18, 2026 at 5:01 AM UTC
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Pep Guardiola is compelling viewing in Prime Video’s new four-part docuseries - Tom Flathers/Manchester City
Pep Guardiola’s torment, doubts and raw emotions are laid bare in a new four-part documentary charting his final two roller-coaster seasons at Manchester City.
From the dressing-room row with Kyle Walker, and the City captain’s subsequent exit, to the scenes showing the manager berating his players, in which a visibly upset Guardiola unloads on them about his divorce from wife Cristina Serra, it is compelling viewing.
A Beautiful Obsession, which launches on Prime Video in the UK and Ireland on August 19, offers a raw, unflinching portrait of a club in a state of flux during the disappointing 2024-25 season: ageing, frustrated stars on their way out, new faces struggling to adapt and a manager wrestling with profound personal and professional challenges and when to let go.
It also takes in the risks and dilemmas around the club’s belated radical rebuild and last season’s redemptive campaign, when City won the domestic cup double and pushed Arsenal until the end in the title race, before Guardiola’s emotional farewell this summer.
Guardiola says goodbye to City’s fans on the final day of last season - Phil Noble/Reuters
Here, Telegraph Sport picks through the highlights from the first two episodes of the docuseries, which is directed by Kevin McDonald, the Oscar-winning filmmaker behind One Day in September, Touching the Void and The Last King of Scotland, and underlines just what a huge job Enzo Maresca has on his hands following Guardiola.
Guardiola and his divorce
The most raw, arresting scenes involve a tearful Guardiola addressing his players in the dressing room about his divorce from Serra. It is remarkable to see a manager opening up in this way about his personal life to his squad.
City had just been beaten 2-0 by Juventus in the Champions League in December 2024 – their seventh defeat in 10 matches during a dire run – when Guardiola urged his players not to lose their “passion” like he said he and Serra did in their marriage.
“Guys, I want to confess something. I’m f------ divorced from the most beautiful woman in your planet – it’s my wife, my ex-wife. I love her unbelievably!” Guardiola says.
“But we lost the passion. For many reasons, we lost the passion. I love her? Yeah, absolutely. She loves me? Yeah. But we lost the passion.
“How do you play football? Because you are paid? Or because of something inside? Where is the passion? In your life, whatever you are going to do, do it with passion. I don’t want any player. I want players with passion.”
Guardiola was emotional when describing his divorce from Cristina Serra - Geoff Pugh for the Telegraph
In the second episode, Guardiola brings up his divorce again after reacting furiously to a 2-1 defeat by Brighton at the start of last season.
“I give my life, my divorce and family away and everything for all of you – and what do you give back?” he fumes. “The f------ performance you have done, all of you, is a disgrace guys. And you know what is going to happen – you know what is going to happen yeah? You will have another manager. You will have another manager!”
Dressing-room row with Walker
It is December 2024 and City have just been beaten 2-0 by Liverpool at Anfield, their fourth straight Premier League defeat.
Walker, who failed to track Cody Gakpo’s far-post run for Liverpool’s first goal, is partly at fault for Liverpool winning a penalty Mohamed Salah converts after losing possession trying to atone for an error by Rúben Dias.
In the dressing room afterwards, Guardiola singled out Walker, prompting an angry exchange between the manager and his captain, which culminated in the Catalan choking up almost in tears.
After being told “you don’t understand Kyle” by Guardiola, who is looking away from the defender, the City captain explodes: “If you keep saying my name every meeting in every f------ thing then it’s going to be impossible.”
Guardiola sought to explain he was not doing that and mentioned other players, too, but Walker is unrepentant. “F---’s sake, every f------ meeting it’s my name.”
Guardiola replies: “Maybe because you’re a captain. I say to another one now, I say to Josko [Gvardiol] the name, it’s just to improve.”
Kyle Walker, who was City’s captain, did not always see eye-to-eye with Guardiola - Martin Rickett/PA
Walker’s next response, declaring: “I reacted to someone else, I lost the ball. You somehow bring my name into it,” then triggered a long monologue from Guardiola, who is almost in tears by the end of it.
“If you take it personally Kyle I’m sorry, it’s my defeat. After nine years together, in the good moments and bad moments, it’s my defeat. Absolutely. More than anything else. If you have a problem you have to tell me. ‘I want to stay here for the money or just for the fact I want to stay’.
“I extended [my] contract because I want to be with you, I want to fight in this place, I want to feel that I’m living. You run away from me – I don’t want to feel that. But if there is a problem, come [to me]. Does it change the love I have for all of you? Not for one second. But I want to fight. That’s all.”
Guardiola fury over captain’s exit
Walker joined AC Milan on loan on January 24, 2025, having informed City he wanted to explore options abroad. The next day City faced Chelsea at the Etihad Stadium, prompting a livid Guardiola to ask his players in the dressing room why they did not do more to stop their captain leaving in mid-season.
“I’m incredibly sad, so sad, without Kyle,” Guardiola began. “It was so easy, f------ hell, it was so easy for him to come to me and tell me... in the toughest moment in our lives, what did you do my friends? What did you do with your captain? Tell me, what did you do? I say, you are the captain, you represent us, I bought you. We bought you. We have to defend ourselves. We have to say, ‘Here, we are going to die together’.”
Guardiola then appeared to question his players’ commitment and appetite, raging about the way they reacted to the 4-2 defeat at Paris St-Germain in the Champions League a few days earlier, given their friendly post-match interactions with the PSG players.
“And now, after the game in Paris, I’m sorry, it’s the old generation – Paris, finish, and you start. ‘I’m talking to him.’ I don’t agree after a defeat. You think ‘ha ha ha’,” vented Guardiola, almost tripping over his words.
Guardiola questioned the appetite of his players following the 4-2 defeat by PSG in January 2025 - David Ramos/Getty Images
“I don’t like that. When I lose, I want to suffer. I don’t take a p--- with them. I want to kill them. I suffer. Happy? I’m not happy. You? You want to fight? Make me feel you are here, f------ hell.”
‘The boy who cried wolf’
Khaldoon Al Mubarak revealed he had always been able to convince Guardiola in moments of doubt to stay on as manager.
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But the City chairman admitted he feared Guardiola could walk away during the darkest days of the 2024-25 campaign.
“I’ve always managed to convince him, but that time I was not sure I was going to be able to convince you,” Al Mubarak said, addressing Guardiola directly in front of the Amazon cameras.
City chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak celebrates with Guardiola after City’s fourth successive title win in 2024 - Oli Scarff/Getty Images
“We had this understanding always – when Pep reaches the conclusion 100 per cent that it’s the time, I will not fight him. But you know the boy that cried wolf? He is the boy that cried wolf – in the Maldives, the other time in Marbella [when he had doubts], but last year I knew he actually saw the wolf.”
Guardiola himself admitted he thought he might not get through that tumultuous season. “Yeah I said to the club maybe it’s over,” he said.
The rebuild and ‘total quality index’
Ferran Soriano, the City chief executive, revealed the club use an AI-powered system called the “total quality index” to help predict where they and their rivals would finish in the Premier League.
At the start of last season, those analytics gave City a “team quality” score of 156 compared with 159 for Liverpool, the reigning champions, and 160 for Arsenal, who would eventually win the title. The system estimated City – who would ultimately run Arsenal close to finish runners-up – would place third or fourth after a severely challenging campaign when they eventually secured Champions League qualification.
Arsenal, who had a ‘team quality’ score of 160, pipped 156-rated City to the title last season - Lee Smith/Reuters
The docuseries lifts the lid on the personal toll of moving on key players, not least Kevin De Bruyne, who is in tears at one point discussing the strain for his family of leaving at the end of the 2024-25 campaign, and the risks involved in investing heavily in young players.
Soriano said: “Arsenal is looking for immediate impact and we’ve chosen to sign young players who we believe are going to make it. That’s our choice and that’s the risk.”
Al Mubarak acknowledged rebuilds can fail after being asked about Manchester United’s long-standing struggles post-Sir Alex Ferguson. “It can go into full meltdown,” he said. “Dropping from top three to top six to top 10 to no-man’s land. It happens. It happens a lot.”
Chairman fury at Guardiola
Guardiola tore into his players after watching them lose 2-0 to Bayer Leverkusen in the Champions League in November last year, telling them “I feel alone when you play like that” and declaring “I wanna quit. I’m so tired”.
But the manager’s anger was dwarfed by that of Al Mubarak, who was furious about Guardiola’s decision to make 10 changes to the team for the game.
“To go to an entire new team on a game this important is probably one of the lowest points we’ve had. I can’t speak to him. Honestly I didn’t speak to him yesterday and didn’t message him and I can’t even speak to him today I’m so angry,” Al Mubarak told Soriano.
“Certainly he’s put a mix in this that’s so unnecessary. Let’s let this pass then we’ll talk about it in the right way with a constructive approach.”
Soriano, who claimed all geniuses were “unbalanced people”, Guardiola included, said: “The level of disappointment and self-criticism was very high.
“I think our attitude with Pep should not be too negative or aggressive because it doesn’t work with him, but it shouldn’t be too accommodating or kind, either. This is a mistake and this time it’s his mistake and we should correct it.”
Noel Gallagher’s telling-off
Noel Gallagher, the Oasis singer-songwriter, has forged a close relationship with Guardiola over the past decade but that did not prevent the rock star from an interrogation from the City manager after he had gone on Talksport and said he felt Arsenal would win the title.
“I got called into the headmaster’s office, yeah,” Gallagher explained. “I think I said to beat them we’d have to get to the Etihad [against Arsenal] and still be there and have to be perfect, but I said I don’t think we’re going to be perfect.
“So I got a f------ message off Pep saying, ‘Oh, you don’t believe then? You don’t believe? Oh, the rock star, you don’t believe!? Oh my God. Oh my God. You don’t believe!’
“I was like, ‘F------’ hell. Talksport called me [again] and said ‘Do you want to come on after the game?’ and I was like ‘No, oh no! Not a f------ chance!”
Haaland targeted in Wembley tirade
Guardiola ripped into Erling Haaland, his star striker, at half-time of the FA Cup final against Chelsea at Wembley, which City would go on to win 1-0 courtesy of Antoine Semenyo’s 72nd-minute back-heel. But Haaland copped for an earful during the interval.
“Are you tired Erling? Are you tired?” Guardiola asked. “Why don’t you fight for the ball and win the duels like you have done with [William] Saliba and all the other players? In a f------ final. Are you tired? Then someone else will come on. We need you. You are tired, tell me now. I left f------ six players out. Six players that I’m ashamed of myself to leaving out.
Guardiola felt like a father to Erling Haaland but was not afraid to challenge him - Carl Recine/Getty Images
“Where’s your quality? Moves in behind, in the box, go. I love you anyway. Erling, like a father. I love you anyway! But it’s not about that. Nothing else. Do you want to talk now? Show me that. Show me you want to win!”
Guardiola uncertain he will manage again
The guessing game about where Guardiola may end up next began the moment news of his exit was confirmed and he has already rejected an offer to take over as Italy coach.
But Guardiola admits at the end of the docuseries that it will be “difficult” to return to management.
“I don’t even know myself what I am going to do. Honestly. I don’t know. But for sure it will be difficult to come back. That is my feeling today.
“It will be difficult to come back. I need to refresh many things that happened in my personal life and professionally... what I’ve found I need to find myself a little bit in different things, especially sitting and seeing time go by or time closes in front of you.
“There is a word in Catalonia it called ‘badar’. Badar is like this [sitting zoned out]... so do that. That is one of the main targets I want to do!”
A Beautiful Obsessionlaunches on Prime Video in UK & Ireland on Wednesday.
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
