Jurgen Klopp v Pep Guardiola: Who won modern football’s greatest coaching rivalry?

Sign up to Miguel Delaney’s Reading the Game newsletter sent straight to your inbox for free Sign up to Miguel’s Delaney’s free weekly newsletter Sign up to Miguel’s Delaney’s free weekly newsletter SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Jurgen Klopp has been, in Pep Guardiola’s words, “the best rival I ever had in my life”. open image in gallery Jurgen Klopp, left, and Pep Guardiola have always shared a healthy respect Normally, though, there has been a regular refrain. Guardiola’s only victory there came in lockdown, when it was empty: the City manager swiftly said: “Without, it is completely different.” The counter-argument is that there is a similar gap in Klopp’s record: he has never won against Guardiola at the Etihad Stadium in the Premier League and now never will. Klopp once likened their teams to Roger Federer and Rafa Nadal, but whereas the two great tennis players finished with similar number of grand slam titles, Guardiola has five Premier League titles to Klopp’s one; in Germany, Klopp’s two Bundesligas came before Guardiola assumed the reins at Bayern, and he promptly won two in a row.