EPL United vs. City | This bad blood fuels Mourinho vs. Guardiola

They were once the best of buddies but are now seemingly the best of enemies with their feud steeped in Catalonia.
Jose Mourinho learned his trade under the late Bobby Robson, and at that time he was snidely referred to, as the translator in Catalonia while Pep Guardiola was the astute student, still playing his role as Barcelona’s captain on and off the pitch. That year was 1997!
Fast forward to 2016 and the rivalry that has its roots in Barcelona is now situated in Manchester, churned a bloody red under a blue sky.
No matter the venue, this friendship turned hateful rivalry will be intense with Saturday’s meeting not any different.
When you are not winning trophies which are your traditional entitlement – who are you gonna call? Jose Mourinho! If you are a romantic and believe that there is just the one way of playing football that pleases the eye – who are you gonna call? Pep Guardiola!
Mourinho is the archetype of Guardiola – the Portuguese devises ways to win at all costs while the Catalan master devises ways in which his team can win pleasingly.
In 11 meetings across La Liga, UEFA Super Cup and the UEFA Champions League, Guardiola has only lost twice while Mourinho has tasted defeat five times.

Mourinho left the Nou Camp in 2000, vowing to come back and he almost got his wish in 2008 but even though Guardiola had tipped his ‘friend’ for the job, the powers that be looked through the veil and suggested that Mourinho’s baggage was too much for the modest club.
Instead, they chose to promote Guardiola from Barcelona B to the exalted position and it proved to be a masterstroke. Six trophies in his first season and a brand of football that wowed every football purist in the world and the legend of Guardiola was forged.
Again in 2013, when Alex Ferguson was to retire from the United job, the legendary manager sought out Guardiola for the Old Trafford seat but Guardiola insisted on his one-year sabbatical at which end he took up the Bayern Munich post.
Fortunately for Mourinho - yes, fortunately, because if he had done well with Chelsea last season, he would still be in London; he was sacked by the Blues last December with United marooned in hopeless despair despite the continued work of Mourinho’s former teacher, Louis van Gaal.
Mourinho had unashamedly chased the Old Trafford job and that transcended from his admiration of Ferguson and the fact that United are truly a football behemoth – comparable to the likes of Barcelona, Real Madrid, Juventus, Inter Milan, etc. – the one job that would finally fulfill a big ego.
And so the stars chimed and the ‘Special One’ berthed in Manchester accompanied by the likes of Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Paul Pogba ready to take on all of England, especially the blue half of Manchester, who had themselves recruited the one coach that has effectively been able to mastermind victories against Mourinho on a consistent basis.
So, here we are finally with September 10, 2016, just three days away and thinking – would this feud be magnified in the 22 players that will take to the pitch? We can only hope so because there is no greater football spectacle than one that is fuelled with pride and hate at the same time.
Welcome to Manchester – would it be Jose’s or Pep’s? THE COUNTDOWN HAS BEGUN!