The England manager's job fascinated Pep Guardiola more than a decade ago, and when the opportunity to recruit him arose, the Football Association blew it.
The opportunity arose in 2012, when Guardiola, exhausted by four years in charge, left Barcelona and England parted ways with Fabio Capello.
During the search for Capello's successor on Guardiola's behalf, an intermediary contacted David Bernstein, then FA president, signaling the Spaniard's willingness to speak to him about the position. Bernstein was told that Guardiola, then 41, was willing to discuss the English team's inclusion in the 2012 European Championship. European Championships and felt he could improve the team.
The appointment of Guardiola would be a sensational coup for Bernstein, although there was strong pressure on him and the four-member Club England board to choose the Englishman. The investigation was not continued. There wasn't even an exploratory conversation. The job went to Roy Hodgson instead.
This sequence of events – confirmed to us at the time by two sources – was an extraordinary oversight. Even in the summer of 2012, Guardiola was Europe's most wanted manager, leading Chelsea's pursuit of a double Champions League winner before Bayern Munich eventually joined.
The intermediary contacted David Bernstein, then FA president, on behalf of Pep Guardiola during the search for a successor to Fabio Capello
The FA took no further action in relation to the investigation and instead employed former Fulham and Liverpool manager Roy Hodgson
This time the FA is not showing such a glaring lack of curiosity, having entered into informal contact with Guardiola's representatives – we already know this – at the beginning of the season. The next challenge, however, is to present him with an offer that will be convincing.
Given that Guardiola earns £20m a year at Manchester City – which is a quarter of the FA's current wage bill – it doesn't take a genius to work out what the counter-arguments to going for Pep might be. That the FA is a not-for-profit institution, the guardian of our game, which needs cash more for its citizens. That England is only England when led by an Englishman. The benefits of Guardiola's recruitment outweigh them all.
Last week it was painfully obvious that England's galaxy of talent needed a motivator, a mentor and a tactician to lead them to their creative and competitive best. But Guardiola's presence would also be a huge commercial benefit for England, who are struggling for relevance, visibility and brilliance in the face of the Premier League juggernaut.
His presence would add a compelling element to the next two tournaments. The 2026 World Cup finals, which will be held in the USA, Canada and Mexico, will be very popular, and the FA will not need to remind us that this tournament falls on the 60th anniversary of 1966. This will be followed by Euro 2028, played in Great Britain, and Ireland, where England must see their best chance of winning the trophy since 1966, on home turf, in the company of a generation of genius at the peak of their careers. There are countless ways in which a salary of around £16m – more than three times Gareth Southgate's salary – would transform England.
Such an appointment would also instantly extinguish all the national anxiety about the need for an English manager to make this team a truly English team.
While Capello, disastrously in hindsight, and Sven Goran Eriksson were parachuted in without the slightest experience of the English game, Guardiola is in many ways an Anglophile – intimately familiar with the nation, its language and its players.
Guardiola is believed to earn £20 million a year at Manchester City, which is a quarter of the FA's current wage bill.
The Spaniard has been in charge of the Premier League for eight years and has won six league titles during that time
In 2012, the impression from Spain was that the England job had sparked Guardiola's curiosity because of the potential chance to succeed where Capello and Sven Goran Eriksson had failed. After twelve years, success is attractive where managers have failed over 60 years. Being the manager who finally The English Problem.
No one will talk about the financial outlay if the FA employs the man who can bring it home. We can only hope that if Guardiola really has the appetite, the FA won't make the same mistake twice.
