Pep Guardiola reshuffles Manchester City coaching staff with Juanma Lillo among exits

New York Times

27-05-2025

Pep Guardiola is set to reshuffle his coaching staff with three key assistants departing the club following the end of the Premier League season.
Juanma Lillo, Carlos Vicens and Inigo Dominguez are leaving the Etihad, with Guardiola driving a push for new voices and ideas to ensure he remains challenged and can continue to innovate.
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Lillo, who returned to the club in 2023 having spent two years in Manchester between 2020 and 2022, did not have his contract renewed, which expired at the end of the season. The same decision was made on technical coach Dominguez.
Lillo has a long-established bond with Guardiola stretching back to the latter's six-month spell as a player at Dorados de Sinaloa in 2006.
It was the final pitstop of Guardiola's playing career, which he hoped would serve as an apprenticeship in coaching working alongside fellow Spaniard Lillo, who had previously become the youngest coach in La Liga, aged 29.
Guardiola will have learned the importance of retaining freshness in the dugout, not just in the playing squad, and that is on his agenda this summer as he enters his tenth season in charge of City.
It comes after City dropped to third — the only time in Guardiola's managerial career he has finished outside of the top two apart from his first year in English football — having gone into the campaign after winning four Premier League titles in a row.
Vicens, who also has responsibility as set-piece coach, has agreed to take on his first managerial role at Braga, who parted company with former Sheffield Wednesday manager Carlos Carvalhal last week.
Guardiola is used to his assistants learning under him before spreading their wings elsewhere.
Mikel Arteta spent almost four years at City before taking over at Arsenal in 2019, while Chelsea head coach Enzo Maresca spent a season with Guardiola before moving to Leicester City.
Domenec Torrent and Rodolfo Borrell, who had been his assistant at Barcelona and Bayern Munich, both left in 2018 and 2023, with Guardiola familiar with reconfiguring his staff.
City benefit from the multi-club approach of City Football Group, who have a large database of managers and coaches to assess compatible styles, but bringing in an assistant requires consideration of how their coaching skills and personality will fit with Guardiola.
He was always going to require a replacement, or two, for Vicens given his set-piece expertise but it looks likely that those occupying many of the seats either side of him next season will have a very different look.
(Top image of Pep Guardiola and Juanma Lillo:)