Sports
Is Pep Guardiola getting ready to leave Man City? Only he knows
If Pep Guardiola knows he’s leaving Manchester City at the end of the season, he’s not telling.
High-level sources at the Etihad Stadium are well aware of the intense speculation that we could now be in the Guardiola end-game and that the 55-year-old is considering — if not yet fully committed to — ending his time as manager in the summer. But even they insist they don’t know for sure.
Sources close to SEG, the agency which works with Guardiola’s representatives — led by his brother, Pere — say that anything to do with the Catalan coach’s future is heavily protected and that this is no different. There is, though, a whirl of rumour — mostly generated by chatter between rival executives, agents and players — that he’s close to calling time.
Guardiola still has 16 months left to run on the contract he signed in November 2024. But it has already reached the stage where it would surprise nobody at City if he decided to end the agreement a year early in the summer of 2026.
The contract situation
There have been few things over the last nine-and-a-half years that have annoyed Guardiola more than questions about his future. As someone who is obsessed with the process behind winning football matches, he views any kind of outside noise as a potential distraction.
Often Guardiola has tried to see it off early, signing extensions by November of his final year to ensure the second half of the season isn’t overshadowed by uncertainty. But when he signed his latest deal in November 2024, there was surprise at City that it was for two years rather than one.
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There was a feeling at the time that Guardiola might sign a 12-month extension to take him to the summer of 2026 and round off 10 years at the club. That it ended up being a contract until 2027 caught a few people at the Etihad off guard; it also raised the question about whether the extra year was a buffer intended to offer at least the sense of certainty.
Asked about his future in early January, Guardiola was able to hide behind it.
“I have a contract,” he said. “I said a thousand million times. It’s 10 years here. I will leave one day, but I have a contract.”
He did the same again when asked a similar question at his news conference on Friday.
“I have one more year on my contract,” he said. “The question of that is [the same as] one or two months ago, but I will tell you again that it is the same answer.”
A change in mood
While there has always been a feeling that Guardiola could quit in the summer of 2026 — 10 years on from his arrival from Bayern Munich in 2016 — it has been strengthened by an apparent change in mood over the past few weeks.
It started after the Carabao Cup semifinal first leg at Newcastle when an Antoine Semenyo goal ruled out by VAR sent Guardiola into a tailspin on the state of refereeing. He never likes to criticise officials after draws or defeats, but following the 2-0 win at St James’ Park, he felt comfortable highlighting perceived errors in the league defeat at Newcastle six weeks earlier — not only that, but also the decision not to show a red card to goalkeeper Dean Henderson during the FA Cup final defeat to Crystal Palace all the way back in May.
Guardiola had another pop at referees after the 2-0 win over Wolves and ahead of the second leg against Newcastle he — largely unprompted — decided to speak out on a range of topics including the transfer spending of Premier League rivals, Palestine, Sudan, Ukraine and the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minnesota.
He’s also started saying things like “nice quote, eh?” when he knows he’s made a headline, as well as addressing reporters by name and unexpectedly taking extra questions at the end of news conferences when City’s media staff are trying to wrap it up. If he’s conscious that he might only have this platform for a few more months, then he’s making the most of it.
Guardiola’s war of refs has similarities with the way Sir Alex Ferguson reacted to Nani’s red card against Real Madrid in 2013, which contributed to Manchester United’s exit from the Champions League. Ferguson was said to be “distraught” after the game and even refused to do his post-match news conference. It became apparent afterwards that he was so upset because he had already decided to leave Old Trafford at the end of the season and that he had been denied a last chance to win the Champions League by what he believed was a refereeing mistake.
Despite approaching 20 years as a manager and a decade at City, Guardiola has not lost the love of winning. His celebrations on the touchline on Wednesday, as City booked their place in a fifth Carabao Cup final of his reign, looked like those of a rookie manager chasing his first piece of silverware.
“I’m getting old and I have the feeling that reaching finals is more difficult,” he said. “I don’t want to take it for granted and I know how difficult it is.
“I’m going to live with the joy that we are going to play another final because it’s so difficult in modern sport and competition — tennis, golf, basketball — to reach finals and win trophies. You have to sweat a lot.”
City’s forward planning
City have always been relaxed about Guardiola’s future. Quite obviously, they want their most successful ever manager to stay for as long as possible, but they always knew he wasn’t the type to follow Ferguson or Arsene Wenger and do 20-plus years.
They’ve often found comfort in the strength of their relationship with Guardiola. It has meant that club executives are confident that, whenever the day comes, he will give them enough time to properly recruit a successor.
It was noteworthy that during the collapse in relations between Enzo Maresca and Chelsea in December and January that Chelsea sources were happy to drop in that Maresca — a former member of Guardiola’s backroom staff — had been talking to City. The claims from Stamford Bridge were noted by City, but — crucially — not formally denied.
2:17
Guardiola: Haaland is the best striker in the world
Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola hails Erling Haaland as the “best striker in the world” ahead of their game vs. Liverpool.
Usually, uncertainty over the manager would cause problems for a club in the transfer market, as one of the first things a player will want to know is who will be in charge. But those questions didn’t prevent City from signing Semenyo and Marc Guéhi in January and the club were keen to share it. The view internally was that two top Premier League players at the peak of their careers had chosen to move to the Etihad in the face of interest from almost every other big club in Europe despite the possibility of Guardiola leaving.
Working with Guardiola has often been the big attraction for new signings, and it was a noticeable change in message.
So … is it happening?
City know it’s coming sooner rather than later. Club bosses pride themselves on having a plan for everything and there is the same feeling this time.
If Guardiola calls time at the end of the season, City believe they’ll be prepared. They’ve dealt with the loss of director of football Txiki Begiristain, COO Omar Berrada and director of football transactions Rafi Moersen in the recent past, as well as a host of key players.
Moving on from Guardiola will be much harder, but according to well-placed sources, it won’t be impossible. That, though, remains to be seen: after all, Manchester United are still reeling from the loss of their own iconic manager 13 years ago.
City are more comfortable with the timing of a potential departure this summer as opposed to 12 months ago. The view was that trying to install a new manager in a summer which was already complicated by the FIFA Club World Cup would have been too much.
Guardiola has said in the past that he’s not a great deliberator. He makes decisions quickly on instinct and feeling, and it’s possible that he could yet be swayed by results between now and the end of the season — good or bad.
For now, though, he’s keeping quiet. But it means the swirl of speculation will continue until that changes.
LINDSEY VONN HAS waited a long time for this. After Thursday’s downhill training was canceled due to heavy snowfall and Friday’s practice was delayed more than 90 minutes by fog, Vonn pushed out of a start gate for the first time this Olympics.
The 10th skier to drop, she skied smoothly and confidently and led through most of the course before making a couple of errors over the rollers at the bottom and finishing with the 11th-best time of the day. Her run was remarkable for how unremarkable it was.
Just three days earlier, Vonn announced that she would still compete at these Olympics despite completely tearing the ACL in her left knee a few days before. Making it through a training run in front of the world would prove to her and everyone else that she is fit to compete Sunday.
“This felt like race day to me,” her coach Aksel Lund Svindal said Friday. “You know her history. She’s gone hard at times when people have told her she probably shouldn’t be in the start gate.”
Vonn has been in this position before. The story of these Olympics is the story of her career: long streaks of unparalleled success interrupted by injury — often just before or during an Olympics.
At the 2006 Games, she crashed in a downhill training run, was airlifted from the mountain and returned two days later to finish eighth. In 2010, she suffered a deep shin bruise she called the most painful injury of her life. She won the downhill. In 2014, she missed the Games with a partial ACL tear, and in 2018, she skied with a chunk of cartilage dislodged in her right knee.
She wanted this time to be different. She came into this season as strong as she’s been in a decade. She was pain-free. And she was winning again.
But ski racing is risky, and Vonn skis on the edge. “Because I push the limits, I crash, and I’ve been injured more times than I would like to admit — to myself, even,” she said Tuesday.
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Lindsey Vonn on grief, growth and her second chance at ski racing
Lindsey Vonn reflects on the physical and emotional pain that shaped her final Olympics, the self‑discovery that followed retirement, and the joy and confidence fueling her return to ski racing.
“I’ve been working really hard to come into these Games in a much different position [than in years past],” Vonn said. “I know what my chances were before the crash, and I know my chances aren’t the same as it stands today. But I know there’s still a chance, and as long as there’s a chance, I will try.”
Vonn will take her chance at the downhill on Sunday at her fifth Olympics. She said she is not in pain and her knee feels stable. She posted videos of herself doing squats and speed workouts in the gym this week and took a second training run Saturday, where she was more than two seconds faster than the day before. Svindel said he saw symmetry in her skiing and that her left- and right-footed turns looked equally strong.
Although this isn’t how Vonn imagined her final Olympics starting, it’s hard to think of a more fitting place for the 41-year-old to end her ski racing career. She made her first World Cup podium in Cortina as a teenager in 2004, and her 12 World Cup wins here are more than any other skier has earned at a single venue.
“I never thought I would be in this position,” Vonn said in late October. She was in New York ahead of the World Cup season and unaware of how the next few months would go — that she would win the first downhill race of the year or that by the time she arrived in Cortina, the world would be wondering once again if she could even race.
But had she known what lay ahead, Vonn likely would have said something similar to what she did Tuesday: Her return isn’t about wins or losses, but rather about showing up in the start gate and trying. She is not letting this injury derail her second chance at ending her career on her terms.
“If it had been anywhere else, I would probably say it’s not worth it,” Vonn said. “But for me, there’s something special about Cortina that always pulls me back, and it’s pulled me back one last time.”
BY ANY MEASURE, even without this comeback, Vonn’s career has been spectacular. When she retired at 34, she had more World Cup wins, 82, than any woman and the second most in history, after Swedish great Ingemar Stenmark’s 86. Vonn’s American teammate, Mikaela Shiffrin, has since surpassed both skiers, with 108 World Cup wins and counting, but Vonn still holds the record for the most downhill wins by any skier, male or female. She is also the only American woman to win gold in the downhill at the Olympics.
But she didn’t retire on her terms.
Instead, Vonn’s body made the decision for her. She suffered a devastating string of injuries, underwent multiple ACL and MCL repairs and skied through constant pain. By the 2018 Olympics in Pyeongchang, she could barely bend her right knee or straighten it entirely.
A year later, she competed in her final world championships. Ahead of her last race, knowing how much pain she was pushing through, Vonn’s longtime coach, Erich Sailer, who died last August, told her, “What’s 90 seconds in a lifetime?” She earned bronze and said goodbye to the sport. “When I said I was retired, I was retired,” Vonn says. “I really, truly built my life outside of skiing in a meaningful way.”
In retirement, she embraced being a beginner. She tried car racing, rodeo roping and wrote a book. She shared about her adventures with her beloved rescue dogs, her mental health and her time with family and friends. Experiencing life beyond the isolated world of elite ski racing provided her better perspective and built her self-confidence off skis.
In August 2022, Vonn lost her mother, Linda, who died after a yearlong battle with ALS. Her mother’s life inspired how Vonn lived. Her death influenced Vonn’s decision to return to racing.
“My mother in general, her attitude has always inspired my comebacks,” Vonn said in October. “Her passing makes me realize even more that life is short. I’m given this opportunity and I can’t take that for granted.
“And if I fail, who cares?” she said. “I’ve already won everything. Someone asked me if not being successful at the Olympics would tarnish my legacy. No, because I tried. My legacy is not about winning, it’s about trying.”
Vonn underwent a partial knee replacement in April 2024, and within a month, she could straighten her leg fully and perform exercises she hadn’t done in years. She started to dream.
Knowing the next Winter Games were in Cortina gave her a goal, and she returned to the sport as a better skier than when she retired. “I’m generating speed off my right side, which I haven’t in a very long time,” Vonn said in October. “My right-footed turn is my best turn. I don’t know the last time that’s been the case.” That will be crucial here in Cortina as she adapts to a new injury to her left knee.
Vonn also added 12 pounds of muscle ahead of this season and increased her overall strength and agility, all of which — along with a knee brace — will help stabilize her injured knee. In August, she began working with Svindal, a two-time Olympic champion for Norway who retired the same month she did in 2019.
So far this season, Vonn has finished on the podium in five of five World Cup downhill races and won two, in addition to earning two podiums in three Super-G races.
Vonn said yes to this comeback for two simple reasons: because she can, and because she believes she can win, especially in Cortina. Despite the injury, both things are still true. She knows this course. She knows where and how to push its limits and she said Tuesday that when she’s in the start gate, she won’t be thinking about her knee. She’ll be thinking about skiing fast.
“I love everything about the Cortina track,” Vonn said last year. “I understand it well. In downhill, it’s all about seeing the fall line and being able to carry speed. I know the places where I can make a mistake and where I can’t, the places I have to accelerate. Overall, I have a great feel for what it takes to ski fast there.”
If VONN BELIEVES in anything, it’s second chances.
In the summer of 2025, less than a year after she announced her return, Vonn’s sister suggested she adopt a new companion to travel the World Cup circuit with her. “She said, ‘You’re much happier when you have a dog with you,'” Vonn said.
Vonn was still mourning the loss of Lucy, her Cavalier King Charles spaniel who traveled everywhere with her, even sitting next to her at dinners and in Olympic news conferences. But in August, she started looking. She scrolled through listings on an adoption website and on the very last page, she saw him: a Cavalier King Charles spaniel puppy with a cute brown face cleaved by a white hourglass stripe. And he already had the perfect name: Chance.
“I was like, ‘This is poetic,'” Vonn said. “This is my boy. This is my second chance.”
Chance has been by her side all season.
In October, she took him on his first international trip to a training camp in Chile, and he’s been traveling with her nonstop since. Vonn carries her mom and Lucy with her, too, racing in a helmet featuring their initials, as well as the first initial of seven others she’s lost in recent years: her grandparents, Sailer and another beloved rescue dog, Bear. She calls the group her “angel army.”
After she won her first World Cup downhill race in nearly seven years in December, Vonn posted a photo of Chance on the couch in her hotel room in St. Moritz next to her trophies. “This weekend was amazing in so many ways,” she wrote. “All the work that was put in over the past year is coming together … The best is yet to come.”
No matter what happens in the downhill Sunday, Chance will surely be waiting for Vonn in her hotel room with a wagging tail and unconditional support.
“This is all icing on the cake,” Vonn said this week. “I never expected to be here. I felt like this was an amazing opportunity to close out my career in a way that I wanted to. Hasn’t gone exactly the way I wanted, but I don’t want to have any regrets.”
This season, Vonn allowed herself to dream of Olympic gold again. Although her injury has made winning the downhill an uphill battle, she still believes it is possible. On Sunday, she’ll remember the advice Sailer gave her in 2019: What’s 90 seconds in a lifetime?
Sports
Former NFL star reveals the one thing he would have done differently in Seahawks’ Super Bowl XL loss
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When the Seattle Seahawks take the field against the New England Patriots on Sunday, it will be their fourth Super Bowl appearance.
The franchise’s first appearance came in 2006 in Super Bowl XL, as quarterback Matt Hasselbeck led them to a 13-3 record in the regular season. However, the Seahawks’ first trip to the big game did not go as they hoped, as they lost 21-10 to the Pittsburgh Steelers.
In that game, Hasselbeck completed 26 of his 49 passes for 273 yards with one touchdown and one interception. In a recent interview with Fox News Digital, the 50-year-old said there is only one thing he would have done differently.
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Seattle Seahawks quarterback (8) Matt Hasselbeck warms up before the Super Bowl XL against the Pittsburgh Steelers at Ford Field in Detroit, Michigan, on Feb. 5, 2006. (Matthew Emmons/USA TODAY Sports Copyright © 2006)
“I don’t think there’s anything that I would have done differently other than maybe not losing my poise. There were a couple of calls in the game that didn’t go our way, and I lost my cool on the referee and didn’t regain my poise by the time the 40-second clock had, you know, it was time to snap the next play,” Hasselbeck told Fox News Digital in a recent interview with the Family Heart Foundation.
“So, I did throw an interception on that play that I’m talking about and then I made the tackle on that interception and then I got flagged again for making the tackle which, you know, that’s a whole (other thing) I got even more upset.”
Quarterback Matt Hasselbeck (8) of the Seattle Seahawks throws a pass in the second quarter against the Chicago Bears in the 2011 NFC divisional playoff game at Soldier Field in Chicago, Illinois, on Jan. 16, 2011. (Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images)
The three-time Pro Bowler said that he learned the lesson of just taking things at a time. That lesson from the Seahawks’ Super Bowl loss didn’t just help him as an athlete, but also a father.
“If something in your mind (that’s) ridiculous happens, move on. And so I think that’s something that’s helped me certainly as an athlete, it’s helped me as a dad. You know, you get in the car, my kids would tell you, you get in the car after a sporting event with me, you are not allowed to talk about the referees. You can talk about whatever you want to talk about, but you’re not talking about the officials. Not doing it. And it’s a lesson I had to learn the hard way,” Hasselbeck said.
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Former Seattle Seahawks quarterback Matt Hasselbeck greets fans before the NFC Championship game against the Los Angeles Rams at Lumen Field in Seattle, Washington, on Jan. 25, 2026. (Jane Gershovich/Getty Images)
While the Seahawks did not win Super Bowl XL, they returned to the Super Bowl in the 2013 season, and trounced the Denver Broncos 43-8 to capture the franchise’s first-ever title. They made the Super Bowl the following season, against the Patriots, but lost 28-24 as Russell Wilson was intercepted on the goal line by Malcolm Butler to seal the loss.
Now, the latest iteration of the Seahawks hopes to bring the franchise’s record in Super Bowls to .500 and get revenge on the Patriots for the heartbreaking defeat from over 11 years ago.
The Seahawks play the Patriots at 6:30 p.m. ET on Sunday.
Follow Fox News Digital’s sports coverage on X, and subscribe to the Fox News Sports Huddle newsletter.
We have another weekend of European soccer, and this Saturday is full of great matches!
We kick things off in the Premier League as Manchester United will look to make it four wins in a row as they take on Tottenham Hotspur in a rematch of the UEFA Europa League final. Then league leaders Arsenal host Sunderland, Aston Villa travel to AFC Bournemouth, Burnley take on West Ham United, Fulham meet Everton and Wolverhampton Wanderers welcome Chelsea to Molineux.
Elsewhere, LaLiga leaders Barcelona take on Mallorca (stream LIVE at 10:15 a.m. ET on ESPN+ in the U.S.). while in the Championship Wrexham play Millwall and Tom Brady’s Birmingham City face Leicester City.
Enjoy all the updates from Saturday’s action!
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