Spoiler warning: This article contains spoilers for all four episodes of A Beautiful Obsession.
Pep Guardiola stood in the away dressing room at Juventus’ Allianz Stadium and opened his heart to his players.
“Guys, I want to confess something,” he says in a scene from Manchester City’s new documentary, A Beautiful Obsession. “I am f***ing divorced from the most beautiful woman in your planet, my wife, my ex-wife.”
The four-part docuseries, which will be released on Prime Video in the UK & Ireland on Wednesday, lifts the lid on the final two seasons of Guardiola’s decade in charge at the Etihad Stadium.
It features several candid moments, including Kevin De Bruyne’s tears at the prospect of leaving City, voice notes exchanged between board members, chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak’s anger at Guardiola over a controversial line-up, and an insight into background checks made on Rayan Cherki’s behaviour.
But Guardiola takes centre stage, from dressing-room rows to vulnerable insights into how City’s difficult 2024-25 season — and the divorce from his wife Cristina Serra — affected him and his management.
Here are five standout moments from the documentary.
The impact of Guardiola’s divorce
It is striking, especially in the first two episodes, just how much Guardiola’s separation from his wife was mentioned in the dressing room and the inevitable impact it had on the Catalan.
During episode two, Guardiola’s right-hand man, Manel Estiarte, reveals that he told the players to cut the manager some slack.
“I never went to the dressing room to speak to the players — only once,” he says. “They were worried because Pep was nervous, sad, different, and only I knew the reason. I said to the team, ‘You’re seeing a human being. He’s getting divorced’.”
Guardiola himself breaks the news to his team after City are beaten by Juventus, their seventh defeat in 10 matches during the 2024-25 season.
“Guys I want to confess something. I am fucking divorced from the most beautiful woman in your planet, my wife, my ex-wife. I love her unbelievably but we lost the passion. I love her? Yeah, absolutely. She loves me? Yeah, but we lost the passion.
“How do you play football? Because you play, or for something inside?
“In your lives, whatever you are going to do, do it with passion. I don’t want good players, I want players with passion.”
Pep Guardiola addresses his Manchester City squad inside the Etihad Stadium (Amazon Prime Video)
Row with Kyle Walker
Episode one features a remarkable blow-up between Guardiola and Kyle Walker in the Anfield dressing room after City lost 2-0 against Liverpool in December 2024. Guardiola is naming individuals who should have done better at certain moments and addresses how Walker lost possession.
“You keep saying my name in every meeting and every fucking thing,” Walker answers back. “Every f***ing meeting, it’s my name.”
Guardiola responds by saying, “Maybe because you’re a captain.”
“You didn’t want me to be a captain,” Walker replies. “I’ve reacted to someone else, I lost the ball, you somehow bring my name into it.”
Guardiola then tears up as he gives his thoughts to the team — this was around a fortnight before he tells them about his divorce following the game in Turin.
“This is my defeat — if I am a problem you have to tell me. I won’t stay here for the money or for the fact just to stay, I don’t want to feel that I have to run away from you.
“If I am a problem, tell me. That is not going to change the love I have for you, not one second.”
Outburst after Bayer Leverkusen defeat
There are snippets throughout the series that highlight how Guardiola can torture himself over his work. After City’s 4-2 defeat against Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League’s league stage, another low point in their worst season, he explains that he did not want to eat, drink or sleep.
At another point, Estiarte and Pep Lijnders, Guardiola’s assistant last season, explain how much the manager beats himself up about leaving players out. It then cuts straight into probably the most remarkable team talk of the four episodes — and it does not belong to the troubled 2024-25 campaign, but to the 2-0 home defeat to Bayer Leverkusen last season when he picked a heavily rotated line-up.
“Maybe I should apologise for making 10 changes,” he tells the squad. “It’s impossible to pay football without courage, but f***ing h*ll, guys. Everyone has to show, ‘I am the best, I’m going to show this f***ing b*****d manager that I am better than the others’.
“I feel f***ing stupid. I arrive here at 8am and I stay hours and hours to try to find something that arrives here in your heart.
“I want to transmit that I love my job, and I want to give it to you, and you don’t give it back, guys. And do you know what is going to happen? You will have another manager.
“When I see one sad f***ing face at the end of the season, I kill you. Guys, I kill you. When I see your f***ing face complaining about something, my decisions, I f***ing kill you.
“When I say, ‘Hi,’ you say, ‘Hi,’ to me. When I say, ‘Hi,’ and hug you, you hug me. Because I work for you, I live my life, my divorce, my family are away and everything, for all of you.
“And what do you give back? The f***ing performance you have done, all of you. It’s a disgrace, guys. F***ing hell.”
After that, voice notes between CEO Ferran Soriano and chairman Al Mubarak show that the leadership are unhappy with Guardiola’s decision, with Al Mubarak sounding particularly annoyed. “Probably one of the lowest points we’ve had,” he says. “I cannot even speak to him today, I am so angry.”
A dressing down for Erling Haaland
In the third episode, Guardiola lays into Erling Haaland at half-time of the FA Cup final at Wembley.
“Are you tired?” he shouts. Haaland says no. “Why don’t you fight for the ball like you have done with (William) Saliba and all the players, in a f***ing final? If you are tired, tell me now. I left f***ing six players out. Six players I’m ashamed of myself for leaving out. Where’s your quality? Movements in behind? The box? Go!
“I love you anyway, Erling, like a father, I love you anyway. But it’s not about that. Nothing else. Show me you want to win.”
Not even star striker Erling Haaland is spared from Pep Guardiola’s demanding standards (Carl Recine/Getty Images)
The circumstances of his exit
It is revealed that Guardiola planned to do a press conference to announce his departure, only to be told by Soriano that the external media should not have the story first.
What comes across in the final episode is that he had not told the players that he was leaving the club until two days before the final game of the season. He gave little away even after the penultimate game of the season, after the news had broken and City’s draw at Bournemouth handed the title to Arsenal.
“Now we have to rest a little bit and prepare for the last game to make a proper farewell for John (Stones), for Bernie (Bernardo Silva), and next season we will be stronger and better and sharper. We did everything but sometimes we admit (defeat), congratulate Arsenal, and keep going. See you tomorrow, allez.”
There is footage of him breaking down in tears as he tries to record the farewell video that accompanies the official announcement of his exit, and of the moment that he breaks the news to his players.
“Don’t ask me the reasons I’m leaving,” he says in a video message shown to the squad. “There is no reason, but deep inside I know it’s my time.”
He is also interviewed in Barcelona several weeks after the season finishes. “Winning gives you the chance to extend your contract, to give you a job, but it’s not the final product of your happiness,” he tells series director Kevin MacDonald.
“It will be difficult to come back. I need to refresh many things. Many things happened in my personal life, and professionally I need to find myself different things, especially sitting and seeing time go by. There is a word in Catalan called ‘badar’, and badar is this…”
He sits there, zoned out. “So I’ll do that.”
