Toto Wolff’s admission about Mercedes signing Max Verstappen and George Russell situation​

Pep Guardiola has said he would not want to start again at another club when his contract at Manchester City is up but has not ruled out taking on a national team.

The Catalan manager has signed a two-year extension to his City contract through to 2027 and said international management is a possibility when he leaves the four-time defending Premier League champions.

“I’m not going to manage another team. I’m not talking about the long-term future, but what I’m not going to do is leave Man City, go to another country, and do the same thing as now,” Guardiola told celebrity chef Dani Garcia in an interview broadcast this week.

“I wouldn’t have the energy. The thought of starting somewhere else, all the process of training and so on. No, no, no! Maybe a national team, but that’s different.”

Guardiola is widely considered one of the greatest football coaches of all time after a trophy-laden career with Barcelona, Bayern Munich and City.

He has won 15 major trophies with City, including six league titles in seven years and the Champions League.

By the time his contract expires, he will have spent 11 years at the Etihad Stadium.

He has won 32 major trophies during his coaching career, including league titles in Spain and Germany and a total of three Champions League trophies.

He has not ruled out leaving coaching entirely when his time at City is up.

“I want to leave it and go and play golf but I can’t. I think stopping would do me good,” he said.

PLZEN, Czechia — Ruben Amorim has admitted that Dan Ashworth’s shock departure from Manchester United is “not the best situation,” but insisted Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s vision for the future of the club remains on track.

Ashworth was heralded by Ratcliffe as a key addition when he was appointed as sporting director in July.

But he left his role on Sunday just five months after arriving from Newcastle in a deal which cost the club more than £3 million ($3.8m). Technical director Jason Wilcox is set to step up and lead recruitment ahead of the January transfer window.

Speaking for the first time since Ashworth’s surprise exit, Amorim said: “The first thing I want to say since the first day I felt great support from the ownership, from [CEO] Omar [Berrada], from Jason, and Dan was part of that.

“But this is football and sometimes this happens. It happens with players and with coaches. I know it’s not the best situation, but the important thing is we continue in our way. The path is really clear for everybody and I think this can happen in football.

“I felt since day one the support from everybody, one person leaving doesn’t change anything. The most important thing is the vision is really clear and that doesn’t change if one person leaves.”

With Wilcox now heading up United’s recruitment team, sources have told ESPN that United are open to offers for a number of first-team players in January as they look to raise funds to reinvest in the squad.

Amorim is only a month into his job at Old Trafford after succeeding Erik ten Hag.

The 39-year-old has rotated his team in his five games in charge to have a closer look at his players, but has warned his stars that if they don’t perform they’ll have to leave.

“We have to focus on what we have, we have to focus on the academy and to have a clear profile of the players,” Amorim said.

“You can see at set pieces, sometimes you look at our team, we are a small team compared to others, every detail counts and we have to be very clear in the profiles, arrange all the process and go to that phase of buying and selling players.

“We have international players, good players. We need time to teach them our ideas and then we will see because this is a massive club. If we don’t win, the coach goes, the player goes, so you have to know that.

“We have to improve as a team, we have to arrange a lot of things in our club before thinking just in buying or selling players.”

Amorim and his players have arrived in Czechia ahead of their Europa League game against Viktoria Plzen on Thursday.

United are looking to win away in Europe for the first time since beating Real Betis in April 2023. A positive result would also boost their chances of qualifying for the round of 16 and avoid a two-legged playoff in February.

Viktoria Plzen haven’t lost a home game since March and beat Real Sociedad 2-1 in their last Europa League game at Doosan Arena.

“It’s really important to go to the next stage,” Amorim said.

“If you pass to the next stage without a playoff we take two games off our schedule. For us it’s massive. It’s really important to win the game and to play well. Tomorrow will be really, really tough.”

The 2034 World Cup will be held in Saudi Arabia and the 2030 World Cup will be held across Morocco, Portugal and Spain with three one-off matches held in three South American countries, FIFA confirmed in an extraordinary general congress on Wednesday.

The decision was announced by FIFA president Gianni Infantino following a virtual congress. The 2030 and 2034 World Cups each had only a single bid and both were confirmed by acclamation.

“We are bringing football to more countries and the number of teams has not diluted the quality. It actually enhanced the opportunity,” Infantino said about the 2030 World Cup.

Saudi Arabia was the only bidder for the 2034 edition of tournament.

The 211 member federations were also presented with a sole voting option for the 2030 competition in which Uruguay, Paraguay and Argentina — who had earlier promoted a rival co-hosting bid — will each host one match to start the tournament.

This will allow FIFA to stage the opening game in the Uruguayan capital of Montevideo, where the Centenario Stadium hosted the inaugural 1930 World Cup final a century earlier.

In 2023, FIFA said that the 2034 World Cup would be held in the Asia or Oceania region, with the Asian Football Confederation throwing its support behind the Saudi bid.

Australia and Indonesia had also been in talks over a joint bid, but dropped out.

FIFA announced that both bids would be uncontested in 2023, leaving little room for doubt.

On Tuesday, the Norwegian Football Federation (NFF) said it would vote against the awarding of hosting rights by acclamation and criticized FIFA’s bidding process, saying it was “flawed and inconsistent”.

All host nations will get automatic entry to the newly expanded 48-team tournament.

FIFA is facing a battle against Europe’s major leagues, including the Premier League and LaLiga, over plans for a winter World Cup in Saudi Arabia with sources telling ESPN that “concrete agreement” would be needed from leagues and players for the fixture calendar to be hit by such disruption.

Information from Reuters was used in this report.