Role reversal as Juanma Lillo becomes No 2 to Pep Guardiola at Manchester City

Old friend and mentor, whom the Catalan dubbed 'maestro', signs one-year deal to replace Arteta as No 2 at the Etihad

Manchester City's Jaoa Cancelo in action during training at Manchester City Football Academy in Manchester, England. Getty Images)

Manchester City's Bernardo Silva in action during training at Manchester City Football Academy in Manchester, England. Getty Images

Manchester City's Kyle Walker in action during training at Manchester City Football Academy in Manchester, England. Getty Images

Manchester City's Olkesandr Zinchenko in action during training at Manchester City Football Academy in Manchester, England. Getty Images

Manchester City's Phil Foden in action during training at Manchester City Football Academy in Manchester, England. Getty Images

Manchester City's Raheem Sterling in action during training at Manchester City Football Academy in Manchester, England. Getty Images

Manchester City's Pep Guardiola in action during training at Manchester City Football Academy in Manchester, England. Getty Images

Manchester City's Leroy Sane in action during training at Manchester City Football Academy in Manchester, England. Getty Images

It could seem Pep Guardiola’s wilderness months. The former Barcelona captain was nearing the end. He went on trial to an undistinguished, mid-table Manchester City team. They only offered him a six-month deal.

So Guardiola instead headed far off the beaten track to complete his playing career, joining Dorados de Sinaloa in one of Mexico’s most dangerous cities.

The attraction was simple: Juanma Lillo. Guardiola only played 10 games for a club Lillo would steer to relegation, but it constituted an education, conducted on the training pitch, with the midfielder asking why each and every decision was made, and continued in late-night conversations.

Guardiola once said of Louis van Gaal: “He is, along with Juanma Lillo, the manager whom I talked to most.”

Guardiola and Lillo can talk again now, even if there has been role reversal in their relationship.

Now Guardiola is the manager, Lillo his new assistant at City. The 54-year-old has signed a one-year deal, while Guardiola has a season left on his contract.

With a sense of symmetry, he joins as City’s next game is against Guardiola’s former assistant, Mikel Arteta.

Common denominators abound. Lillo has spent the last couple of years managing some of Guardiola’s former Barcelona charges, Andres Iniesta, David Villa and Yaya Toure, with Vissel Kobe and then Qingdao Huanghai, who he took to promotion in China.

He was a sounding board when Guardiola began his managerial career and, while his friend went on to win two Champions Leagues with the senior squad, Lillo once said: “What Pep did with Barca B is greater than what he did later with the first team.”

He cited how “territorial, earthy players” were transformed into parts of a fluent passing, tactically adventurous team.

Another admiring observer of Guardiola’s prowess was Txiki Begiristain, who helped appoint him instead of Jose Mourinho in 2008.

Lillo could have been Barcelona coach himself in 2003 had Lluis Bassat won the presidential elections.

The 32-year-old Guardiola was due to be a youthful sporting director with Ronald Koeman, his old room-mate, and Lillo two candidates to manage the club.

Instead, he has had a peripatetic career. Lillo never played professionally but a 37-year coaching career has taken him to three continents.

He was the youngest manager in La Liga history when, at just 29, he took Salamanca up while pioneering 4-2-3-1.

When at Oviedo, he was surprised to get a knock on the dressing-room door after a 4-2 defeat to Barcelona. It was Guardiola, praising him for the way he set his side up and asking to stay in touch.

Guardiola’s greatest influence was Johan Cruyff. Nevertheless, he once called Lillo “the greatest coach I had.”

Like another of Guardiola’s coaching heroes, Lillo is a stranger to silverware. He has never won a trophy but the City manager does not use the same criteria as most others.

The intellectual in him has always been interested in ideas and he has been known to describe Marcelo Bielsa as the best manager in the world.

He once drove the 300 kilometres from Buenos Aires to Rosario to spend 11 hours talking football with Bielsa, the current Leeds manager and a fellow obsessive.

Bielsa famously took 2,000 DVDs to the 2002 World Cup. Lillo had a library of 10,000 newspaper and magazine cuttings. Guardiola tapped into that knowledge.

“Guardiola is a sponge, he learns from everyone because for him anywhere is a good place to talk about football,” Lillo said.

Now the Etihad Campus will be a fine place for the manager and the mentor he has called “maestro.” And while Lillo was sacked as Almeria manager after an 8-0 defeat to Guardiola’s Barcelona, they are on the same team this time.