I learned as much from Neil Warnock as I did Pep Guardiola, now I’m making my way as a manager in the EFL at 36
NARCIS PELACH can name-drop for fun when he talks about some of the great managers he has learnt from.
Top of the list is Pep Guardiola. There was also Marcelo Bielsa.
As a coach at Girona he was assistant to Juan Carlos Unzue, who spent six years working under Guardiola at Barcelona.
And in the same breath there is . . . Neil Warnock, forever known as The Warlock thanks to his reputation for being a master of the dark arts of football.
For many, the old-timer’s in-yer-face philosophy is about as far from the Beautiful Game and cerebral thinkers like Pep and Bielsa as it gets.
But Pelach – known affectionately as Chicho – will not hear a word said against Warnock when he describes how important he was in furthering the higher education that won him his first job as a boss with Stoke City.
The 36-year-old said: “For me to work under Neil Warnock and Ronnie Jepson, I cannot explain how grateful I am. It was a brilliant experience to have.
“Neil told me, ‘You’re going to see some tricks here — you will see some things you have never seen’. He was right.”
Thanks to his friendship with Unzue, Pelach was also granted a week to shadow Guardiola at the Etihad.
And he became mates with fellow Spaniard Carlos Corberan, who was one of Bielsa’s coaches at Leeds during the first two years of the maverick Argentinian’s wild ride at Elland Road.
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Corberan allowed him a deep dive into Bielsa’s ways before becoming manager of Huddersfield and making Pelach a coach.
It was there, too, that Warnock made such a huge impression on him.
At the age of 74, he came out of retirement to keep the Terriers in the Championship after taking over when they were seven points from safety in the 2022-23 campaign.
Pelach talks about his days watching and talking to Guardiola with reverence, and he knows he owes Unzue, as well as Corberan for showing him Bielsa’s magic.
But Warnock was just as special to him through the five years he studied and worked his way up in English football.
Pelach said: “It was such an enjoyable time for me and I think he is a manager that all English people should be proud of.
“The training methods are different, of course, but he is not so much a coach as a man–management manager.
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“In four months I saw lots of things that you can do with one squad to make them successful – and I was never going to see that anywhere else.
“Was that experience as valuable in its way as spending a week shadowing Pep?
“Of course, yes – even if Pep is the best manager in the world, the best in history and he has a power about him.
“I will never forget when he was talking to me the first time. I never wanted that conversation to end.
“I have spoken to some players who were under him and they all said, ‘When Pep comes into the dressing room and talks, you just want him to stay there’.
“It is not just his knowledge. It is his pure love for football — the charisma, the aura, the certainty of sticking to what you believe in and what you want to do.
Pep Guardiola set for final Man City season
By Martin Blackburn
AFTER eight glorious years of stability, Manchester City now head into an uncertain 12 months.
And Saturday’s FA Cup final defeat to neighbours United was a reminder that this glittering and unforgettable era will not go on for ever.
Around this time in 2025, City will be preparing for the highly-lucrative Fifa Club World Cup in the US.
Yet in all likelihood they will also be getting ready to say their goodbyes to manager Pep Guardiola, who has brought so much success to the east side of Manchester.
Meanwhile, there could be a verdict on 115 charges of financial irregularity which have been levelled at the club by Premier League chiefs.
The suggestion is the hearing could start later this year but is likely to take several months to reach a conclusion.
City continue to deny any wrongdoing and are confident they will be cleared by the independent commission.
Read Martin Blackburn’s full column here.
“That week was a fantastic experience but it was the same with Neil.
“I value all of those I have worked for or learnt from Pep, Bielsa, Carlos Corberan, David Wagner at Norwich City.
“Juan Carlos Unzue, too, who taught me so much and worked not only with Pep but with Frank Rijkaard, Luis Enrique. He was a player under Johan Cruyff.
“The months I was there with him at Girona I learnt the Barcelona philosophy and he said I had to go on this journey.
“I value them all of them just the same – and Neil Warnock as much as any of them.”
Pelach, who is ten games into his new job after coaching at the Canaries, is likely to need to be more Warnock than Guardiola to restore the soul the Potters lost after relegation from the Prem in 2018.
He is the sixth full-time manager since they dropped into the Championship.
And ahead of Saturday’s home game against Millwall, he added: “History says in these last years that no one has been capable to change that mood.
“But I come with energy and belief and all the knowledge I have been so fortunate to gain in these five years – my coaching dissertation was based on 1,000 games.
“I want to be the man who changes the mood, who gets Stoke back up to where it belongs. That is my dream.”