Cardiff City's new Irish boss opens up on how Pep Guardiola 'changed my life'

Irish Daily Mirror

3 days ago

New Cardiff City boss Brian Barry-Murphy has said that working under Pep Guardiola 'changed my life'.
The Cork man will take charge of his first competitive game as The Bluebirds host Peterborough United in the League One opener on Saturday having just left Leicester City, where he worked as first team coach under Ruud van Nistelrooy.
Prior to that, he spent three years working under Guardiola at Manchester City, where he managed the club's Elite Development Squad, and outlined how the Catalan pledged to support him once he broke out as a manager in his own right.
'He's very generous, if demanding,' said Barry-Murphy. 'He always told me whenever I got into something like this that he would be there for me so I'm very grateful for everything I learned there.
'Essentially, in a footballing context, it changed my life because of the insight into, I suppose, more than anything, the training and providing the syllabus for the players to play the way that they play so I took so much from it and it gave me a great sense of direction to what I wanted to achieve. I always had a real deep belief in the way that the game should be played but essentially what I got there was an understanding of how to train that to bring it to life so yeah, I'm always in close contact with those guys,' he told Sky Sports News. Former Leicester City coach Brian Barry-Murphy (Image: (Photo by Plumb Images/Leicester City FC via Getty Images))
Barry-Murphy, 47, who is the son of Cork GAA legend Jimmy, is not a novice in managerial terms having had a two-year spell in charge of Rochdale, one of six clubs that he played for in England's lower leagues, before joining City in 2021.
'I wish I knew back then what I know now but that's what life is like - you improve as you go and you experience different things and what I got there [at City] was an understanding and a way to do certain things and essentially a way of working that could give me the outcomes I wanted.
'One of the biggest things Pep spoke to me about was understanding where you are, what club it is and what people you're representing and the supporters here are passionate beyond belief for this club. We've sold 14,000 season tickets for this season already, which is a lot more than last season.
'That energy from the supporters is very important because we have to understand as a group of staff and players who are representing, what kind of football they want to see and I guess what I acquired from Manchester City was despite all the things that are spoken about Pep, one of the most important things is understanding where you are, what part of the world you're representing and giving them the football that satisfies them and gives them a real means out of life.'
Former Wales and Real Madrid star Gareth Bale has been linked with a takeover at Cardiff though Barry-Murphy says 'that type of stuff is way beyond my pay grade'.
He added: 'I would say the support I've had from the owner, Vincent [Tan, owner], and from Ken [Choo, chief executive]and Mehmet [Dalman, chairman] especially has been constant and really on board and aligned with my way of working. I presented a vision to them of what I believe the club can achieve and it does involve recruiting a certain calibre of player that can add and enhance the squad and they've been totally on board with that.
'But they understand that it's going to be a patient process and we may have to wait slightly longer than they have done previously to acquire quality rather than quantity and that's still very much the mantra that we're looking to work towards while still understanding that we now have the bones of four weeks to add to that squad with the specific players we want.'