Pellegrini on Man City, Guardiola, West Ham & Chile ambition

Manuel Pellegrini is about to begin his 37th season as a coach.

The 70-year-old Chilean has had a remarkable career, managing clubs in six countries, winning trophies in five – and he estimates he has been in charge for more than 1,500 games.

Pellegrini is best known in England for his stints at Real Madrid, Manchester City – where he won the Premier League, EFL Cup and took the club into their first Champions League semi-final – and West Ham, where was sacked after 18 months in charge with the club 17th in the table.

But he also won league titles in Argentina with San Lorenzo and River Plate, and took La Liga club Villarreal to the Champions League semi-finals for the first time in 2006.

Pellegrini is currently coach at Real Betis.

Under him, the Spanish club won the Copa del Rey in 2022 and this season will compete in the Uefa Conference League, their fourth successive European campaign, something they have never managed before.

He spoke to BBC Sport about his career on Betis’ pre-season trip to San Diego.

I knew before I signed they wanted Pep Guardiola. [Sporting director] Txiki [Begiristain] and [chief executive] Ferran Soriano had worked with him at Barcelona.

They talked with me three or four months before and said they were going for Pep, but if Pep wasn’t going to be their coach, I was.

Pep then went to Bayern Munich. I worked there for three years and changed the style of [Roberto] Mancini, which is what they wanted, and they were successful.

It is not the same Manchester City as it is today. In the first year we bought players, but in the second we couldn’t improve the team because we had a Uefa punishment. The third year we improved with Raheem Sterling and Kevin de Bruyne.

After that, Manchester City continued investing a lot of money in good players to get a better team. Maybe today, with Real Madrid, they are one of the two best teams in the world.

I didn’t have a problem to leave. I knew they would continue growing because they are very ambitious and know how to develop football.

When you work with Txiki and Ferran, you know they will not fire you because of a couple of results. I knew I would finish my contract. They give you a lot of security.

The club continued to grow and is still growing. After I had important offers – especially in Italy – but for different reasons I couldn’t do it. Three years in Manchester was enough.

I am sure the fans of Manchester City are really happy with the way the club works and the way they play and the trophies they have won during all these years.

Always you have criticism about a lot of things.

Coming back to England with West Ham was maybe not my best decision, but I did it because I wanted to return to the Premier League.

The first season was not bad. But the club was exactly the opposite of Manchester City. They had two or three bad moments and they wanted to change the manager.

They knew I left a lot of things to go to West Ham. I had a contract in China. I changed a lot of things. The aspiration to fight for better started in the first year I was there. They invested more money.

For different reasons you can have bad moments. But in that moment, as a manager, you must be sure the owners will continue. They did so many things for me to go to West Ham, but the first thing that went wrong, they sacked me. That is not the style of club that I like.

The West Ham fans are unbelievable – 50,000 every game with the passion for the team. I have no complaints about the fans because they were always with me.

Looking back, when I finished in China, if I waited a little bit more I could have had another club. But West Ham were keen and convinced me.

When you achieve what a club needs to achieve, that is success. I can’t pretend I can win La Liga or the Champions League with Betis, but we have had four successful years.

When we won the cup [Copa del Rey], it was unbelievable – 300,000 people on the streets.

I worked for Malaga. They had the most successful seasons in their history. When we lost to Borussia Dortmund [in the Champions League quarter-finals] there were 5,000 people at the airport waiting for the team at 4am.

I worked at Villarreal, exactly the same. If you want to win titles there it will be difficult, but if you want the best season in the history of the club, you must be very satisfied.

Of course not. They have worked for a lot of years in big teams and have won a lot of titles.

But I don’t compare myself to other managers. I compare myself with me. I have won what I have done, I have worked 24 years in a row out of my own country and have had the best season at three or four clubs in my career.

That gives me the same satisfaction as winning four or five titles with a big team. I am proud of my career.

To finish my career I would like to manage my national squad, Chile.

But I always preferred clubs because I like to work with players every day. You can improve them and talk with them.

In the national squad, you work in an office for the most part of the year. You get the players for two games in five days and then they return to their clubs. It is difficult to work in that way.

I had three or four offers to be the national coach in Chile. I hope someday I will do it but for now I have my contract in Betis.

Music. All of it. Spanish, English. ’60s, ’70s, ’80s… ’90s was not so good.

I always say music gives you a different style of mood. You are happy and sad, you remember things. Music fills a lot of my life. The Beatles. Frank Sinatra. Boleros. Elvis.