Amazon’s A Beautiful Obsession offers unvarnished view of Pep Guardiola’s final Manchester City seasons

Pep Guardiola and Amazon’s four-part documentary A Beautiful Obsession, filmed and controlled by Manchester City, presents a candid account of the manager’s final two seasons at the club and will be shown from Wednesday on Prime. The series focuses particularly on the turbulent 2024-25 campaign, during which City endured a mid-winter run that featured nine defeats and one victory in 13 games.

The programme does not act as a hagiography of Guardiola or his squad, instead addressing personal and institutional strains including the manager’s divorce, tension with the club hierarchy and the decision not to extend Kevin De Bruyne’s contract. It documents specific low points such as the 2-0 Champions League home defeat by Bayer Leverkusen — when Guardiola selected 10 different outfield players — and the 2-0 loss to Juventus on 11 December 2024, which the manager framed as City’s seventh reverse in 10 games.

Guardiola speaks openly about his private life in the series, linking his divorce to his state of mind on the touchline. He says: “I’m fucking divorced from the most beautiful woman on your planet,” and adds, “I love her unbelievably, but we lost the passion. How do you play football, because you are paid? Or because of something inside? Where is the passion?” Manuel Estiarte, the club’s director of first-team operations, tells players about the breakup, saying: 'Please, you have to understand, you’re not playing with a coach who can be a bit impulsive, intense, sometimes a bit up and down. You’re seeing a human being. He’s getting a divorce.'

Episode one, titled “The Desert”, captures a confrontation after Kyle Walker’s error at Anfield led to Luis Díaz winning a penalty converted by Mohamed Salah in a 2-0 defeat, a moment that precedes Walker’s departure in January 2025. Guardiola is shown close to tears as he challenges the squad over captaincy and accountability, saying: “If captains first, then the other ones, for example [feel] that there’s a problem, tell me. It’s not going to change the love I have for all of you. I’m sorry.” The sequence includes the detail that Guardiola had signed a new contract 11 days earlier.

Episode two, named The Rebuild, covers the club’s decision not to offer De Bruyne a new deal and the emotional aftermath. Ferran Soriano stresses to Khaldoon al-Mubarak that “Kevin gets the respect he deserves as the greatest player in the modern history of City,” while the series shows Guardiola describing how De Bruyne “broke down in his office” and the Belgian visibly upset when asked what he will miss most, saying: “My kids don’t want to go.” The documentary depicts the choice to move on from De Bruyne as requiring a degree of coldness.

The Leverkusen defeat and Guardiola’s controversial team selection draw explicit criticism from City’s hierarchy in the film. Soriano says: “Our attitude with Pep Guardiola should not be too negative. But it shouldn’t be too kind or accommodating either. This is his mistake this time,” and Khaldoon declares: “To pick an entire new [outfield] team in a game this important is probably one of the lowest points we’ve had. I can’t speak to him – I’m so angry.” Khaldoon also describes City as a “machine built for winning” within the series’ narrative.

Part four, titled “Nothing Is Eternal,” ends on a brighter club note as City claim the Carabao Cup and the FA Cup — trophies the film counts among 20 in a decade for Guardiola, including three Community Shields — and finish second in the league. With the rebuild portrayed as complete, Guardiola receives a send-off before the next phase of his life and says: “Life should not just be about football. It’s too much to be honest.”