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Cape Town - Manchester City boss Pep Guardiola says he owes his managerial career to the late, great Johan Cruyff.
The 45-year-old former Bayern Munich manager, who learned his trade as a footballer and a coach with Barcelona, admits he was lucky to have met Cruyff, whom he credits for all his successes thus far.
Speaking at the launch of the autobiography Johan Cruyff: My Turn, Guardiola revealed just what the former Ajax and Barca star meant to him as a coach and a person.
He said: "I was a lucky guy, I coached City, Bayern and Barca because I met him.
"I thought I knew about football but when I met him, a whole new world opened in front of me.
"He taught us - not only me, but a generation of players - to understand the game, to understand why you took that decision.
"Football is the most complicated game, it's very open and you have to take a lot of decisions. His impact on people was enormous."
He further added: "He wasn't sitting during training sessions, he was playing with us, but better than us. He would not tell us how to do things, he would do them. Every single training session was a masterclass.
"He had knowledge, charisma, personality. Everyone knows about football, everyone, but there's not many people that you will follow if he tells you to. You followed him.
"He was the most courageous manager I ever met. He believed in the 'efecto mariposa' (butterfly effect), that a good pass at the beginning could create a wonderful thing at the end."
