Guardiola to return next year

Manel Estiarte, former director of external relations at Barcelona, has stressed that Pep Guardiola will return to coaching again next year.

The 41-year-old trainer left the Barca bench at the end of the 2011/12 campaign, saying that he felt exhausted after four stressful seasons in charge of the Catalans, and adding that he intended to take a year-long sabbatical.

And Estiarte, a close friend of Guardiola’s, is confident that the former Spain international will make a comeback in 2013.

“He will return next year. He can’t go without football too long. He will start to look around in December or so. He will not return to coaching in the season that’s about to start, though,” Estiarte told Sport.

Guardiola is being linked with a move to Bayern Munich at the end of the 2012/13 campaign.