Sporting Giants - Pep Guardiola: Who is the Manchester City boss on and off the field?
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What is it really like to play under 'genius' Guardiola?
The second half of a new four-part Sporting Giants podcast series about Pep Guardiola has dropped on BBC Sounds - and it offers a fascinating insight into the second half of the career of the all-conquering Manchester City boss.
The first two parts focus on the 53-year-old's glittering career firstly as a player - and then, most notably, as a manager with Barcelona.
In four years at the Nou Camp, Guardiola won 14 trophies, including three La Liga, two Champions League and two Copa del Rey titles.
However, in 2012, feeling burnt out, the Spaniard Guardiola made a shock decision to quit Barcelona and head to New York for a year off from the game.
Sporting Giants digs deep into the star coach's American sabbatical.
Without football - who is Pep Guardiola?
Prior to his New York getaway, Guardiola had not had a proper break from the game since he joined Barcelona's academy La Masia aged just 13 and that's why he felt the need for some downtime.
As well as honing his golf swing and playing cards with his family, Guardiola spent a lot of time in a Columbia University classroom, attending economics lectures given by his friend and former Barcelona treasurer Xavier Sala-i-Martin.
"He was very happy in New York," Sala-i-Martin said. "His wife and his three children were very happy too. It's perhaps the only year in their lives that they could be full-time together, at dinner together without worrying about next Sunday's game."
Sala-i-Martin remembers that his friend would "ask a lot of questions," during classes, saying that Guardiola had, "an immense curiosity" about, "things that had nothing to do with football".
He said: "He was asking me about economics, about things that were clearly not related to his profession.
"His main source of success is his creativity. His ability to change teams. You cannot innovate unless you are curious - unless you ask questions."
Kimmich left Bayern Munich training sessions with 'a massive headache'
When Guardiola eventually returned to the game with Bayern Munich in the summer of 2013, being questioned was not an option - at least for his players.
Bayern captain Manuel Neuer tells the Sporting Giants podcast of Guardiola's intensity in training.
"If you didn't manage it, he could get furious," goalkeeper Neuer explains.
"Sometimes he stopped a drill, sent us to the dressing room and said, 'There's no point', because he noticed the boys' heads weren't in it."
Neuer says that Guardiola was "obsessed" with detail and that if training sessions weren't going to his liking, he would reprimand players, telling them: "If you don't want to learn it then you won't."
German journalist Rafa Honigstein relays an anecdote about Bayern Munich midfielder Joshua Kimmich which tells of Pep's intensity.
He said: "I remember Joshua Kimmich telling a colleague of mine that he came off every training session with a massive headache because of the amount of things he needed to think about on the pitch.
"Half of the time the players didn't quite understand why they were supposed to be doing things, but they eventually figured out that these things made it easier for them to play the game."
'He's coming then?' - Gallagher on Guardiola
Manchester City fan Noel Gallagher kicks off episode four of Sporting Giants - entitled "He changed the game" - with an anecdote about how he found out Pep was bound for Etihad Stadium.
Rumours of Guardiola's arrival in Manchester were rife long before the deal was officially announced in February 2016.
"I remember I was at some City game…Txiki Begiristain, Ferran Soriano and Khaldoon al-Mubarak were stood having a chat," he says. "I'd had a drink so I went over and said: 'He's coming then? So we're getting Pep?'
"And the moment I knew he was coming was when they all looked at each other as if to say: 'Who's told him?'"
Despite leading both Barcelona and Bayern to trophies galore - including three Bundesliga titles on the spin - Pep's first season in England ended without any silverware.
He soon righted that wrong, winning the Premier League title with a record 100 points in the following campaign - the first of five league titles in six seasons with City.
However, the Champions League eluded City with Guardiola - and his players - acutely aware of the oft-stated criticism of the Spaniard. Overthinking.
'He was always like that' - Gundogan on 'Pep the overthinker'
"Yeah I was aware of it, to be honest," said Ilkay Gundogan. "But if you know Pep and you know how he is, he just thinks a lot about the game. About how he can improve his teams. He was always like that.
"So I don't think it was something he was doing especially for the Champions League or the big games. Pep was always like that."
And finally, what of the idea and argument that Guardiola is the best ever.
Guardiola's boss Begiristain puts it beyond doubt. "Johan Cruyff is somewhere looking at us now, and he's not going to be angry if I say that Pep is the best ever."