Manchester City fitness coach Lorenzo Buenaventura is set to leave the club at the end of the season.
Buenaventura, 63, has worked closely with Pep Guardiola for more than 15 years, having joined the Barcelona staff in 2009, before moving to Bayern Munich and then City.
Goalkeeper coach Xabi Mancisidor, who started working at City before Guardiola’s arrival, is also set to leave the club this summer at the end of his contract.
Buenaventura and Guardiola are extremely close, with the fitness coach working to ensure the physical work done on the training ground dovetails perfectly with how Guardiola wants the players to perform on the pitch.
The departure of two long-term coaches, particularly one as close to Guardiola as Buenaventura, casts further doubt on the City manager’s future beyond this season with the possibility of him also leaving the club this summer.
Former Chelsea head coach Enzo Maresca is considered to be the leading candidate to replace the Catalan if there is a change of manager this summer.
On the day he left Chelsea in January, The Athletic revealed Maresca had informed the club he was talking to people associated with City about his candidacy for the managerial position in the event of it opening in the future.
Those conversations began at the end of 2025, highlighting that City have felt for many months that there is a genuine possibility Guardiola could leave in the summer.
Several different sources in different departments around the City first team are expecting Guardiola to depart, but the 55-year-old is also said to be in high spirits and deeply motivated by the way his young side are finishing the season.
That offers City hope that he will see out the final year of his existing contract, which expires next summer. Guardiola has previously planned to leave the club at the end of a season, only to have changed his mind.
City beat Crystal Palace 3-0 on Wednesday to keep their title race hopes alive with two games remaining. Guardiola made sweeping changes to his team as he prepares to face Chelsea in the FA Cup final on Saturday.
City travel to Bournemouth on Tuesday as they resume league action, before ending the season at home to Aston Villa. Title rivals Arsenal face Burnley at home on Monday and travel to Palace on the final day.
What does this mean for Guardiola’s future?
Those who know the City setup say it is difficult to imagine Guardiola continuing to work at the club without Buenaventura, meaning the fitness coach’s departure can easily be taken as another sign there is about to be a change of manager.
The departure of Mancisidor is not the same in that regard but it would be easy to look at that from the outside and also conclude Guardiola is leaving too.
That has been the direction of travel for months, with many sources around City indicating Guardiola’s time at the Etihad Stadium is coming to an end.
Guardiola and Buenaventura have worked together for more than 15 years (Franck Fife / AFP via Getty Images)
There has been a slight change in atmosphere in recent days, however, and there may be some hope that he will stay after all.
City have been planning for life after Guardiola for some time, and not just in terms of lining up Maresca, but they would be only too happy for the Catalan to continue in charge, even if it meant a change of plan behind the scenes.
If Guardiola is to leave this summer, then the timing of any announcement will be fascinating, as they would surely want to give him a huge send-off following the final game of the season against Villa, the same day City will say goodbye to John Stones and Bernardo Silva.
Any confirmation after the season has finished would surely feel anticlimactic given the extent to which Guardiola has shaped the club and defined an era of the Premier League. Most important, for now, is that City add a 20th trophy to their tally under the Catalan by beating Chelsea on Sunday, but decision time will not be long afterwards.