The Spaniard is into the last year of his City contract and is yet to sign a new deal to keep him at the Etihad. The former Barcelona manager has spoken about becoming a national team boss one day and this week The Athletic claimed the CBF is making a ‘major play’ to bring Guardiola on board and called him on several occasions this year. However, Brazil’s Rodrigues has flat-out denied these reports and has backed current boss Dorival Junior.
He said, via Globo: “I understand that Guardiola is one of the greatest coaches in the world. But we didn’t do any kind of search for him. The coach of the national team is Dorival Júnior.”
Guardiola said last month he will decide on his future soon after an unprecedented amount of success at City over the past eight years. Brazil currently sit fourth in their World Cup qualifying table and pressure is on Dorival Junior to finish their campaign strongly. Perhaps Guardiola will want a less demanding day-to-day job in football and, therefore, could follow former Chelsea manager Thomas Tuchel into a national team job after the German was appointed as England’s next boss.
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Aside from speculation over what Guardiola will do next, his City side travel to Brighton on Saturday evening in a battle between second and eighth in the Premier League respectively.