Revealed: Pep Guardiola made phone call to Arsenal star immediately after winning the Champions League with Manchester City | OneFootball

Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola made a personal phone call to former Etihad Stadium defender and now-Arsenal star, Oleksandr Zinchenko after winning the Treble.

The 2022/23 season culminated in the most historic two-week period in the history of Manchester City Football Club, and is seen by many to be the ultimate icing on the top of Pep Guardiola’s cake at the club.

Having claimed their third successive Premier League title win by holding off competition from Arsenal, City went on to defeat Manchester United in the FA Cup final, before claiming their first-ever UEFA Champions League honour in Istanbul, Turkey.

Manchester City’s historic Treble success was only the second time such a feat has been achieved in English football, and became the second Treble claimed by Pep Guardiola in his illustrious managerial career.

But the Catalan coach is not under the impression that achievements were not without the efforts of those who preceded the group at the time, and the now 53-year-old was keen to personally thank former players for the role they played in the development of the club.

As revealed in a new book released by Oleksandr Zinchenko called ‘Believe’, it has now been revealed that Pep Guardiola phoned the Ukrainian the night Manchester City won the treble in 2023 to say thank you for his contributions to the club.

“I guess no one was sleeping that night, but to get a call from Pep? I couldn’t believe it,” Zinchenko admitted, when referencing the night of Manchester City’s UEFA Champions League in Istanbul back in 2023.

“He said: ‘Alex, you are a big part of this.’ I was fully surprised in a good way,” Zinchenko continued. “I said to him, again, a massive thanks for everything he did for me.

“It shows how good-humoured he could be.”

Oleksandr Zinchenko is widely viewed as one of the most remarkable pieces of transfer business every achieved in the Premier League, having first been signed by Manchester City from FC Ufa in Russia for a fee believed to be around £1.7 million.

After a season loan at PSV in the Netherlands, Zinchenko returned to develop his game under Pep Guardiola and took the opportunity exceptionally well, becoming the club’s mainstay left-sided full-back for a prolonged period of time.

By the end of his career and a £30 million move to Arsenal in the summer of 2022, Zinchenko had amassed 128 appearances across all competitions for Manchester City, winning a staggering 10 trophies in the process.