Noel Gallagher has spoken about his friendship with Pep Guardiola ahead of Sunday's game between Manchester City and Liverpool
(Image credit: Getty Images)
Noel Gallagher has opened up on his friendship with Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola – and how his Liverpool supporting band mates react to the Catalan coach.
City face Liverpool in a crunch clash in the Premier League on Sunday afternoon, with the champions looking to move above the reds in the pursuit of a fourth title in a row and a sixth in seven seasons.
Ahead of that match, Gallagher was asked about his friendship with Guardiola on The Friday Football Social on BBC 5 Live Sport and said: "This stems from the first interview he ever did, City asked me to meet him at the club, I was there the day he met Vincent Kompany at the club, I've seen that meeting for the first time, it was amazing.
"And they asked me to interview him for the club website thing, it was all football, and at the end of the interview he said to me, 'can I have your phone number?' Err, yeah… and he started texted me about, what are the fans like? About the city and that kind of thing, and we just stayed friends after that…"
The former Oasis star and High Flying Birds frontman also revealed that his current band mates are Liverpool fans and how they react around Guardiola.
"He's quite funny," he said. "Yeah he comes to my gigs and, my band has got three Scousers in it, they’re all Liverpool fans, we’re all football fans, and when he comes in the dressing room there’s a kind of like 'uh, wow!'
"He's kind of like a proper legend who changed the game of football, there's not many people who changed football do you know what I mean? And he’s one of them, amazing fella, when you spend time with him, you can see why his players run through brick walls for him, you see why players run themselves into the ground for him, he's got that thing, he's a wizard."
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Gallagher also offered some insight into their conversations, revealing that he always wants to talk about football while Pep is keen to focus on music:
"He loves music," he said. "He's very knowledgable on it, he loves British music, he loves British culture as well, he's a piece of work let me tell you. He's amazing.
"This is the same with any footballer you ever meet – they all want to talk about music, you want to talk about football. And the footballers are all like, 'it’s just my job, it's what I do’, musicians are just like, 'it’s what we do', but like obviously we’re all massive football fans and we’re fascinated by it.
"Footballers are fascinated by musicians as well, and the thing we have in common is that we’re all performers and we perform for fans and all that kind of thing, so I think there’s a connection, and it’s generally all working class lads as well, but yeah I’m always trying to talk about football, who’s playing left-back… and he's always talking about songs and where they come from and all of that kind of thing. It's a real pleasure to get texts from him from time to time, I get voicemails from him from time to time… gonna sit down now and press this, yeah he’s a dude man."
Noel Gallagher and Pep Guardiola after Manchester City's game against Huddersfield in May 2018. (Image credit: Getty Images)
"There’s been a few times when my City mates have been like 'what’s he playing at there?' and I'm just like, mate, 'what do you want me to say?'
"I wouldn't offer opinions, he wouldn't ask me anyway… if somebody offered an opinion on what I do, I'd be pretty upset, do you know what I mean? So I'm just a fan and very respectful, and luckily he's a fan of mine as well… so it's great!"
Ben Hayward is the Weekend Editor of FourFourTwo. A European football writer and Tottenham Hotspur fan with over 15 years’ experience, he has covered games all over the world - including three World Cups, several Champions League finals, Euros, Copa America - and has spent much of that time in Spain. Ben speaks English and Spanish, currently dividing his time between Barcelona and London, covering all the big talking points of the weekend on FFT: he’s also written several list features and interviewed Guglielmo Vicario for the magazine.
