Hola. Pep here. Man City manager. Roll neck aficionado. One of the few examples your wife is thinking of when she sees your receding hairline and unconvincingly says ‘bald men can be sexy too’. 

Welcome to the chic Manchester penthouse apartment I share with my family and roughly 700 guinea pigs. Please excuse the smell. 

You might wonder why a sophisticated, celebrated European football coach like myself would want to live with several hundred small rodents. Let me explain. Growing up, my parents would never buy me a pet. Not a gecko, not a lemur, not a cat. Nada.

I used this anger to fuel my rise through La Masia and into the first team at Barcelona. My teammates bought sports cars and Rolex watches, but instead I took the bus to my childhood pet store and bought my first guinea pig. The next day, I went back with a duffel bag and bought 27 more. The next day I bought the pet shop. Then I sold it back for a big loss. I had no idea how to run a pet shop.

But the guinea pig addiction stayed. Every goal I scored I splashed out on a new cavy. Every assist. Every Man of the Match award. Before long I had more than 200.

As they only live around five years, since the start of my career I must have owned 30,000, all named after footballers – people I played with, played against or even managed. From little Roy Keane to squeaky Ronaldinho.

As you can see, I let all 700 roam wild and free across my luxury 2,400 square foot loft apartment. I tell them ‘mi casa es tu casa’. They don’t understand, obviously, because they’re guinea pigs. Every fortnight I’ll attempt a headcount, mainly because they burrowed into the lift shaft once, chewed the wires and started a guinea pig bonfire.

Guinea pigs have been responsible for some of my best tactics. The average Guinea is active 20 hours a day. This led me to develop my brand of high-pressure football. I once saw two guinea pigs endlessly rolling a grape back and forth with their snouts. I’m not saying that led to the invention of Tiki Taka football. But it certainly didn’t hurt.

My office door at Man City even has a tiny guinea pig flap in it and – full disclosure – the room absolutely stinks. Some of the best deals I’ve ever landed happened because people just wanted to get out of there. D’you think Dortmund wanted to sell Erling Haaland for just £50m? Did they bollocks. But you try negotiating with the stench of guinea pig urine and seven of them nibbling at your German designer slacks.

Sadly the guinea pigs are now banished to my home after one stowed away in Kevin De Bruyne’s wash bag, jumped out and bit his wife. Fear not though. I’ll soon sell him to the Saudi league and my several hundred adored pets will joyously return to the Etihad.