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Toe Poke Daily: Manchester City boss Pep Guardiola does matchday stress like no one else

The Toe Poke Daily is here every day to bring you all the weirdest stories, quirkiest viral content and top trolling that the internet has to offer, all in one place.

There aren't many jobs out there more challenging, stressful, precarious or scrutinised than being a professional football manager. But you'd think a coach with a CV like Pep Guardiola -- who has won multiple league titles in Spain, Germany and England as well as two Champions Leagues with Barcelona -- might be somewhat immune to the stresses of the job.

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And you'd be wrong. Turns out the Spaniard feels anxiety just as much as his colleagues, if not more so, based on some pictures of him before and during games through the years (and a few shockers as recently as this season).

To whit, here is the all-conquering coach before Saturday's game at Everton. Is this a man calmly going through final preparations for the most expensive set of players ever assembled, or one scared he's throwing a team of hapless part-timers out on to the Goodison Park pitch?

Or how about the woeful figure Guardiola cut before City opened their Premier League title defence against West Ham this season? Ahem, they ran out 5-0 winners, but you'd never know it from this prematch picture.

Then there was the City's third game of the season against Bournemouth. As gutted as Pep looks prematch, they'd be ahead at the break and win 3-1.

Here's one that's at least a little more fitting. The head in hand proved prescient as City would lose their first match of the 2019-20 season 3-2 to Norwich after this photo was taken.

OK, OK, but surely he wasn't as stressed out during those days in Catalonia as his teams won all there was to win in Spain and Europe? Guess Pep was stressed in Barca, too.

The above picture was taken ahead of winning two games to hoist the 2011 Audi Cup in Munich. And he took those nerves to Bayern with him as well, justifiably so in this prematch presser before his former Barcelona team bounced Bayern from the Champions League semifinals in 2015.

The City boss looked absolutely devastated for the Community Shield against Liverpool in August, but he pulled out a shootout win against Jurgen Klopp's team (the German boss no stranger to a wide array of facial expressions himself).

More prematch trepidation in 2016, right before his former charge Lionel Messi scored a hat trick against Pep's City side in a 4-0 Champions League group stage drubbing.

And don't think Guardiola's worry-wart personality doesn't rear its head in the Carabao Cup, evidenced by the crinkled brow before playing Championship side Preston North End. No surprise, the 3-0 result was never in doubt.

All of which poses the question: Is this stress linked to all of Pep's success, or is he just like the rest of us when it comes to workplace worry?

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