Pep Guardiola: Another Way of Winning: The Biography

by Balague, Guillem

  ‘That summer nobody outside the club had any faith in Pep, nor the team,’ Gerard Piqué, one of Pep’s first signings, recalls now. The papers were full of negative opinions about Pep’s controversial appointment: ‘it was too soon for him’, ‘surely he was too inexperienced’ went the consensus. But then again, FC Barcelona and Pep Guardiola didn’t do things like everyone else.

  Part III

  Pep, the Manager

  1

  THE BEGINNINGS

  The gift of opportunity – you either have it or you don’t. And Guardiola’s appointment had it. It had been a hard few years for the Catalans. The debate over the new Catalan Constitution, that demanded more independence from central government, exposed the lack of enthusiasm the rest of the country had in understanding the Catalans’ need to differentiate themselves from the rest of Spain. Rijkaard’s Barcelona was suffering an unstoppable decline into decadence, the dressing room lacking discipline and team spirit. The star of the team, Ronaldinho, had lost his status as the most exciting player on the planet. The president, Joan Laporta, facing a motion of censure, had only just survived in office. Catalan self-esteem was at its lowest ebb for decades.

  At that point Pep Guardiola was appointed first team coach of FC Barcelona.

  Pep lacked the complete support of the Barcelona fanbase. Some of those who did back him felt that his status would at least make the wins sweeter and the defeats easier to swallow; after all, never before had a ball boy from the Camp Nou progressed through the youth ranks, captained the first team and then returned to the club as coach. Pep understood the Barcelona mentality perfectly and he knew what was being taught at La Masía. As well as a symbol of the club and a son of the Cruyff school of thought, he represented a way of understanding football as an educative process. On many levels, it was a match made in heaven.

  On the day of his official presentation as coach of Barcelona, Guardiola made it very clear that he knew what he had to do and, with his parents looking on, he outlined his project.

  However, in the minds of the many onlookers – even his supporters – was the nagging doubt that, after just twelve months in charge of a reserve side, his extremely limited experience as a coach was inadequate preparation for the colossal task ahead; and there were many who suspected that his appointment by Laporta was little more than a cynical ploy to boost the president’s popularity and an attempt to exploit the club’s prodigal son as a shield against the growing criticism of his tenure. There were also those who questioned whether Pep, as much as they had adored him as a player, was simply too fragile, too sensitive and lacking in the strength of character required.

  Pep was aware of the doubts, but he never asked for a honeymoon period, patience or time to make mistakes: it was clear to him that he had to hit the ground running and get off to a winning start. Guardiola knew as well as anybody the expectations that come with the territory at a big club, where winning is an obligation, defeat always the fault of the coach.

  ‘I feel strong,’ announced Pep. ‘I’m ready to overcome this challenge and believe me: if I didn’t feel that, I wouldn’t be here. It will be a tough journey, but I will persevere. The team will run, in case you are worried about that. I will forgive them if they don’t grasp it at first – but I will not forgive them for not trying. Absolutely not.

  ‘I am the leader, they follow me and we will achieve. They should follow me.

  ‘I know that we have to start work quickly and intensively, whoever wants to be with us from the start will be welcomed. And the rest, we will win them over in the future.’

  Tito Vilanova, his former La Masía stable mate and assistant with the B team, would be his right-hand man with the first team, too: ‘At the start of the season he told me, not as advice, because he isn’t the type of person to give advice, that we should do what we believe we should do. We have to apply our own idea, we’ll see if we win or lose, but we’ll do it our way.

  ‘There is not a single trainer, nor player, that can guarantee success at the start of a season,’ Guardiola wrote a decade ago. ‘Nor are there magic formulae. If there were, this game of football would be as easy as going to the “solutions shop” and buying them all. And in our house, because it is strong, we would pay whatever the cost for Barça to be unbeatable. But, clearly, as that is impossible, each club searches for the way to reach their initial objectives, and applying a dose of common sense should be enough. Therefore, it is about knowing what you want and what type of players you need to reach your goal. Because Barça is such a big team, it is in a position to have both things: it can choose the way it plays and what type of players it wants.’

  To begin with, this meant two significant things: continuing and persisting with the model of play and getting rid of Ronaldinho, Deco and Eto’o.

  Armchair fans might think that managing a team of superstars, with the best players in the world at your disposal, is about as straightforward as picking the biggest names in a video game. But managing the egos and personalities in a dressing room at the Camp Nou, under the spotlight of the world’s media, with the weight of expectation of an entire nation upon your shoulders must be overwhelming for a thirty-seven-year-old in his first job managing a first team. And that thirty-seven-year-old was about to sever his ties with three of the greatest footballers to have played for the club in recent times.

  ‘We’re thinking about the squad without them,’ Pep announced during his presentation, flanked by the club president, Joan Laporta, and sporting director, Txiki Beguiristain. ‘That’s the way I think after analysing questions of performance in the time they have been with the team, and also less tangible questions. It is for the good of the team.

  ‘If they stay in the end, I will give everything so that they join us at the right level.’

  It was a revelation. Pep’s common-sense approach, his communication skills and the feeling of authenticity you got from his talks, was just the tonic for a club that had, once again, demonstrated its ability to hit the self-destruct button when all seemed to be going so well. Pep Guardiola’s press conference conveyed a message of stability, integrity, commitment and responsibility. In the end, Pep won most of the doubters over with a clever ploy, a few well-chosen words and a single bold decision.

  Txiki Beguiristain agreed with Guardiola and the decision was agreed with Rijkaard. Pep had been informed of squad movements from the moment he was chosen as a replacement for the Dutch coach. Ronnie had been given one last chance the previous summer – and he’d blown it.

  Having decided to get rid of Ronaldinho, Pep now had to tell the Brazilian face to face.

  When Guardiola and Ronaldinho met, the conversation was short and swift. Guardiola told him that it wasn’t an easy decision to make as he believed there was still an extraordinary player under the puppy fat. But he also felt that his recuperation was not possible at Barcelona, that he would have to return to form somewhere else. Ronaldinho offered no resistance and accepted Pep’s suggestion. Within weeks, he was transferred to AC Milan for €21 million, Barça having rejected offers in the region of €70 million the season before. At around the same time, Deco was transferred to Chelsea for €10 million – despite the fact that José Mourinho, who had coached him at Porto, wanted to link up with him at Inter Milan.

  Pep possessed genuine self-belief when it came to his capacity to get the message across to his players. Barça had finished the league eighteen points behind Madrid the previous season and, at times like that, sportsmen typically need somebody to show them the way, point out to them how to correct mistakes. He cleansed the dressing room of players who were uncommitted and oblivious of the club’s core values: prioritising good football and hard work ahead of individual talent. Before they met for pre-season, Pep received messages from key players in the squad backing his bravery; the squad’s leaders were effectively opening the door to the dressing room for him.

  Iniesta, for one, could not wait to work with his all-time hero. ‘When I was fourtee
n, I competed in a Nike club competition, which we won, and Pep presented me with the trophy. His brother had told him about me and when he gave me the trophy he said, “Congratulations, I hope to see you in the first team, but wait until I’ve left!” He was my idol, an example. He represents the values and feelings of Barcelona. Attacking football, respect for team-mates, respect for the fans. And now he was going to be my coach!

  ‘I remember when he greeted us on the first day in the dressing room. He shook my hand and it was something really special because he was a reference for me. I was immediately struck by the confidence he had and that he transmitted to us, he was convinced that everything would go well, he had a lot of faith.’ The admiration was mutual. Pep often remembers a conversation he had with Xavi, while they were both watching Iniesta play when he stepped up to the first team. ‘Look at that guy. He is going to force us both into retirement!’

  In Pep’s first summer in charge, Barcelona signed Dani Alvés, Cáceres, Piqué, Keita and Hleb, injecting new blood into the team.

  With Deco and Ronaldinho gone, Eto’o’s situation took a significant twist. Seeing that his two main antagonists had left the club, he rejected all offers and made a pledge of commitment to his new coach. With the Brazilians out of the way, he saw his big opportunity to be the standard-bearer of the team. The leader. Eto’o had always considered that he wasn’t getting the recognition or credit he was due and stepping out of Ronaldinho’s shadow to take centre stage was one of his obsessions.

  The striker exerted a fair amount of influence over Abidal, Henry and Touré, who had the potential to help him flourish, and now – with Messi still developing – Eto’o might finally get to play the leading role he craved. In the dressing room there were certain characteristics of his that would need to be tolerated – the same things that had convinced Guardiola to get rid of him in fact – but he had now been handed a golden opportunity and pre-season would determine his future.

  It feels strange to think back to a time when Messi had yet to consolidate himself as the key player in the team, but at that moment, despite his obvious talent, it was felt that handing the baton of responsibility from Ronaldinho to a twenty-one-year-old still nicknamed ‘the flea’ was too much too soon. As Pep said at his unveiling: ‘We can’t allow Messi to carry the weight of the team, I don’t think it would be good for him or the club.’ In the wake of Deco’s and Ronaldinho’s departure, Guardiola wanted to hand the lion’s share of the responsibility over to players who had come up through the ranks, from the youth teams, who had become the standard-bearers of the values of the institution: Puyol, Xavi, Iniesta. Messi, who had previously been at risk of being led astray by the Brazilian group and was going to be fostered into the axis of the team, fitted that same profile.

  By giving the power and captaincy to the home-grown players, Pep had, almost seamlessly, even before pre-season had begun, overseen a transition and sent out a clear signal of intent, mapping the way forward for years to come. He also achieved something essential that hadn’t been seen at Barcelona for a long time: the club was now in the hands of those who understood it and truly cared for it. It also meant that Guardiola was giving the home-grown players and the academy set-up a boost: a vote of confidence. He’d worked and even played with many of them, others he was friends with. Now they had to repay his trust and faith in them through their performances, hard work and their commitment.

  Johan Cruyff was among the first to endorse the new coach’s policies: ‘Guardiola knows what Barcelona is all about, you need twenty eyes. Guardiola can control these things because he has been through them. I can see that he is capable of doing it because he has made a great deal of decisions in a short space of time.’

  When he was Barça’s captain under Louis Van Gaal, Guardiola once said, ‘We always have to respect the guidelines set by the coaches – but it is brilliant for a team that a player can get involved and take on a role on the pitch.’ Van Gaal refused to allow the players a free rein to take the initiative and he was unable to rectify things that were going wrong as they were happening. Guardiola believed in handing greater responsibility to the footballers, trusting that their intuition could help solve a great amount of their problems. As a coach, Pep remained true to this idea and was determined to let his charges take the initiative.

  Pep also promoted Pedro from the B team to the first team. He needed him for his style of play, a winger who ran into space but who understood the need to give his all at all times, both in training and during matches. Pedro’s parents, as Pep often reminds people, had a petrol station in Tenerife and they could rarely see their son play because they didn’t have a television in the shop. At the beginning of the summer, Pedro was preparing to go out on loan, but a player who had his feet planted firmly on the ground suited Pep’s vision perfectly.

  Pedro was moved to the first team alongside Sergio Busquets, another footballer who had shown in the B team the previous season that he had intelligence, focus and a fundamental understanding of his role as a central midfielder. For Pep, it also helped that he didn’t have a ridiculous haircut or tattoos – and the new first team coach believed that ‘Busi’ would at some point prove to have the character to continue in Xavi’s and Puyol’s footsteps as captain of the team.

  Busquets and Pedro were the first of twenty-two players promoted from the youth system to the first team during the four years with Guardiola at the helm. The pair went from playing third division to Champions League football in a matter of weeks, and went on to win the World Cup the following season.

  The squad was complete, the balance re-established in terms of authority and credibility. But there was to be an interesting contrast in terms of salaries.

  Guardiola would earn one million euros a year gross plus bonuses, nine million less than Eto’o and seven less than Messi. Pep had agreed to join the first team without negotiating his contract. When he signed it, he was the fourth lowest paid coach in Spain. He didn’t care.

  And finally the first day of pre-season arrived. As Xavi recalls: ‘The holidays really dragged out because I wanted to join up with the team.’

  Two trophyless years had passed them by. A change was needed. Important decisions had to be made. But, first and foremost, Pep had to get the team on his side. A face-to-face meeting with the squad as a whole was still pending.

  It took place on the first day of training at the world-famous St Andrews, in Scotland, in a basement conference room of the hotel where they were staying during the first week of pre-season. It turned out to be the day he set out his stall and transferred his philosophy to the group.

  As he made his way to the room, Pep repeatedly told himself: ‘Be yourself. Be yourself.’ He felt that he had been through a similar experience at least once before, with the B team: the faces were different, new people, there were new objectives – but the ideas that were going to be put across were practically the same. And he had the same nervous feeling in the pit of his stomach.

  The squad filled the room in seats set out in rows facing the front, like a classroom, with little room to spare. The medical staff, the assistants, the press guys, everybody who had travelled to Scotland was invited to hear what he had to say. In the following half-hour he put across a message that mesmerised the group, hypnotised as they were by his concepts, requirements and expectations, his sharing of responsibilities and, above all, by his ability to generate a new-found feeling of team spirit.

  The players sat in silence, listening to Pep as he paced the room, making eye contact with his listeners, first one, then another, showing a mastery of communication skills. He gestured and chose his words well, finding the right tone, emphasising his ideas.

  According to the recollections of many of those present (Xavi, Iniesta, Piqué, Tito, Henry, Eto’o, Messi, fitness coach Emili Ricart, club media staff Chemi Terés and Sergi Nogueras among others) we are able to piece together Pep’s words from that pivotal moment.

  ‘Gentlemen, good morning.


  ‘You can imagine what a huge motivation it is for me to be here, to coach this team. It is the ultimate honour. Above all, I love the club. I would never make a decision that would harm or go against the club. Everything I am going to do is based on my love for FC Barcelona. And we need and want order and discipline.

  ‘The team has been through a time when not everybody was as professional as they should have been. It is time for everybody to run and to give their all.

  ‘I’ve been part of this club for many years and I am aware of the mistakes that have been made in the past, I will defend you to the death but I can also say that I will be very demanding of you all: just like I will be with myself.

  ‘I only ask this of you. I won’t tell you off if you misplace a pass, or miss a header that costs us a goal, as long as I know you are giving 100 per cent. I could forgive you any mistake, but I won’t forgive you if you don’t give your heart and soul to Barcelona.

  ‘I’m not asking results of you, just performance. I won’t accept people speculating about performance, if it’s half-hearted or people aren’t giving their all.

  ‘This is Barça, gentlemen, this is what is asked of us and this is what I will ask of you. You have to give your all.

  ‘A player on his own is no one, he needs his team-mates and colleagues around him: every one of us in this room, the people around you now.

  ‘Many of you don’t know me, so we will use the next few days to form the group, a family even. If anyone has any problems, I’m always available, not just in sporting matters but professional, family, environmental. We’re here to help each other and make sure there is spiritual peace so that the players don’t feel tension or division. We are one. We are not little groups because in all teams this is what ends up killing team spirit.

  ‘The players in this room are very good, if we can’t get them to win anything, it will be our fault.