Pep Guardiola: Another Way of Winning: The Biography

by Balague, Guillem

  Pep would never see it that way.

  7

  THE GOODBYE. BUT BEFORE IT, ONE MORE FINAL

  First Leg of the Champions League Semi-Finals. Stamford Bridge, 18 April 2012. Chelsea 1 Barcelona 0

  In London, and, as expected, Barcelona fielded their strongest side possible with Alexis, Cesc and Messi upfront. From very early on, the team created chance after chance: Alexis hit the bar, Ashley Cole cleared off the line, Adriano hit the post. Once, twice, three, four times the blue wall of Chelsea blocked the way. Barcelona, Pep, Messi discovered that the English club had found a way to frustrate them.

  The team insisted on looking for answers through Messi, always in his central position.

  The little genius then lost the ball, way too close to his own goal, almost on the halfway line. Lampard found Ramires and the Barcelona players tracking back made a crucial mistake. The two centre backs (Mascherano and Puyol) followed Drogba as he was trying to find space on the right of the attack. One of them should have covered the back of Xavi who was desperately following Ramires.

  Xavi was on his own defending Ramires, who put in the cross for Drogba. There were gaps across the Barcelona defence. It led to a goal, in injury time before the break.

  Based on the result and not the performance, many reached the conclusion that Chelsea had defended well.

  Barcelona had twenty-four shots on goal. Chelsea scored one goal from their only shot on target.

  Their dependence upon Messi and their lack of alternatives was clearly becoming a problem. But Pep told the players if they had created twenty-four chances at Stamford Bridge, they would do the same at the Camp Nou.

  And then, in the press conference, the coach decided to reduce the pressure on a team that had lost its cutting edge and felt the heavy burden on their shoulders of trying to win again. It was a novelty on the part of the manager, perhaps a warning. At that point, it was difficult to comprehend Guardiola’s reasoning: instead of demanding more from his players, about to take on Real Madrid in the league and Chelsea at the Camp Nou for the most crucial clashes of the season, Pep seemed to take his foot off the gas.

  ‘In sport, only those that win stay in everybody’s memory. I don’t know what will happen next Saturday against Madrid or next Tuesday against Chelsea. But I have the feeling we have won this season already. After four years competing at this level and having arrived at this point with injuries, the illnesses … I have the feeling we have won, it doesn’t matter what happens next.’

  Second Leg of the Champions League Semi-Finals. Camp Nou, 24 April 2012. Barcelona 2 Chelsea 2

  Football is a percentages game. By defending deep Chelsea had a small chance of going through that increased slightly if they attacked every now and again with intelligence. But still the percentages, in principle, were very unequal and in Barcelona’s favour: they were going to have the ball more often and spend more time in Chelsea’s final third.

  But that game had been played before. Against Mourinho. Against Inter in 2010. And in the first leg.

  It was, effectively, a replay.

  Pep asked the team to play in wide positions, with double false strikers Messi and Cesc roaming freely, and to move the ball from side to side until the gaps appeared. Barcelona were patient, and when the spaces were created they were attacked by the home side like piranhas.

  Twice Barcelona scored. In any other season, that would have been enough, especially after the dismissal of Chelsea’s captain John Terry following a rash off-the-ball incident. Barça were battling a formidable group of strong players, proud professionals who had a last chance of glory in Europe and the task of destroying everything proposed by their opponents: a completely legitimate proposal. Cahill got injured. Yet Drogba was immense, including his stint as a second full back, and Cech was a giant in the Chelsea goal. But they couldn’t stop Barcelona creating chance after chance.

  Pep’s team hit the post twice, had twenty-three shots on goal and six on target, Messi missed a penalty. Any other season …

  And Chelsea scored, again in injury time before the break. Similar lapses in concentration that had cost Barcelona a defeat in the first leg were to hurt them again. Ramires lobbed the goalkeeper to make it 2-1. Barcelona needed another goal with twenty minutes remaining, but it felt as if the Catalans had run out of ideas, of belief. Possession was lost often, they lacked penetration, width.

  The goal never came. And then, in injury time, Torres delivered the killer blow to Barcelona’s dreams.

  Chelsea had cashed in on their percentages.

  Guardiola, his team, had run out of answers.

  As Pep’s Barcelona progressed, celebrated their successes and grew in stature during the previous four years, so did the personalities of the players. Or, better said, it became increasingly difficult to harness their instincts for the team’s benefit: only natural after all. Xavi and Puyol had become the elder statesman, World Champions and a massive presence in the game – and the acceptance of all of it is always an issue that some deal with better than others. Gerard Piqué transformed himself into a multinational star with a superstar girlfriend and while not necessarily a bad thing, it certainly meant he was not the Piqué who had joined the club from Manchester United. It wasn’t easy for a big name like Piqué to accept that Javier Mascherano had become the regular centre back while he was forced to sit out some important games. As the team grew, Pep’s management decisions became more complex. It is quite different giving orders to an emerging and promising young Messi as it is to a double Ballon d’Or-winning megastar acknowledged as the best player of his generation.

  At the end of that final season, one decision became crucial. A player can take being rested against Racing de Santander or Levante, but it is a different proposition being on the bench against Real Madrid – the match that serves as the barometer of every campaign. Any player seemingly ‘dropped’ for el Clásico becomes the focus of negative press no matter how many times Guardiola tries to tell everybody that they all have the right to play, that they were all equal, that it’s about options, resting players, etc. They were games marked in everybody’s calendar and the final selection would have repercussions upon the balance and well-being of the squad. In Rome, at Wembley, the only doubts in the line-up were related to injuries or suspensions and in those games it was always going to come down to twelve or thirteen key players. But in Pep’s last season, there were always doubts and tough decisions to be taken before the naming of his eleven ahead of every big game.

  Creating and maintaining an atmosphere of suspense and introducing players still not versed in the most intricate games was a way of shaking the squad up and keeping everybody on their toes as Pep perceived their crucial competitive edge was being blunted. However, the uncertainty also became difficult to control and – unlike his masterly ability to smooth things over in previous years – Pep’s desire to keep everybody guessing led to a sense of disquiet, anxiety and uneasiness in the players’ minds and in his own.

  And, let’s not forget, Pep’s biggest fear since the day he travelled to St Andrews for pre-season those four long years ago was that he might one day lose the group, be unable to connect with them.

  Perhaps the lack of attention to details and the conceding of injury-time goals were some of the warning signs he had been dreading. And when he felt not all was in order, he started pressing buttons at key moments in the season. And often, he did not hit the right ones. Yes, they remained faithful to their style against Madrid; granted, they did not have the luck against Chelsea. But ... there was something in the way the English club neutralised Barcelona in the last twenty minutes of the Camp Nou tie that again suggested something had been lost.

  In that second leg of the Champions League semi-final, Pep had decided to use the youngster Cuenca down the left flank, leaving experienced players like Pedro, Keita and Adriano on the bench. He had done something similar against Madrid with Tello, who started the Clásico while Piqué, Alexis and Cesc started
on the bench. In the club offices, the analysis was a list of question marks. Those decisions reminded some of Johan Cruyff’s when, towards the end of his tenure, he started to apply a very peculiar logic that suggested to his critics that he was clutching at straws. Others argued that, perhaps, Pep felt some form of ‘paternal instinct’ for La Masía boys Cuenca and Tello – which blurred his judgement. Could two incredibly inexperienced kids really be chosen ahead of internationals for such monumentally important games?

  It also meant that the bigger names left on the bench, incapable of challenging a decision made by someone they admired, adored and respected – with a proven track record for making so many correct decisions – started doubting themselves: ‘there must be something wrong with me if I am not playing’. Doubts create fear. And fear is a bad companion when you have to take responsibility if things are not going your way. The sudden absence of a familiar eleven – an element so clearly defined in previous campaigns – meant many were struggling with confidence issues. Pedro, for instance, went from the great discovery and hope for the future to the great forgotten man. Cesc, frequently, the match-winning goalscorer, went from saviour to sub.

  They were an extraordinary bunch of players, an exceptional team. But they were human, too.

  Imperceptibly, for those brief weeks Guardiola may have forgotten that football belongs mostly to the players.

  Guardiola knew that the system, the style, had to become automatic, second nature, as it had been for most of his four years in charge. And, when everybody knows what to do, talent appears to complete the team effort. But changes of personnel and of formation in the final months of his tenure had created a certain level of disorder. So if the players felt, perhaps not even knowing why, that things were not going well, they would look for Messi.

  But against Chelsea and Madrid, when the Argentinian had the ball, the two centre backs and two defensive midfielders were on top of him and it became apparent that there was a way to stop him. He has talent to overcome that and more, but not every time. In those games, why didn’t he try to surprise opponents by appearing in wide positions, leaving the four central defensive players marking shadows? There weren’t enough players overlapping down the flanks and Cuenca and Tello rarely got one on one with the full backs in those key games – and when they did, they more often than not failed to beat them. Pep’s gamble on youth over experience, his experiment, had failed.

  Separated by just four days, those two games at the Camp Nou against Madrid and then Chelsea, seemed to confirm that the fragile, perfect balance seemed slightly but inexorably broken.

  ‘President, let’s meet tomorrow,’ Pep told Sandro Rosell the night of the KO by Chelsea in the Champions League; the next morning, the recent history of the club changed for ever.

  Two days later, after announcing his departure to the players, Guardiola observed the light training session at Sant Joan Despí from a discreet distance, before jumping into his car to travel the ten minutes or so that separates the club’s training complex from the Camp Nou.

  The ensuing press conference, to announce to the world his imminent departure, was crammed to the rafters with local and international media; while down near the front row sat Puyol, Piqué, Cesc, Xavi, Busquets, Valdés and a few players. Messi was not to be seen – he didn’t want the cameras to capture his emotions. Sky Sports broadcast it live. Even in the UK, where some polls put Barcelona as the fifth largest football team in terms of followers, the rumours about his future were having a huge media impact. Sky Sports announced exclusively that Pep was about to say goodbye to all of us.

  The set-up of the press conference and positioning of the lead characters was a smart piece of staging. The coach was sitting to the right of the president; to his left, director of football Andoni Zubizarreta. It was an attempt by the club to show that they had taken Pep’s decision well, they were showing the calm, institutional face of a club that hadn’t always dealt well with change.

  Barcelona’s president solemnly announced that Guardiola would not continue as manager of the club. He hugged the coach. It was an embrace that seemed a little forced; perhaps it caught Pep by surprise.

  Guardiola went on to ask people to understand his decision and explained his reasons in much the same way that he had done to his players.

  ‘I’m deeply sorry about the uncertainty that I’ve created. I have always thought that things are best done in the short term. Four years is an eternity and I didn’t want to be tied to a contract that wouldn’t allow me to make my own decisions. In October or November I told the president that the end was in sight for me, but I couldn’t make my decision public because it would have been too complicated. The reason is very simple. It has been four years and that time can wear you out and take its toll. I’m drained. The reason is that I have to get my passion back. I wouldn’t continue as a Barcelona coach should.’

  He had no more to give and needed to recharge. Or, put differently: he could give a lot to the club if he stayed, but not everything it needed.

  ‘I’m grateful for your patience, I know I have been a pain, here every three days with you all,’ he said to the press. Now he would abandon the dugout for a time, although he pointed out that ‘sooner or later’ he would coach again. At the same time he tried to stop any potential rumours spreading. ‘Leo is here’ was the only forthcoming explanation from Guardiola about Messi’s absence, a comment supported by Rosell himself.

  In the dressing room, the players decided that the captains would be present in the media room; that meant Puyol, Xavi, Iniesta and Valdés. However, others joined them to show their respect for Pep – but not la Pulga. ‘Messi is here in spirit,’ Rosell insisted.

  Leo cries, but not publicly. The Argentinian went on Facebook a few hours later to explain why he hadn’t been there: ‘I want to thank Pep with all my heart for everything that he has done for me both professionally and personally. Due to the emotional nature of the event, I preferred not to be in the media conference. I wanted to be away from the press because they were going to look for sad faces and that is something I have decided not to show.’ As a twelve-year-old, when he first joined Barcelona, Messi would hide away from everybody whenever he cried, especially so as not to upset his dad.

  And then came the revelation that nobody had anticipated. Rosell, who was notably solemn, announced that Tito Vilanova would be Pep’s replacement. His assistant had received the club offer at Guardiola’s house two days earlier but had accepted just an hour before the press conference.

  Pep did leave one doubt hanging in the air that appeared to go unnoticed. ‘Tito’s appointment wasn’t my decision, it was Zubizarreta’s. I have just found it out myself this morning.’ Nobody guessed that there could have been any sort of conflict although soon those words would be used to create controversy that suggested that without Guardiola life at Barcelona would be more difficult.

  The club, however, wanted to demonstrate publicly their commitment to Vilanova and not give any cause for speculation at a time of uncertainty and potential instability. It was Zubizarreta’s chance to prove that he had an immediate solution and Rosell accepted it. With the continuity that Guardiola’s right-hand man would bring, the club was giving itself time to decide if it was the right decision or whether a change of direction was needed. ‘Announcing that we had chosen Tito three or four days after accepting Pep’s departure would have been counter-productive for Tito. The club could have been accused of not having found a better coach, of not having a plan,’ a source at the club admits.

  But the replacement can be interpreted differently. Since October, when Pep began having serious doubts about staying for another season, he imagined that his departure included Tito. ‘We’ either all stay or ‘we’ go, Pep had thought. A third option emerged when Zubizarreta mentioned Guardiola’s assistant as his successor as early as November. Everybody suspected Tito would probably decline the offer. In reality, it only took him an hour to accept the promotion. It caught Pep
by surprise even though they both talked about it and Guardiola accepted that it was Tito’s right to take over – he was not going to interfere with that.

  Zubizarreta explained the new Barcelona era to the media: ‘The important thing is the idea, the principle that makes us different. We’ll keep fastening our seat belts and I’m sure that we’re going to have a great time.’ Helped by the immediate and apparently seamless transition, the club appeared to be taking everything in their stride.

  If a moment perfectly encapsulated the emotion and the feelings of the club, the fans and Pep, it was his farewell at the Camp Nou.

  Pep’s send-off coincided with the Catalan derby against Espanyol, but, since neither team had anything to play for, it became Pep Guardiola’s leaving party from the moment the first whistle blew. Hundreds of fans left their messages of gratitude and good luck on an enormous mural that the club had set up outside the stadium. A huge banner covering an equally huge section of the stand welcomed his entry on to the pitch and showed a picture of the coach with the message ‘T’estimem Pep’ (We love you, Pep).

  Guardiola directed his final home game with his usual level of intensity. ‘Come on, Pedro, we’ve been working together for five years and you’re still doing this to me!!’ he shouted at the youngster he had discovered while at Barça B.

  It even seemed like the referee wanted to join in the party, with a laid-back approach to some of his decisions that benefited Barcelona. The game ended 4-0 to Barça, with all four goals coming from Lionel Messi, marking yet another record, one of many: he had scored fifty league goals, beating the European league record previously set by Dudu Georgescu in the 1976–7 season with Dynamo Bucharest. After scoring his first that night at the Camp Nou, Messi pointed across to Pep, dedicating it to his mentor. The manager answered pointing his finger back at him.