(Leo Messi, interview with Martín Souto on TyC Sports, March 2013)
Oscar Ustari: When he was criticised for not feeling Argentinian, I went to see him during the Copa América, in 2011. I had had a knee operation and I was not playing. I went to say hello to my team-mates and to him, and I stayed in the same room as Leo for a while. He eventually calmed down and that, but seeing him with tears in his eyes shocks you.
Pablo Zabaleta: He had a really hard time of it when so much drivel was said, especially after the 2011 Copa América, where we saw how fed up he was with football and Argentina.
Juanjo Brau: When your country treats you badly, it leaves some sort of mark … but I would say to him, ‘Don’t worry, you’re going to turn this around.’ I know who he is, I know him better than he knows himself. And I could see he was capable of turning it around.
Pablo Zabaleta: It all comes from the fact that he left and had success abroad, without doing so beforehand at home. On top of that the results in the major tournaments were not good.
Javier Mascherano: Losing really hurts him, it hurts his soul. And I think that it hurt more with the national team, not so much because of what they said, but because of how he felt towards his country and his responsibilities with the team. And the drivel that he has had to listen to, when his behaviour was completely the opposite …
Juanjo Brau: It is clear that there is a moment when cheering someone up who is in this state is complicated. You have to make him see who he is, the best in the world…
Carlos Bilardo: It was the same with Diego, they didn’t love him that much, they said no, yes, he was this, his club was one thing and his country was another. And I was saying Diego was going to be my captain, and they got really angry. If you read the magazines and newspapers from the time, you’ll put your head in your hands. Many youngsters read that stuff now and they say to me: ‘Did they really say that?’ And I say, ‘Yes, they did say that about Maradona.’
Juanjo Brau: I always travel with him, and I think that I have to be in a certain place so that when he turns his head, he sees me. And when he says to me: ‘Juanjo’ I reply saying: ‘What?’ so that he doesn’t have to say it twice.
Javier Mascherano: The reaction on the return flights would vary. A bad result, a bad performance, would affect him, and he would consequently stay silent all the way.
Juanjo Brau: On returning to Barcelona he had to flick the switch. He had his rucksack with him and every single thing that was going badly would go in his rucksack. There was a time when it was full.
Eidur Gudjohnsen: I saw how relieved he was to be back, although somewhat quieter than normal. He was back in an environment where he wasn’t criticised, where he was loved, where he could be himself. We would watch the matches and Leo was a shadow of himself with the national team. We would talk about it among ourselves, we would say there were two Messis.
Juanjo Brau: On his first day back on the training pitch having been in Argentina, we usually spoke about how things had to go from now on, trying to move him on. And his team-mates would arrive, and, off to work! Were there jokes made about Argentina’s results in the dressing room? Nobody dared … maybe in little groups. Leo is a highly respected person.
Carlos Bilardo: Two years ago I made some announcements: do not say anything else to him, do not criticise Messi any more because he is going to get angry and will not come, he will not want to come. Because he is an idol over there, and he comes home and gets insulted, he will stop coming, and twenty-five million of us will have to go to Barcelona to see him.
At home, Leo was asking himself, why is this happening to me? What have I done to them? He felt rage and a lack of understanding because he knew that, in the right circumstances he could be an asset to the national team. The years between 2005 and 2011 were tough for the Messi family. And the possibility of not returning to the national team was discussed on more than one occasion. Maybe others should be allowed to go, maybe the coaches should build the team for other stars.
In fact, Leo, in the weeks after the Copa América 2011, seriously considered not going back to the national team.
But, as the days passed, the conclusion he came to was always the same: you have to live with it; you have to learn to live with it. It is the price you pay for being the best. The thing he had aimed for all his career.
It helped him that, as he left Argentina behind, he was also going back to a Barcelona where Pep Guardiola was waiting for him. Full of expectations.
Part Three
At The Peak
1
Breaking Records
‘Guardiola gradually transmitted the huge excitement that he had generated on arriving at Barcelona, and over time he gained everyone’s trust. As time went on, everyone became happier at work and there was a new enthusiasm. We could see that things were going well. Guardiola knows an incredible amount about football and he shared his wisdom, so that everything would be easier for us on the pitch.’
(Leo Messi on Uefa.com, 2009)
‘Guardiola arrived at a time when we hadn’t won anything for the past two years. We were in a bad state mentally. He found a broken dressing room. It was his way of working, transmitting his message, and the trust he built up, that helped change everything. His personality allows him to challenge anyone with clear and concise ideas.’
(Leo Messi interview with Martín Souto, TyC Sports, March 2013)
‘Now I live in Munich. I will be there if you need me.’
That is how Pep Guardiola let me know he would be available to discuss his years with Messi, in his own words, for this book. A unique era that lasted four seasons, with all the records and the six titles (in one year) that launched Leo into the footballing stratosphere. Football evolved in that period.
That period began with Leo isolated from his good friends and his ‘adopted’ father, and with Pep unable to connect with his big star. It finally ended with a heartfelt hug at the Camp Nou after he scored the fourth goal against Espanyol at the end of Guardiola’s final season. What was the process of synchronisation? What relationship did they have? Was it the usual coach/player one? Who helped who?
I met Guardiola in Munich at the beginning of September 2013. The season had just started, his reputation was still assured in the eyes of his new audience, the Bayern Munich fans, the German press and the management of his new club. In fact, Pep was altogether in fashion: his first international biography was all over the main bookshops in the city, it was the topic of conversation among the few fans who went to the training ground that day to see a team decimated by the absence of internationals, who were off playing for their national sides. Everyone was scrambling for his attention (Pep, Pep … hello, photo, wave!). They discussed what Guardiola wanted, what had changed and how complicated it was to improve a team that had already won everything.
At the time Pep was hoping for a game in which the team could show harmony. That match would come soon after, on 2 October 2013, in Manchester against City in the Champions League group stage; it ended in a 3–1 win and confirmed Pep had managed to give his players conviction. Not only did they win, but they played as Guardiola had instructed. That is how his new adventure took off.
On the way to his office, a modern, high-ceilinged room with a large stained-glass window opposite his desk, a whiteboard, board pens and carefully arranged DVDs, Guardiola said ‘hello’ in German to everybody he saw and had little chats with the kitman, with a player, with his secretary. Nobody had to correct his new language. His immersion in the club was beginning.
Seated on one of those rather generic high-backed swivel chairs, Guardiola took a deep breath. As he exhaled, you could almost hear doors closing somewhere in the building. Shut away from the outside world, Pep started trawling through the Leo period once again, through those years of victories and anxiety.
Hearing Guardiola speak, it seemed as if his time at Barcelona was like one of those memorable summers: intense, fruitful, one that is remembered with profo
und melancholy as something irreplaceable that can never be forgotten. But as our conversation ended it became clear that the relationships created during that period belong solely to that period; they are impossible to recover now that they have been left behind.
Leo and Pep have only seen each other once since they went their separate ways. A brief greeting and an exchange of pleasantries at the Ballon d’Or gala in early 2013. And that was it.
Leo Messi is a footballer. Pep Guardiola was his coach. Pep did everything for Leo. Leo will be eternally grateful to Pep. But Messi is now on another planet. And maybe Pep is, too.
Not even when Barcelona played a pre-season friendly at the Allianz Arena against Bayern did the two of them cross paths. ‘I have not seen him’ is what Leo said at the time.
It is perhaps more painful for those on the outside looking in, and discovering the distance between them, than it is for the main protagonists themselves. They will see each other one day, but there doesn’t seem to be any rush. But why do these things happen? Has football made Leo so much tougher that he does not feel the need to share anything with the coach who looked after him so well? Or does Guardiola’s intense hands-on style require a cooling-off period before relations can be resumed, even personal ones?
In order to understand it all and to try to find a response, you have to start at the beginning.
Pep Guardiola: The first time I saw him I was with Nike, where my brother Pere used to work. Leo was signed to them, too. We happened to meet in a shop. His father was there as well, and I was introduced to him. He said hello to me, I saw he was shy, we said goodbye: that was the first point of contact. Sometime after, chatting with Tito [Vilanova], he told me he had a fantastic player who was going to break through. Then I found out about his quality. And I started following him on television. He was spot-on. Tito was spot-on.
Another key player in the team Guardiola has outlined, Messi will finally know today if he is to make the journey to Argentina to join the national side, which will play in the Olympic Games from 8 to 24 August. The Catalan club has moved heaven and earth in an attempt to prevent that journey. Barcelona’s management claims that Messi is a very important player and that it cannot allow the luxury of releasing him to the national team with such an important fixture coming up. The Champions League qualifying matches will be played on 12 or 13 and 26 or 27 August (against Wisła Kraków).
After defeating Scottish team Hibernian by six goals (one by Messi), the conflict of interests surrounding Messi persists … ‘Leo’s right to go to the Games is non-negotiable,’ declared Jorge Messi, his father, the previous week. From the dressing room they say that the player’s head is in Beijing … ‘If the Players’ Status Committee concluded that we must release Messi, we will go to the CAS,’ announced Joan Laporta, Barcelona president, who heads a revolution of European clubs – the Bundesliga has supported him publicly and the club offices have received supportive faxes from Italian and Serbian organisations – regarding FIFA’s ruling.
El País, 21 July 2008
1. THE DISAGREEMENT AT ST ANDREWS, SCOTLAND. PRESEASON, SUMMER 2008
In the first days of pre-season at St Andrews, Pep Guardiola had introduced himself to the squad, had demanded discipline and promised them hard work. Leo Messi had said goodbye to the friends with whom he had grown up. Out of the group that had looked after him, ‘only José Manuel Pinto, Rafa Márquez and I remained,’ remembers Silvinho. ‘It was the first time Leo had gone through a squad overhaul. I was used to it, of course. But he lived through the changes with a certain sadness.’ And a coach with only a year’s experience, with Barcelona B in the third division, had been placed at the helm of the ship. Leo had heard very good things about him, he knew that he was a legendary Barcelona captain, but every coach in every dressing room in the world is welcomed with a degree of suspicion.
Jordi Quixano wrote something in El País that describes the moment: ‘Rather unresponsive to Pep Guardiola’s chats about tactical positioning, Messi even sneered on a couple of occasions during the meet-up in Scotland.’ Frank Rijkaard had promised him that, when the time was right, he was going to play him up front, down the middle, which was like telling him that the team was going to look for him, pass him the ball and look to him to lead the side. This had eventually not happened under the Dutchman, but the tactical evolution was underway. That is what Leo thought, in fact what everyone assumed, after Ronaldinho’s departure. ‘The Flea’ was simply waiting for confirmation.
Pep knew that he had an excellent group of players, although they were low in self-esteem after two years in the wilderness. Leo was the player who would make the difference: in the coach’s eyes, already the best footballer in the world. Leo did not know if Pep was the best coach in the world, so Guardiola’s first job was to convince him that he was going to make him the best. Pep anticipated making a series of conditions and decisions that he would apply no matter what, things necessary for Leo’s growth. Ronaldinho and Deco left, Eto’o was also to be allowed to leave: in Guardiola’s opinion, he was a leader who did not willingly accept sharing that role with anyone. Thierry Henry did not pose such a problem because, although he did require special treatment, he did not carry enough weight in the dressing room to demand a leadership role which, in any case, he did not seek. Instead of Daddy Eto’o, Pep thought Leo needed a father who would make a real effort to get to know him properly, to look after him, someone who would always know what he needed. The coach put himself forward for that role.
As Joan Laporta recalls, Eto’o surprised Pep in training: he showed himself to be humble, hardworking and willing to fight for his place. Messi realised that Ronaldinho had been the best player in the world thanks in large part to Eto’o making the most of his passes. ‘Leo told us that he wanted to play with Eto’o that season,’ remembers Laporta, ‘which made me very happy because I also wanted Eto’o to stay.’ The senior players suggested to Guardiola that Eto’o could be very useful if he was handled properly. In the first two friendlies (against Hibernian and Dundee United), an outstanding Leo scored four goals. In the second match, Messi and Eto’o played together in the second half and scored four between them. The combination appeared to be working.
But, speaking of necessities, Leo still wanted to go to the Olympics that summer. His story with the Argentina team had started very well and he wanted to add to the gold medal his country had obtained four years earlier. Barcelona decided to oppose him going. ‘On the one hand we thought: we have no reason to let him go,’ explains Txiki Beguiristain, the director of football at the time. ‘We had got rid of Ronnie and Deco, and the national team then wanted our best player. At that time, the most important match in the history of the club was the Champions League qualifier which was to be played around the same dates. But on the other hand, we knew that he would be happier if he went to Beijing. There was a great deal of tension.’ The issue dragged on for weeks.
Leo did not feel comfortable with the situation. And when that sort of thing happens, it is impossible for him to hide his feelings.
In the first training session, Pep discovered that he had made the right decision to select Leo as the team’s centre of operations: he had a special spark, was effective in front of goal, displaying the same form that he had shown the previous season, when Ronaldinho had given up being professional. But away from the training pitch, Leo was distant and Guardiola feared that without winning him over, by contradicting him and not having him on board, life at the club was going to be much more complicated. He took him by the arm at the end of a training session and asked him what was going on, but Leo did not respond. Guardiola witnessed for the first time the hostile stare of the boy from Rosario.
Pep was making attempts to penetrate Leo’s armour during those early days in Scotland, but the Argentinian preferred to avoid his gaze and refused to speak openly about what was troubling him. He remained taciturn and would not even discuss the subject with his team-mates, even though everyone knew what it w
as about – he was desperate to go to the Olympics. ‘The club is not talking to him about the case, it is a negotiation between Barcelona and the Argentinian federation,’ his mother Celia said at the time. ‘And Leo doesn’t talk, doesn’t ask. He is just waiting to be told what to do.’
The days went by without any resolution and he began to look tense in training. During one session, Rafa Márquez tackled him from behind with surprising force, uncommon in practice matches. Leo bounced off him, got up, faced up to him and said a few angry words. Under normal circumstances a dirty look would have sufficed, and then, back to the game. But Leo was angry. He got to the showers before anyone else that day.
‘There is a clear conflict of interests and my son is right in the middle,’ Jorge Messi declared at the time. ‘They are using my kid as cannon fodder. You cannot and should not put a twenty-one-year-old footballer in that situation because it can create all sorts of problems. It is crazy that a player has to take a decision. It’s ridiculous that the powers that be can’t agree among themselves. We don’t know what to do.’
Pep Guardiola’s right-hand man, Manel Estiarte, called Jorge on various occasions. ‘Look, Jorge, this is not a good situation. Your son is not okay. What can we do?’ Estiarte, who had years earlier been the best water-polo player in history, realised that Leo was very similar to himself: if he wanted to win him over, Pep had to make an effort to show him, subtly, that he was on his side, that he supported him and that he was going to help him. Pep and Manel conversed at length on the subject, while plans were laid to find a satisfactory answer.
Tito Vilanova, who had coached him as a teenager, got the ball rolling by telling him that both Pep and he were there to look after him. If he wanted Juanjo Brau, his personal trainer, to travel with him, it would be arranged. But Vilanova knew that it was not just about that. ‘What else do you need?’ he asked him. ‘Whenever you want anything, come to see me and you’ll have it.’
Messi Page 51