‘We shouldn’t lose sight of the target.’
And the target wasn’t to win titles, but to achieve a certain way of playing. If they stuck to their principles, titles would be the most logical consequence. Never losing sight of their goal would be one of the keys to success.
In the days after the game, during hard training sessions, Guardiola pulled his players up on many things. He insisted that they hadn’t played well in terms of positioning. In future they must place themselves more cleverly to receive the pass, and to start pressuring their opponents more quickly. Not once did Pep point the finger of blame, instead putting all his efforts into finding solutions. More than training, it felt like teaching. The players were learning.
It is important in football, as in any walk of life, to appear calm in times of crisis. To hide weaknesses. Pep told them with conviction that they were on the right path. Not a complete lie but he confessed to people at the club that he had slipped up: ‘The pre-season was great, but now the league has begun I’ve let the players fall back into their old ways of playing, their former tactics, playing down the centre.’
The international break meant that two weeks would pass before the next league game. It was to be among the hardest fifteen days of his regime.
Pep Guardiola’s managerial debut at the Nou Camp came against Racing de Santander, another modest team whose target was to avoid relegation. Pep made two significant changes to his line-up. Pedro and Busquets were included, with Yaya Touré left on the bench and Henry injured. Under pressure, as he would do repeatedly throughout his tenure, Pep looked for solutions in the youth system.
The visitors held Barcelona to a 1-1 draw.
Pep’s team paid the price for not converting their chances in front of goal and had to settle for a share of the spoils against a very defensive Racing side that scored with their only clear chance of the game. A hugely frustrating result.
In the dressing room, Pep did not need to point out mistakes, as there were few. It was during that post-match reflection that he really discovered himself as a trainer. He was grateful for having prioritised and trusted his instincts about the game, ahead of what any amount of reading could have advised him. Yes, there was more soul-searching to do, more convincing to do, more work on the ideas that he wanted to instil at the club: but against Racing he had seen a team play as he had asked them to play.
There was certainly an improvement and any dissent or unrest was external – in the media and on radio phone-ins – rather than inside the dressing room. Some reactionary pundits even called for Pep’s head.
Just before the next training session, Andrés Iniesta, who had started the Racing game on the bench, went up to Pep’s office, knocked on the door, stuck his head through the opening without entering and said:
‘Don’t worry, mister. You should know, we’re with you until the death.’
Then walked off.
Other key members of the team reacted in their own ways. Xavi felt there was no need to say anything, just to win the next game. He could see that the team was playing ‘bloody brilliantly, like angels’ but had one point out of six. He couldn’t believe it. He’d experienced days in the past when he knew that the team had played pitifully, but managed to sneak a win. This was the reverse.
He had seen the media reaction in similar situations. After a victory, the headline was going to be ‘Barça are a marvel’ no matter what the performance was: ‘What people want are results, and from the results they analyse if you’re playing well or not. If you lose, the headline will always be “Barça is a disaster”.’
Xavi, Henry, Valdés, Busquets all realised that Pep was nervous behind his calm façade. He won’t admit that a match can be lost without explanation. He has to find a reason for everything. In this respect he watches football from a scientific perspective and appreciates the lessons a defeat can teach you: ‘What makes you grow is defeat, making mistakes. It is what keeps you alert. When you win you think: “Great, we’ve won.” And we’d have surely done some things wrong, but you’re relaxed. The only thing that winning is useful for is a good night’s sleep.’
Guardiola was well aware that two years without trophies caused a certain sense of urgency and that a defeat against Sporting de Gijón the following week could leave Barcelona at the bottom of the table, but was convinced that they would soon reap the rewards of their work in training. At the same time as receiving criticism for the results, there were a number of influential voices in the media arguing that Barcelona were playing well and they had got their title-winning hunger back. Johan Cruyff wrote in El Periódico that it was ‘the best Barça side that he had seen in many years’.
Despite his confidence, Pep was in need of someone to reinforce his belief that all was well. He decided to chat to Cruyff.
Guardiola has been fascinated by the figure of the coach since before he even realised he wanted to be one. Of the many managers who have influenced Pep, few have had quite the profound impact upon him as Johan Cruyff, the man who took his convictions to Barcelona and changed the whole structure of the club. Cruyff introduced a bug that infected Guardiola and many others of his generation and his impact upon FC Barcelona went far beyond that of simply a player or football coach. Guardiola considers that Cruyff’s biggest miracle was to change a country’s mentality, convincing the whole of Catalonia that his was the way to play.
‘Football is played for people,’ Cruyff often said. And more: ‘I want my team to play well even if it is because I have to watch all the games and I don’t want to get bored.’
Johan needed to be arrogant to win over the sceptics so he developed a love-hate relationship with his pupils, the board and the media. Not everybody accepted what he was proposing and there was even opposition to his ideas within factions of his early squads. A young Pep didn’t comprehend every decision taken but wanted to understand the thinking process behind it, and soon, once convinced, became an evangelical follower of Cruyff.
For the Dutch coach there were three principles that were non-negotiable: firstly, on the pitch events were not casual occurrences, but consequences of your intentions. You could play the ball with advantage not only because of the pass, but because of your positioning on the pitch and even the way your body was placed, for instance.
Secondly, you should be able to control the ball with one touch. If you needed another one, you were not one of the best players, just a good one. If you needed an extra touch, you were playing badly.
Thirdly – and crucial for Pep’s position as the midfielder in front of the back four – he had to dispatch the ball to the wingers to make the pitch bigger, wider, to create spaces all over the pitch.
Cruyff didn’t comment on each position, but gave general instructions invariably full of common sense: when talking about passing lines he would warn players that they didn’t need to position themselves in the corners because that reduced the angle of the passes. Regarding positional play, he insisted on making sure the player stayed in his corresponding area, especially when the ball was lost.
But Cruyff didn’t manage to convert all his ideology into a working methodology. Louis Van Gaal helped with that. And Pep Guardiola added a new twist to his version: ‘I steal ideas, ideas are shared, they go from one person to another.’
Consequently, for Pep, a meeting with Cruyff would give him an opportunity to seek guidance from his mentor: a chance to listen to some new ideas and to seek reassurance for his own. After overcoming some initial hesitation for having supported Lluis Bassat in the 2003 presidential elections, Guardiola knew, as we have seen, that he had bridges to build with the Dutchman – and what better way than to make him feel important and demonstrate all the respect that he had for him than by coming before him as an apprentice?
Guardiola always addresses Cruyff in the ‘usted’ form – the formal ‘you’ in Spanish, a very rare, old-fashioned habit these days. During the initial approach, be it at Cruyff’s house, at Pep’s, at a meal, a meeting o
r whatever, the pupil will always show the utmost respect and humility towards his former coach. Once the opening formalities and small talk are out of the way there’s suddenly a spark and, BANG, they start talking about football. Arms are waved around energetically, the arguments are passionate, the ideas clear. They speak and act from their hearts and everything from then on is football, football and more football. You would never hear Pep disagree and say, ‘You’re wrong’ to Cruyff. Never. But they will discuss and debate for hours, trying to convince the other of their own views. When it comes to football, they both talk the same language. If football is a religion, they both worship at the same shrine.
On that occasion, though, after the Racing draw, the pupil met the master mostly to raise concerns and to listen to answers. Cruyff had already given Guardiola some advice in the summer that the young coach took to heart: ‘You should know how to avoid problems, handle journalists, rumours, even the news that is unrelated to football. You must know how to make risky decisions given little time. You’ve had a lot of influences throughout your career, now evolve in your own way. You must have lots of eyes, good helpers, good players, mark the path and those that don’t follow it.
‘Each player must be convinced that what he does is the best thing for him, for his team-mates and for the general idea. The goal is to pass the “ABC” of football on to each player. For example, you are an inside player, you must do this and not that, and nothing more. Once you learn what an inside player must do, you can then think of variations. And when it doesn’t work, you must go back to the “ABC”. The main thing is to have rules. You can only ask a player to do something that he knows and nothing more. Ask for his quality. A footballer should have faith in what he does. It is better for a player to lose the ball when he is dribbling, feeling over-confident, than for a blunder, a mistake due to being scared of getting it wrong.
‘The whole team – coaches and players – should share the same idea. And don’t forget about authority. If you don’t want to crash like other coaches, you must have control of your players. In order to be coach of Barcelona, it is more important knowing how to manage a group of stars than knowing how to correct a mistake made on the field. You have to have an influence over the group, to be able to seduce and convince them. It’s necessary to take advantage of the “idol” image that players have of you as their coach.’
The level of demands, Cruyff reminded him, should match their possibilities – technical, sporting and economic. Cruyff never asked for the impossible, but he was capable of facing up to any of the stars of the team – in front of the rest of the squad – to tell them things such as ‘Your performance doesn’t match the wages you get, so what you are doing is not enough. You must give more.’ Cruyff knew how to deal with players, well, with most of them, cooling the excitement of the regulars and looking after the egos of the ones who were often on the bench. But he had a look that could kill and some of his posturing could leave the players unsettled for weeks. ‘Cruyff is the trainer who has taught me most, there’s no doubt about it,’ says Guardiola. ‘But Cruyff is also the trainer who has made me suffer most. With just a look he gave you shivers that could chill your blood.’
Pep told his mentor that there was one thing that Johan could do, but that it would be a mistake for him to imitate. ‘Johan, you used to call some of the players “idiots”. I cannot do that. Usted can, but I cannot. I suffer too much. I cannot tell them that.’
Pep remembers on one occasion how Cruyff insulted Txiki Beguiristain and Bakero, two of his key players in the Dream Team, and an hour later asked them to organise a meal for all of them and their wives the following night. Pep envied that ability, but admitted that he is not made of the same stuff.
Subsequent meetings between the pair became frequent. Pep would visit Cruyff at his home or they would visit restaurants of well-known chef friends. Where possible, about once every six months, a group that would consist of Cruyff, Estiarte, chef Ferran Adrià, former journalist and now consultant Joan Patsy and Guardiola would meet for a meal. After Pep left Barcelona, Adrià planned to reopen the world-famous el Bulli restaurant just so that they could spend the day there.
But in that meeting a few months after Pep became the manager of Barcelona, and after two disappointing results, the message from Johan Cruyff was as clear as it was simple: ‘Keep going, Pep. It will happen.’ Guardiola himself had come to exactly the same conclusion.
Two games. One point. Barcelona in the bottom three.
That week, Pep Guardiola met director of football Txiki Beguiristain. Scratching his head as he often did during the games, an unconscious nervous gesture that has always been apparent in moments of doubt, Pep could not mask his anxiety. ‘If we don’t beat Gijón then I’ll be the first coach in Barça’s history to be bottom of the league,’ he told Txiki, half joking.
‘The players haven’t been getting into the positions where we want them to be and the positions are dependent upon where the ball is and we haven’t respected that. We haven’t done that well yet,’ Pep kept repeating and Txiki agreed. ‘Txiki, the best way of defending well is attacking well and I have to get the players to see that.’
Nobody within the club was demanding Pep’s head just yet. Externally there were those who saw the results as evidence that his promotion from the B team had been a mistake, the sign of a board in turmoil that wanted to paper over the cracks with the appointment of a legendary player but an inexperienced coach. Joan Laporta was holding his breath and repeating that Pep just needed time, hoping that all that was wrong with the side was that he couldn’t handle more pressure.
In the bottom three of the league, Guardiola’s FC Barcelona travelled to Sporting Gijón’s legendary Molinon stadium for the third game of the season. The Sporting fans had not seen the Catalans since 1997 when Guardiola was Barcelona’s playmaking number four and the standard-bearer for the team’s style of play. There were long silences on the team coach that took them to the stadium but the technical chat had already been given in the hotel. Despite victory being essential, nothing changed the coach’s ideology and its practicalities. He would give his all for this cause, he knew the truth – he had the line-up and the tactics that guaranteed control and pressure high up.
Just before kick-off, Pep Guardiola crossed paths with Manuel Preciado, the Sporting coach, who sadly died of a heart attack in the summer of 2012. The older, more experienced manager had already heard the changes Pep wanted to make to the first eleven and had some warm words of comfort for the novice, and understood the enormous pressures faced by his younger opponent on that day: ‘Stick to your principles, Pep. If Busquets or whoever needs to be brought on, they should be brought on. You must be brave in order to defend your ideas.’
Sergio Busquets was named in the line-up for the second game running.
Piqué smiles when he remembers where Barcelona’s fortunes were about to change. ‘I treasure a lovely memory of the encounter with Sporting in the Molinon. That day signified the takeoff.’
The game started. From the kick-off, ten players touched the ball, all except Messi. There were thirty passes in two minutes that terminated near the corner flag and with a foul on Iniesta. Those opening exchanges were a statement of intent. The team kept jabbing away at Sporting like a boxer: two consecutive corner kicks, two balls recovered near the rival’s box, a Xavi shot on goal. Only four minutes gone.
The team used the space patiently and cleverly, Xavi found many lines of passing, the ball fizzed about at a high tempo, every touch of it was sharp and positive. Henry was ill and Iniesta played on the left. Eto’o started as number nine but he often appeared on the right wing, allowing Messi to move freely in the centre. Those tactics were to be repeated during the season.
Sporting thought that using a close-combat style against a faltering Barcelona team was going to give them a chance, but once the first goal arrived there was no way back.
When the team filed into the changing room at half-time, al
ready 0-2 up, Pep demanded a moment of attention. He needed to give only one instruction, a simple reminder but a key instruction: ‘We will continue pressing high up,’ he said. The order was followed. In the second half, Sporting found that the Barcelona half was much further away and beyond their reach than the naked eye would have you believe.
Barcelona beat Sporting 1-6.
‘You’ve surpassed us,’ Manuel Preciado conceded when, at the end of the game, he met with Guardiola on the way to the dressing rooms. ‘We’ve taken a step forward,’ replied Pep.
The next day, at the training ground, one of Pep’s assistants gave him a photocopy with some of the stats of the game. Pep’s smile was difficult to control. Apart from Messi, who scored twice, all the forwards had recovered possession at some point, suffocating Sporting. Barça had a total of 22 shots, 9 on target and 14 corners, compared to Sporting’s 5 attempts. But there was something else that gave Pep a lift: defensively, the young Busquets, promoted from the B team, had been the best player on the field. He had recovered 10 balls. And 48 out of his 50 passes had reached their intended target.
Without Henry, there were seven players involved in the game who had progressed through the academy system (Valdés, Puyol, Xavi, Iniesta, Busquets, Messi, Bojan), two less than the previous game against Racing. Xavi was involved in all the goals.
It was the third game of the season and Barça had already established themselves as the La Liga side with the most shots on goal and received the fewest.
The result did more than present the team with a much needed three points. It also showed Guardiola was right. It showed that they had to give it time, that there were tactics and rules to follow: a philosophy that could succeed.
Pep Guardiola: Another Way of Winning: The Biography Page 16