Pep Guardiola: Another Way of Winning: The Biography

by Balague, Guillem

  ‘When I lose I wonder if I am capable of being a coach, of maintaining that leadership, and if I win, the ecstasy lasts five minutes and then I lose it.

  ‘The fans need to know that their players work hard, the same as them. It is a good thing for people to know that we can be strict with them, fining them when they turn up late. The supporters have to see themselves reflected in the players. It is a question of defence because in difficult times people have to know that they haven’t lost because they are lazy, that the work has been put in.

  ‘I only know that a good leader is one who isn’t scared of the consequences of their decisions. They make the decision that their intuition tells them, no matter what happens.

  ‘In order to make decisions, you must be really convinced, they can’t be taken lightly when there is so much pressure. I don’t ignore the media element.

  ‘There are times when I am tired and I have to transmit energy and I don’t know how to do so. If you transmit it you’re not being yourself, and if you don’t transmit it you’re not being true to yourself.

  ‘With the first team, there are weeks when you are running on empty. In some training sessions I only observe because I don’t have the sufficient time or energy to direct them; Tito, Aureli or Loren Buenaventura direct them.

  ‘The key is to have a strong dressing room, knowing that we are stronger together than one person on his own.

  ‘My players know that it bothers me less if they make a mistake ten times, than if they ignore me or don’t look at me when I call them. That destroys me.

  ‘The substitutes would do a better job if their ungrateful manager gave them an extended run of games.

  ‘I do more work as a team manager than as a coach, because, as there are games every three days, there are few pure footballing training sessions and there is a lot of co-existence and it isn’t easy. But the lucky thing in this team is having found people with important human values.

  ‘A column in the press, instead of a front-page headline, is sometimes more influential on the players’ moods than my own opinion. I have to know which headlines have come out about a player. If I have two stars and there are three headlines about one, I’m going to approach the player who hasn’t had any.

  ‘There are things that denote how a team is. Today we planned to meet at five o’ clock and by 4.30 most of us were here. They know, because I have said it and they have seen it, that when they stop doing it, anyone can beat us. If each person does their job, and they know what it is because I make sure they know, then we are a team that is difficult to beat.

  ‘I have to conserve this passion that I have for what I do. The day that I stop feeling it, I will leave. Now I want to tell a player off and then hug him immediately after. If you lose that, that’s bad ... when I stop correcting a player during training, it will mean that I have lost my passion. When I no longer get excited, I will go. That’s what happened to me when I was a player.

  ‘At another team? It would be exactly the same. My closeness to my players is lessening. This year, less than last year, it is self-defence. Because I suffer, I prefer to distance myself.’

  From his very first day in the job as coach, Pep went out of his way to appeal to the feelings of his players: demanding solidarity and effort from everyone. Those values represent a reflection of himself. He knew that in order to lead the group he must be consistent, manage the little details and big egos – and convince everyone, not only to do as he asked, but to believe in what he was asking them to do.

  And his ability to communicate is perhaps his greatest talent.

  Imagine you are a player now. It is the day of a home game. You have trained in the morning and then eaten with the rest of your team-mates in the training complex of Sant Joan Despí and then, as usual, Pep sends you all back home, to be with your families and have a rest. You love that, you don’t have to hang around for games and somehow training becomes more intense, energetic, more fun. You have to return to the Camp Nou later, two hours before kick-off.

  Around an hour before the start of the game, and when you are not completely ready to warm up, Pep takes his jacket off. He wears a tight shirt, white most of the time, with a tie and the sleeves rolled up. He’s at work. You all head into a large room next to the dressing room and sit down to listen to him. He claps a couple of times, ‘Gentlemen,’ he shouts, and at that moment silence falls and you’re about to have your eyes opened by him, he’ll tell you the road to success in that particular match. He will make you see it, visualise it.

  You go back to the dressing room and there you won’t see Pep, who hides in his office. As part of the process of becoming a manager, he began keeping his distance from the players and the changing room became almost exclusively for the players, so much so that on many occasions he could be seen waiting outside the door, shouting to one of his assistants, ‘how long before they go out?’ If he was told five minutes, he would linger awhile before going in and issuing rapid-fire instructions. He understands his presence could influence the footballers’ behaviour on their own territory. It should be a refuge where they, you, can say what you think at any time without fear of punishment. You can talk about girls, cars, even have a go at him if you want. Ask Xavi; he’ll explain it to you:

  Xavi: Sure. He told us from the beginning, ‘I won’t go in there.’ It’s like a classroom without the teacher. And when the teacher comes in, there’s silence and it’s time to work.

  Manel Estiarte: He has to go through the dressing room in the stadium because his office is at the end of it. But he will not be seen with the players unless it is to talk to them after a game, to motivate them or remind them of something, or to give them a hug before it. There is always a huddle and shout before the game. He arrives, they hug and he goes. As the ex-player he is, he always says, ‘This is the place where they joke, they might laugh at me, they might criticise me.’

  You will be there with your rituals, one sock on before the other and things like that, you’ll talk about the match, about the team talk, about Piqué’s music. Valdés is quiet in a corner and so is Messi, who looks much smaller in that environment. After the warm-up, ten or fifteen minutes before the kick-off, but not always, Pep briefly appears to remind you of the two or three key points, small comments. And then he’ll disappear again.

  Xavi: His presence makes you sit up and pay attention, it makes you alert. All he needs to say is ‘Are we ready or not?’

  Javier Mascherano: And then he would give you the keys to the game, he doesn’t need a ten-minute talk.

  Tito: The pre-match talks are in the hotel if it is an away game, or, if it is a home game, in the Pictures room. First of all he shows footage of the opponents, explaining their strong points and how we can hurt them. The strategy is explained, both ours and the opponents’.

  Iniesta: The talks remind me of school, everyone in their place, and him in the middle talking, gesticulating emphatically, passionately, if the situation calls for it, if not, he doesn’t.

  Valdés: In all the conversations that we have had I have always learnt something. I am quite shy and he taught me a lot about the importance of communication with team-mates, with the outside world.

  Estiarte: No player looks at the floor, they have their eyes set on him.

  Albert Puig (technical secretary of the academy): Yeah, he has that something, something between shy, sure of himself and very sure of himself – which is what grips you as if we were talking about a woman, that shyness and aura. That’s what he has.

  Xavi: Lots of talks surprise me, lots of them. He thinks in white, you think in black; and you end up thinking in white.

  Cesc Fàbregas: He sees football with an amazing clarity.

  Tito: Before going out on to the pitch, the message is a motivational one, he doesn’t usually shout, he doesn’t need to. Pep’s tactic is to convince the players that everything that is said and done is for their own good. When they see that, they apply it and enjoy being out on the pitch. />
  An anonymous player: Ah, yes, those pre-game talks ... I remember one day at the Camp Nou, before the return leg of the semi-final against Valencia in the Copa del Rey (we had a 1-1 result in the first leg), he gave a speech full of sentimental lessons, about the club, what it meant to wear the shirt ... The magic is that after everything that this team has won, seeing Pep work makes you go out on to the pitch remembering, ‘God, I’m playing for Barça.’ There has never been one of those: ‘What a blow today, we play yet another game.’

  Estiarte: There are secrets I will never explain. But let me tell you one of the most remarkable chats he gave. Perhaps Pep will get upset if I say it. In a period where we couldn’t find our best version, we were tired, people talked about refs helping us and all that, and Pep organised a meeting. ‘Gentlemen, do you realise that when you are tired and we think that life is difficult that one of your team-mates has played thirteen games with a monster that was eating him inside? OK, we are tired, we have excuses, but there are priorities: we are healthy and Abi has given us an example to follow.’

  The same anonymous player: And how about what he said before going to Chelsea: ‘You’re all on the phone all day, well while you’re at it send a message to your families and friends now before going to warm up, promising them, ‘We’re going to go through’, because that way you’re all obliged to give it your all out there as you’ve made a commitment to them.

  And then you start shouting, ‘Come on, let’s go, let’s beat them.’ Someone else is clapping, it smells of Deep Heat and the space becomes small, all of you trying to go through the small door, all of you standing up, some jumping up and down, finalising the rituals.

  The game is not always going according to plan, and Pep doesn’t say anything as soon as you return to the dressing room, but he finds two to three minutes to catch your attention.

  Piqué: In the second season, we were drawing 0-0 against Rubin Kazan and he told us something at half-time that really stuck with me: ‘When we lose our fear of losing, we’ll stop winning.’

  Valdés: I remember a talk at half-time during a game in which things were going pretty badly. Very calmly, he explained to us what we should do to sort out the situation. It was just a small move that the midfielders had to carry out, positional play. He showed it to us on the blackboard and ‘zas!’ we won the game because of that.

  Xavi: With Pep, everything is calculated, if you get me, he’s always been able to see two or three moves ahead. He analyses, and tells you things you haven’t thought of.

  Valdés: When a player understands what the coach is explaining and realises that with his decisions things improve, the level of credibility, connection and conviction increases considerably.

  Estiarte: Pep told me: ‘Manel, we cannot deceive them, not once, because they will find us out. And when they do, we are dead.’

  Return to the pitch, second half, and after running normally even more than the opposition, you go back to the changing room having given what Pep asked of you: your all. No more, no less.

  Xavi: After the game he’ll sometimes give you a hug, or there will be times when he won’t say a thing. Or there are days when he’ll give a team talk after the ninety minutes, and other times he won’t. He does what he feels and what he feels is right at all times. And if he wants to tell you off, he does so, no problem.

  Estiarte: Sometimes he would only say after a game, ‘Look, in three days we have such and such a match, eat, drink and rest. Congratulations.’ A subtle reminder to be responsible.

  Iniesta: He knows how to control his emotions and say things at the right moment. He worries about the group when things aren’t going well and when we win he takes part in the hugs and celebrations. A family, we’re like a family.

  The main team talk in the bowels of Stamford Bridge, Pep’s magic dust, wasn’t applied before the start of the second leg of the semi-finals of the 2009 Champions League, but at half-time.

  After emphatically beating Real Madrid and almost bagging the first title of the season (Barcelona were seven points ahead of their rivals with four La Liga games to go), the team travelled to London after the 0-0 draw of the first leg. They were nervous and anyone who said they weren’t was lying. Nobody trembled but the hours leading up to the game were tense.

  Rafa Márquez (injured) and Puyol (suspended) couldn’t play, so Pep had to decide on the best partnership at the back. The players were told the line-up a couple of hours before kick-off, just before leaving the hotel to get to the Bridge. The two central defenders chosen were Piqué, who had grown in stature daily since his debut earlier in the season, and midfielder Yaya Touré, a selection which took everybody by surprise. Keita was the defensive midfielder and Iniesta was used up front with Messi and Samuel Eto’o.

  The atmosphere was like nothing many of the players had ever experienced before – noisy long before the game, the roar, the hunger for success that came from every corner of the stadium. Pep Guardiola was astonished and admitted after the game that the atmosphere had certainly been intimidating.

  The coach had insisted in the couple of training sessions and in the tactical talk prior to the match on what to do in order to avoid problems with Chelsea’s Didier Drogba: basically, it was about not sticking to him when he had his back to you. He also told his players to repeat a few moves around the same area in order to get the attention of Chelsea’s defenders and then, the next time, appear on the other side to surprise them.

  But it was obvious right from the start that Barcelona lacked penetration. They had the ball but didn’t do anything dangerous with it. Víctor Valdés saved the side with key interventions after Chelsea counter-attacks or dangerous set pieces, but Barcelona went into half-time 1-0 down after Essien scored with a shot from outside the box.

  Pep needed to intervene. He didn’t speak to anybody during the short walk through the narrow tunnel that takes you to the Stamford Bridge away team dressing room. As soon as he entered, and once everybody was inside, with energy, gesticulating in the middle of the room, holding the eyes of the players, he told them they had to be true to what they had done all year, that they shouldn’t be scared. ‘Believe, believe with all of your hearts that we can score, because then we will definitely score.’

  There was also the tactical instruction: they should play fast balls down the wings, because Chelsea allowed them to start moves from the back and neither Anelka nor Malouda closed down that area particularly well.

  Chelsea, with Guus Hiddink pulling the strings, wasn’t a puppet like Real Madrid had been a few days earlier: they faced Barça with defensive rigour and a superhuman effort from their players. It was a fateful night for the referee Tom Henning Ovrebo, who ate away at Chelsea’s morale: he unfairly sent off Abidal but he let Barça off with a couple of penalties, four according to Chelsea’s protests, the strongest call being a clear handball by Gerard Piqué after the break.

  Perhaps Pep Guardiola shouldn’t have sent Piqué up front to play as a striker so early in the game (with around twenty minutes left) and perhaps Hiddink shouldn’t have replaced Drogba, supposedly injured, with Juliano Belletti around the same time, sending the wrong message to his players. Both managers may have got it wrong at some point, but they agreed the game was as good as over towards the end. So Guardiola hugged Hiddink, as if to congratulate him on the imminent victory, some understood.

  It was a hug, yes, but it was exceptional, with a smile, too, even. It was the hug of a noble fighter recognising the merits of his opponent during the extraordinary battle.

  A few seconds later, Iniesta scored.

  It was Barcelona’s only shot on goal of the whole game. In the ninety-third minute.

  Voted the best moment of the season by the Barcelona fans. Better than any final of that year, better than Rome and Manchester United. Better even than scoring six goals at the Bernabéu. It was just ecstatic, orgasmic. Everybody, with the exception of Chelsea fans, jumped to celebrate with Iniesta.

  ‘Things we
re getting worse in the game,’ Iniesta remembers. ‘We were tired. It wasn’t physical tiredness, it was something almost psychological. Alvés went up the right wing, crossed to the centre, it fell to Samuel, and from then one of the most important moments of my life arrived. I got the ball from Messi. I didn’t hit it with the instep of my foot, nor with the tip nor the inside. I hit it with my heart. With all of my soul. I don’t think there are many photos of me on the pitch shirtless, I don’t usually celebrate that way.’

  It was twenty seconds from the moment Frank Lampard lost possession. Seven players involved, twelve touches of the ball before the goal that changed the contemporary history of the club. A portrait of Pep’s team that, despite walking on the edge, had created a little masterpiece.

  Perhaps, if Iniesta hadn’t been the author of that goal, we wouldn’t have seen Guardiola’s legs propelling him down the touchline, his fists clenched and his face alight with euphoria, as if he’d lost control. Till Silvinho stopped him to ask him to do a substitution to lose some key seconds. He let himself be a footballer again for a second. Suddenly he stopped, turned around, contained himself and began, once more, to shout instructions.

  ‘Iniesta taught me at Stamford Bridge to never write anything off. Improbable is not impossible ... you have to believe,’ Pep recalls. ‘If his kick was unstoppable it’s ’cause it was loaded with the will of the whole of the Barcelona fans.’

  When the game ended, he proceeded to hug everybody, all of the players, the staff. At that moment he was both player and coach. Valdés came to him and got hold of him, shook him and shouted something in his face that he cannot remember. The heart was coming out of Pep. The whole team exploded like never before, not even at the Bernabéu. Everyone was going haywire. The biggest hug was with Iniesta to whom Pep must have mentioned what he later said in the press conference: ‘Bloody hell, the one who never scores was the one with the goal.’