Pep Guardiola: Another Way of Winning: The Biography

by Balague, Guillem

  After his fourth, Messi, ran over to the touchline followed by his team-mates to embrace the coach who had been instrumental in making him the player he is today. It was poignant. Theatrical, but honest. Two of the biggest characters of the biggest soap opera in the world were filling the screen with an emotional hug, a public display of affection, unashamed in showing their eternal gratitude for each other. Pep whispered in Messi’s ear: ‘Thanks for everything.’

  And after the game, Pep was to give a speech out on the pitch. He took the microphone and shuffled around uncomfortably on his own while the players rallied round him. Standing near the centre circle, he watched with the rest of the crowd as a video montage was played on the giant screens, set to the music of Coldplay. Then, his favourite song ‘Que tinguem sort’ (I hope we are lucky) by Catalan songwriter Lluís Llach was played, the words echoing around the stadium thanks to the thousands of supporters singing along.

  ‘Si em dius adéu, vull que el dia sigui net i clar, que cap ocell trenqui l’harmonia del seu cant. Que tinguis sort i que trobis el que t’ha mancat amb mi …’

  If you say goodbye to me, I hope the day is clean and clear, that no bird breaks the harmony of its song. I hope you are lucky and that you find what you have been missing with me …

  Pep looked into the stands while everyone was waiting for his words. The stadium was full to capacity with 88,044 spectators, sitting in anticipation. Some holding each other. Fully grown men trying to hide their tears. Young girls taking pictures on their phones to capture the moment. As everyone remained on their feet, Pep’s dad, Valentí, had to sit down because his legs were trembling.

  The man considered the club’s favourite son was leaving home, again. It was goodbye to an older brother for some, a father figure for others, a Messiah, even, for a few. A nation, a club and its fans were feeling orphaned.

  Imagine.

  Imagine having to represent all those roles. The weight of all that, the pressure. Can you understand now why he had to go?

  ‘Pep is a privileged man. He is one of the few people that I know who in his private and professional life cultivates the urgent, the important and the essential.’ Trying to work him out, Guardiola’s friend Evarist Murtra read a speech in the Catalan Parliament the day the coach was paid homage to by the Catalan civil society in November 2011. Pep complied with the urgency of winning titles and matches; he related to the importance of honouring noble codes that underpin sport; and, finally, he was loyal to the institution he represented and the spirit of its founders and followers – and that was essential.

  In an interview at the time, former Real Madrid director, coach and player Jorge Valdano chose well-crafted words to describe his influence. ‘He believes in football as a territory where greatness is possible, because he never cheats, he is always brave, he takes away all the miseries of the game. He is an authentic example of leadership not only applicable in the world of football. Definitively a leader.’

  Football, sport, is all that matters in Spain for the masses. The media ignore other walks of life (culture, formation, critical thinking) and people cling on to sports symbols as their only valid point of reference. It places a huge responsibility on those individuals and is a sign of foolishness in our culture. Pep has always been acutely aware of the transcendence of his behaviour and the importance of the institution he represents, so he has moderated and modulated his conduct accordingly. Society in general has been grateful to him.

  That Gold Medal offered by the Catalan Parliament was given to him ‘because of his track record as an elite sportsman, for his success in his time as a manager, for his projection of a cultured Catalunya, civil and open, that has succeeded in a very notable way, and for his values that he has transmitted in an exemplary way, such as sportsmanship, teamwork, effort and personal growth, very positive values not just from an individual point of view but also for personal progress’.

  Excessive? Some would argue that on another day perhaps, but that at this moment in history, when Catalonia needs so many leading examples after falling time and time again into despair, attacked on a daily basis from so many political flanks, it was just what the doctor ordered.

  But he often insisted, as he did in his own speech in response to the parliamentary homage (in front of so many members of the political and social elite, the military, finance) that he ‘didn’t want to be an example of anything’. Was anybody listening?

  The idolising of Guardiola, some of it forced upon society by a faithful media and some genuinely spontaneous, was born of an objective reality but, little by little, it was transformed into a mass delirium that retained hardly any of the original feeling.

  Success had created an image of Pep, a popular perception based perhaps upon some primary religious and churlish mechanisms, that did not belong to himself – he was not the owner of that duplicate. Adulation had created an unnecessary pedestal that Pep himself rejected.

  How do you go from the humility of that Barcelona team, their constant prioritising of the principles they based everything on (work ethic, respect, collective effort) to the fanaticism of some of their followers, and even the cottage industry created around the figure of Guardiola? It is a fashion that seems to have transcended Catalonia: AS newspaper carried a study in 2012 that showed there were more Barcelona than Madrid fans in Spain – a first.

  Sometimes, Catalan society, generally shy and allergic to role models, saw Guardiola as a throwaway Dalai Lama, a guru for the Catalan masses. Pep often joked about the articles that praised him, as if they were part of a competition to see who could be more sycophantic. And he always wondered if virtues become defects in defeat, if the praise wasn’t a tool to sharpen the blades for when it was time for the slaughter.

  In the VIP area at the Camp Nou after the Barcelona derby, Zubizarreta was on his feet, red-eyed and clearly emotional, but deep down scared. The leader was leaving his job so that the club could continue shaping it and Tito would follow in his footsteps. Massive, daunting footsteps.

  Still on the pitch, away from his players who had gathered a few steps from him to listen to his words, Pep was checking his microphone. It wasn’t working and he was nervous, wanting the moment to finish, that funeral for his public persona. Out of the ashes was going to appear the other Pep, the familiar one. But before that he had to address the fans.

  ‘We’ll do this quickly, the players need to get to the showers,’ he began. And in his words there was a hidden homage to Bielsa who started his own farewell speech to the Chile national team in the same way: ‘Life has given me this gift. In these five years we have been able to enjoy the spectacle produced by these guys.’

  ‘You have no idea of the love that I’ll take home with me, these past five years, you have no idea of the feeling of happiness I take with me. I am just as lucky as all of you, I hope you have enjoyed watching them play.

  ‘Know that I will miss you all. The one who loses is me’, a last reference to his admired Bielsa, words used too by the Argentinian manager in his last day as Chile manager.

  And with a reference to the same metaphor he had used at his presentation as Barcelona manager, he said, ‘The seat belt got a bit too tight, so I took it off. But the rest of you needn’t do so because this will continue. I leave you in the very best hands. Stay with them. I wish you the very best, good luck. See you soon, because you will never lose me.’

  Pep’s mum, Dolors, advised fans, via radio interviews days later, to get hold of those last words, to treasure them. They weren’t said by chance.

  That final message hinted and foretold of a return; the ball boy, the youth team player, the captain, the coach and the man who made Messi the best player in the world, maybe of all time, would surely be back. The only thing we can’t guess yet is in what capacity. After spending some time abroad to distance himself from the club, the next logical step in Pep’s Barcelona career would be a return as sporting director or even president.

  When Pep finished speaking
, the players applauded and ran towards him to throw him up in the air, the way they had done in Rome and at Wembley. Then, they all stretched out their hands to make an enormous ‘sardana’ ring of bodies – the traditional Catalan dance – and ran around the centre circle. It was another of the symbols that this Barça team will leave behind, this example of unity, spinning to the music that had started a unique cycle: Coldplay’s ‘Viva la Vida’, the exhilaration and enthusiasm of the first year, those first tentative steps of the new project that began to take shape despite the voices of the sceptics that were gradually and systematically silenced with each victory.

  Soon after that Pep needed to become reacquainted with the old Pep, to resuscitate himself even.

  So when the lights went out and the public had disappeared, Pep made his way down on to the pitch with his family, brothers, sisters, cousins and friends to take photos.

  That Guardiola knew that life was much more than football. That Pep was curious to discover new worlds, literary worlds, cinematographical, theatrical, musical worlds; and others geographical, at the other extreme of the globe, and some even closer to home.

  Throughout the whole night, Pep was half smiling – it was the end of an era but also the start of a new one. What he had wanted since the previous October: a rest. A reunion with his other self and other dreams. It was time to enjoy things away from his consuming passion after a seemingly interminable four years.

  How different from when, eleven years earlier, he had played his last game for Barcelona and, after the game, ended up being carried off the pitch by his team-mates Luis Enrique and Sergi Barjuan. Not everybody stayed behind to see that. That night, there were no post-match celebrations, eulogies or speeches, no emotional grandfathers or excitable youths taking pictures of the moment. He had also walked around a dark, empty stadium with Cris and his agent.

  As a player, he had received harsh criticism for leaving the club at the end of his contract, whistles from an unforgiving crowd unjustly accusing him of trying to cash in. It counted for little that he was the captain, an icon and thirty years old at the time. For the club that you have adored and served since childhood to turn on you in such a cruel way, and without any apparent motive, isn’t something that is easy to deal with and less so for someone like Pep, sensitive to criticism and who never forgot the lesson that leaving at the right time is crucially important: just as he did as a manager.

  His latest farewell at the Nou Camp, beyond its implications, was the most sensitive, most heartfelt and honest experienced on a stage that, all too often, had been unable to say goodbye to its heroes or managers. Guardiola left in a way that both Cruyff and Rijkaard were unable to, who ended their careers in sporting decline and without the unanimous consent of the fans. Strong criticisms were heard when Louis Van Gaal, twice league winner, dared to return for a second stint as manager.

  ‘The legacy? For me, the memory I have of these people, I hope it lasts for ever,’ Pep said some days later. A banner at the Villamarín, in Pep’s final league game, spoke for the fans who adored him: ‘Pep, your football has shown us the way.’

  Guardiola had defended the club’s values and taught people a special way to support and feel part of Barça. Would it be the new way to be a culé? Or just a momentary lapse in a culture that seemed to relish the role of victim? Pep had already warned, during his final season, in a moment of doubt: ‘This won’t last for ever. Sooner or later we will stop winning and that is when we will have to see if we really do have faith in the way we are and the way we play. I’m not putting my hand in the fire, I have to see it. If the club is firm in its convictions, it will always progress.’

  But while certain sectors remained tied to their old ways, the Camp Nou, the fans, showed signs that this team has changed history, going far beyond just the titles. The final reaction in the Clásico defeat was an impressive message. Rather than surrender and start to doubt, thousands of Catalans raised their voices to make sure Pep and the team knew that they were with them, that they deserved recognition and loyalty ahead of a result.

  Perhaps the fans have changed, but the environment was still harmful. Pep’s departure was enough for a sector of Barcelona to fall back upon old ways, indifferent to the massive change that the club had undergone at a sporting level. With Guardiola present, nobody dared disrupt the harmony. And he himself had always made an effort to remain equidistant from all sides – he always spoke well of former presidents Laporta, Núñez and even Gaspart – and he had always been amicable with Rosell, with whom he had a cordial relationship without ever managing to have a particularly high level of trust.

  ‘I’m stepping aside, I don’t want my name to be mentioned. I’m leaving and I want to be left in peace,’ Guardiola warned. But before the last game of the season, Joan Laporta resurfaced: ‘the current board is obsessed with destroying when what we did was build, including Pep … they could have done more for him to stay.’ Johan Cruyff was asked for his opinion, as was Carles Rexach. Rosell’s strength was tested, Guardiola’s steps were controlled. All sorts of rumours began to circulate: clashes between Valdés and Messi, separated by Keita; rumours of the Argentine star getting angry; the alleged rift between Pep, Tito Vilanova, and even Pep and Andoni Zubizarreta.

  Did Guardiola leave at the right time? Would the same things have happened if he had stayed one more year? Luis Aragonés was the only football man who questioned Pep’s reasons for leaving the club. ‘I don’t understand him,’ the former Spain national coach told AS newspaper. ‘I don’t believe him when he says he is tired. I agree with Mourinho. He has only been at the job four years, he has just started. It must be something else. Don’t get me wrong – what he has done has a huge merit. But I don’t know why he is leaving. People will forget what he has done very quickly.’

  When they meet, and Xavi Hernández has insisted to Pep they should, as he considers them two of the best brains in the game, Guardiola will be on the receiving end of some stern words from Luis and will have to hear a few home truths.

  But on that line, was Pep’s decision to quit really for the good of the club? Some might say that he abandoned his players and colleagues at the time when they needed him most. His nemesis, after all, was on top. The movie doesn’t usually end with the arch enemy winning – not unless they’re preparing us for a sequel. And the suggestion is that Pep’s legacy, his bequeathing of his powers to his sidekick, Tito Vilanova, could provide us with a sequel. But has he really left his successor in an ideal situation or a no-win scenario where every victory will be heralded as another win for Pep, every defeat as the fault of whoever follows him?

  Whatever the answers, nobody in Catalonia was ready to question his motives or his timing. He was protected, as José Mourinho has always said and envied, by the press, who enjoyed his successful era with that combination of devotion and blindness that often goes hand in hand.

  One thing is certain. Without Guardiola, without the spiritual leader, Barça is facing a new situation, and Tito, Guardiola’s best friend, a mammoth task. Does Guardiola-ism make sense without its most charismatic leader, without Guardiola? Will Tito be able to control it in the way Pep did for four years?

  That is, though, another story, one still being written.

  ‘Today, you all let me down.’

  That is what Pep Guardiola told his players at the end of the last league game of the season in Seville, at Real Betis. Barcelona had managed to scrape a 2-2 draw in the last few seconds of the game after a poor performance, a reminder of the worst trips of the campaign, especially in a second half where they ran less, worked less, pressured less and just seemed generally apathetic.

  Fifteen days later the team would play in the Spanish domestic cup final and that level of performance and attitude could not be accepted.

  As soon as the players entered the dressing room, the manager asked for the door to be closed behind them. ‘Quiet! Today you let me down,’ he grievously pointed out in what probably was the worst tell
ing off of his entire time at the helm. He didn’t want to personalise the mistakes in one or two players but he couldn’t ignore the signals.

  The farewells, the endless rumours about dissent, the speculation about the future of certain stars had distracted and softened his team. He felt responsible.

  At first nobody responded. They all listened in silence, this time looking at the floor, like scolded children: reminded that the season had not finished yet.

  Then Dani Alvés asked to be allowed to speak.

  The Brazilian had lost focus during the season, more than most, and he had been sent off in that match with most of the second half still to be played and with the team winning 1-0. Betis scored two goals after that.

  ‘Forgive me. I am sorry, it was a stupid sending off,’ he told his colleagues.

  That game, that performance, even the sending off, was not mentioned again by anybody in the following two weeks that preceded the cup final in Madrid against Athletic de Bilbao – the message had been received.

  That title could become the fourth of the season after the Spanish Super Cup, the European Super Cup and the World Club Cup.

  Pep had won his first trophy as manager of FC Barcelona against Athletic de Bilbao in 2009, his first final played and won as a manager. Now, it was going full circle in 2012, 247 matches later.

  His last ninety minutes as a Barcelona coach were lived with the usual passion and intensity the public had grown accustomed to seeing, something that had been missing in previous weeks.

  At the start of the match, Pep gave few instructions as he enjoyed a spectacular first half an hour; with his side hungry, aggressive with the ball, not conceding an inch to the admirable Marcelo Bielsa’s team.

  The night marked a return to common sense, a return to basics. Even Guardiola was once again more Guardiola than ever, with his energy and determination recovered, contagious.