Messi (69 page)

Guardiola took Thierry Henry out to dinner to ask him to make an effort to connect with the team: he seemed faraway, emotionally distant from the changes that were taking place. Henry responded to that invitation by scoring a hat-trick against Valencia. But Pep never thought about taking Leo out for a meal: conversations between them were always going to take place at the training ground.

Following Velasco’s advice, during his first Christmas holidays with the first team, Pep would give Messi and the rest of the South American players more holiday time so they could be with their families. Leo, though, came back before he was asked, because he was bored and he missed the football and the squad. He wanted to get back to training.

In a demonstration of affection towards the new leader of the team, in press conferences Guardiola would refer to Leo as the best player in the world. Over and over again. He had come to the conclusion that, despite being shielded by a loving family, Leo needed that affection. As you would do with a needy child, Guardiola opened the doors of his house to him, so that he could come and go as he pleased. Pep suggested less an adult dialogue than a pupil/ teacher one.

Having established a way of communicating, Guardiola had to continue trying to convince Leo that what he proposed in terms of football would make him a better player.

From day one, he had imposed a very rigid tactical system, in
which everyone had to carry out their roles and responsibilities. And Messi? Senior players such as Xavi and Iniesta bore more responsibility than they had in the previous regime. Leo had to help the team on the pitch from the demanding and not always rewarding space that is the wing. And Pep’s wingers were expected to hog the touch-line, to make defenders ask whether they should close them down or try to prevent the midfield trio from pushing forward. Messi was a very important player, a key one, but in the beginning the team revolved around Xavi, who communicated effortlessly with the coach. Both the central midfielder and the other players from the youth team gave their blessing to Pep’s tactical plan, and Messi had to accept his roles and duties: stretch the play, defend against the winger, join in pressing the opposition and supporting Eto’o, who was to be the central striker.

But Leo was no longer the same winger who had duelled with Del Horno at Chelsea. Then he had dutifully accepted his role in a team in which he had only just arrived, and whose undoubted centre of attention was Ronaldinho. With Pep, however, he gradually abandoned the wing and began to appear more down the middle: he was asking to be the main protagonist.

Pep kept insisting on Messi following the strict tactical instructions and he wanted the Argentinian to be more proactive when the team lost the ball. But, when he lost possession, Messi often lost concentration and teams attacked freely down his flank. Guardiola began to realise that it was going to be difficult to maroon him on one side of the pitch, and that doing so would in fact be damaging to the team.

‘A “Guardiolina” is a telling-off, but Guardiola-style. In his gentle voice, no shouting, straight to the point but without pointing a finger or offending anyone: looking to convince the player with constructive arguments,’ wrote analyst Martí Perarnau. ‘On one occasion, earlier in his first season, two players were recipients of the message, but, to sweeten the telling-off, they were accompanied by another three so that it would not get out of hand. Needless to say those two recipients were Messi and Henry. They received the “Guardiolina”. They were the ones who failed to obey the ground rules on which this Barça was based. Against Espanyol and Lyon. Other players made more calamitous mistakes … But those mistakes
were not responsible for the sinking of Barcelona’s collective team plan in both matches.’

Leo and Thierry had neglected to press the defenders and to tighten up when possession was lost. They were happy to participate when the ball was at their feet, but would drift out the game when it was time to defend. Against Lyon, the French side controlled the middle of the pitch with ease. ‘This is the match from which we can gain more pointers for the future,’ said Guardiola. ‘It will be used to illustrate to the players very clearly what is expected of them and, if they understand that, we can fight for everything.’ According to Perarnau, Pep had a meeting with both Messi and Henry, in the presence of Iniesta, Hleb and Pedro, and told them, in Perarnau’s words, ‘no more slacking’.

And so the first tactical modification designed to make the most of ‘the Flea’s’ unstoppable growth was gradually being conceived: during that first Pep season he played mainly on the wing, a ‘false’ winger, who was more often than not cutting inside and roaming in the middle and when he had the ball lots of good things happened.
He had scored 30 goals by April (in the previous season, under Rijkaard, he had scored 17), with a dozen extraordinary performances, and another dozen very good ones. Barcelona were playing in the league with a level of efficiency that surprised even the coach. They were heading for the title.

But it was not always a smooth ride.

Before the return leg of the Lyon fixture, in the last 16 of the Champions League, Guardiola realised the team was going through a difficult patch, something confirmed not only by the statistics (one victory and two defeats in six matches, including a hard-fought 1–1 draw in the first leg against the French team) but that was also apparent to the naked eye. The team needed a psychological boost, a hug, some sort of reactivating. It is one of those downers every side goes through once or twice a season, a mixture of physical and mental tiredness creeps in.

Guardiola asked for a video to be compiled in which he could show everything they had been doing, what they had been building up the whole season. All the goals were included in it, set to a soundtrack of The Killers’ song ‘Human’, which, as Ricard Torquemada explains in his book
Fórmula Barça
, ‘became the hymn of the squad in that last part of the campaign’. Lyon were comprehensively beaten 5–2 and Messi asked for a copy of the DVD of the match.

Having eliminated the French team, they faced Bayern Munich over two legs in the quarter-finals, two games that were regarded as being evenly balanced. The first leg was played in Barcelona. Bayern had just lost 5–1 to Wolfsburg, who ended up winning the Bundesliga that season, but Bayern could not have imagined what lay in wait for them at the Camp Nou.

The four goals were scored in a first half defined by Laporta as the ‘best forty-five minutes in the history of the club’. The team were on a roll, and were enjoying every minute of it.

The president’s words would soon be out of date.

4. THE 6–2 VICTORY AT THE BERNABÉU

Leo Messi was eating with a fellow team-member when he received a call from Guardiola. He had something to show him. Pep asked him to go to the training centre where he had been studying how to beat Madrid, the first
clásico
of the young coach at the Bernabéu. The game fell between the first and second legs of the Champions League semi-final against Chelsea, and it demanded total concentration from Barcelona – the crucial two weeks of the season, the ones that would determine the success of the new era. The league was coming to a close and Juande Ramos’ Madrid had won seven straight games and were four points behind the
culés
with five games remaining. Guardiola stated that he was going to Madrid to win and believed he had discovered how to do that. He had prepared some videos and he wanted to convince Leo to apply a tactical change which could create doubts in the Real defence.