Messi (72 page)

‘This group and Barcelona owe a great deal to Pep for everything that he has done,’ explained Leo after the title had been won. ‘He arrived when we had gone through two bad years, where we had failed to meet our objectives, and he changed the mentality of the dressing room.’

Leo was now undoubtedly one of the main protagonists in a side that had entered the history books, part of a collective that identified him as a beacon, that vital piece among a group of people who understood a type of football that would survive football’s normally limited memory span.

The players took photos in the dressing room with the latest trophy and then there was a party. Together and apart. Ibrahimović with his people, Leo with his brothers.

‘The thing is,’ recalls Joan Laporta, ‘I remember him dancing when we were celebrating winning the title in Abu Dhabi in 2009. And he was messing around as usual when the senior players (Xavi, Puyol, Iniesta, Valdés) came up to me and asked me for their bonuses. When that happened, Leo was always there, watching, because they would share the final decision with him simply with a look.’

Ibrahimović never did understand the senior players’ acquiescent nature.

6. FOUR GOALS IN THE CHAMPIONS LEAGUE QUARTER-FINALS AGAINST ARSENAL, 2010

In fourteen months, Leo Messi had signed two new contracts: one in July 2008 on an annual salary of €7.8 million with a €1.5 million bonus for matches played; his release clause stood at €150 million. But in September 2009, Barcelona offered him a new deal which reflected the success in Guardiola’s first season: his salary reached €12 million. If the team won the league or Champions League and he played 60 per cent of the games, bonuses of up to €2 million would be added as a fixed wage the following season. The contract expired in 2016 and also had a release clause. If someone wanted to sign Leo without negotiating with Barcelona, his price was now €250 million.

After victory in the FIFA Club World Cup the players left for their holidays. On their return they were to face Villarreal. Those Christmas holidays, unlike the previous year, were used to the last day, and Leo returned the day before the match. Guardiola wanted to save him for a cup match against Sevilla three days later. The player said he was available for the league match but Pep stuck to his guns. After the 1–1 draw with Villarreal, the coach mixed some fringe players (Pinto, Chigrinski, Maxwell, Thiago and Bojan, who played as a number 9) with first team players against Sevilla. In fact, the bench, with the exception of Ibra, had played in both the Champions League final and the Club World Cup final. Messi started on the wing.

Sevilla applied a simple but effective tactic: they defended very deep and launched long balls in behind the defence. On seeing the disillusionment within the squad after the defeat, Pep felt he had disappointed them and determined to reward their ambition by fielding the strongest possible team for the return leg, except for Pinto in goal, the cup goalkeeper.

In eighteen months Guardiola’s Barcelona had still not lost a single knockout match.

His players’ response in Sevilla was magnificent, in a real cup tie played in torrential rain which added an epic touch: the raids on goal, defended by an extraordinary Palop, were incessant, especially in the second half.

‘He was burning with rage,’ remembers Gerard Piqué. He was crying silently, with his shirt covering his face, discreetly, crestfallen. Away from everyone. ‘If you didn’t look carefully, you wouldn’t even realise.’ In those circumstances, it’s better to leave him alone, which is what most of his team-mates did that night.

It was the first title that Guardiola had failed to win.

Pep went to console Leo. The Argentinian felt guilty about the elimination and told the coach as much. ‘Nobody is guilty here,’ Guardiola told him. ‘And if the finger should be pointed at anyone it should be at me for not knowing how to lead you into the next round.’

And if he wins, of course. And scores. In three consecutive matches in February, luck was not on Messi’s side and he was less prominent
than usual. The third of those was the first leg of the last 16 against Stuttgart in the Champions League, a match which had consequences for Guardiola’s future plans. Barcelona drew 1–1 in Germany and Leo was unnoteworthy. What was happening? Any other coach would have sat the footballer down, given him a break and allowed him to reflect. Pep reacted in another way. He blamed himself for not managing to get the best out of Leo and studied the reasons for such a poor Messi, together with assistant Tito Vilanova. The conclusion was not surprising: his talent was being wasted on the wing.

With Ibrahimović in the centre of the attack in the usual 4-3-3, Pep told Messi to start on the wing but play inside as often as he wanted. But Leo did not touch the ball often enough in those circumstances.

And, in addition, Leo no longer ran down the touchline. Those diagonal runs inside caused a serious problem to his own team: the team suffered defensively. ‘They murdered us down that flank,’ it was said privately after the match in Germany. Cristian Molinaro, the left-back, pushed forward with total freedom as Leo did not track back. Pep, who remembered similar problems against Lyon, admitted after the match that Leo was no longer going to play on the wing, he clearly didn’t want to and shouldn’t: the risk was too great and that could be very costly in Europe.

Pep knew that Messi did his talking on the pitch and those constant diagonal bursts sent out a clear message: ‘This is my game.’ And not only that, but his habitat, the area in which he wanted to be most influential, was the space between defenders and central midfielders.

There was an added problem: when he made those runs, the presence of other attackers, his own team-mates, literally blocked his route to goal; they were in his way. Something had to be done. The tactical evolution of Leo and, therefore the side, was irresistible from then on.

When Pep found the time, when he saw Leo was willing to discuss the subject, the conversation was as he imagined it would be: he did not feel comfortable; he liked playing in a different way. Leo never told him that Ibrahimović had to go, but as the season went on, Guardiola realised that the two of them were tactically incompatible,
and there were too many weaknesses without the ball.

He knew Leo could be more effective if he was surrounded by a clearly defined organisational structure – he was going to be the unstable element and there had to be stable elements at his side, players who would give offensive organisation to the team. If everyone knew what Messi was going to do, they could apply themselves to offering him the solutions that would allow him to make the most of his creative talent. This would make another vital requirement easier: getting the ball back. If they attacked in a disciplined way, each man in his position except Leo, it would be easier to initiate the pressing. Guardiola wanted to control where the opposition danger came from, and he preferred it to be down the middle; Keita and Pedro, with greater defensive discipline and happy to track back, were going to play out wide in the big games.

Guardiola said to Leo: ‘You’re going to play down the middle from now on. And you’re going to score a bucketload of goals, three or four per game.’ Four days after the draw in Germany, Pep tried a 4–2-3–1 with Ibra up top and Messi behind him. ‘He was not contributing much. We needed him to get more involved,’ Pep explained the change in a press conference. ‘He is capable of playing very well in all positions. Last year he played on the right wing 90 per cent of the time. He knows that, even if he plays there, he can drift inside whenever he wants to. But if he plays as a winger, we are more predictable.’

With Ibra on the bench, Messi moved into the middle in the return leg against Stuttgart at the Camp Nou: 4–0 to Barcelona with two goals from ‘the Flea’, who was also involved in the third. The dip in form was forgotten; he had scored seven goals in three matches. His goalscoring rate would shoot up from that moment. He would not have been able to do it from the wing. Nor as a classic number 9; centre-backs would have eaten him up.

Did Guardiola find him his position or did Leo keep knocking on the door until he got what he wanted? A close look at the evolution of the process suggests that it was surely a bit of both.

At a press conference in Buenos Aires in summer 2013, Pep explained in detail: ‘When I started at Barcelona, Laudrup would appear down the middle and I, the midfielder, could pass the ball everywhere; there was one more of us in midfield, we outnumbered
our opponents. And I would say, bloody hell, I like this. Leo understood what playing down the middle was all about very quickly. He would have picked it up if I told him to go and play at left-back. Ah, and you will say, well, you have that monster of a player, and that makes everything easy. Would you have done it without Leo? Well, maybe not.’

Everything that Pep decided at Barcelona was for Leo, so that Leo would score goals and the team, and Guardiola, win matches. It is therefore a selfish decision by the coach: that is how Guardiola understands it himself. Or, put another way, Pep’s generosity towards Messi’s wishes was not the only factor. But it got to a point where he had to take the decision, and in his second season in charge he effectively gave the team to Leo.