Pep Confidential (23 page)

By the start of September Pep is already comfortably installed in the centre of Munich and is enjoying the city. ‘I’m really happy. Munich is a beautiful city and the club is hugely supportive.’

So what does he do in his 12-hour working day? About 50% of his time is spent analysing his opponents in depth, a task which usually takes him two-and-a-half days. He also spends a lot of time supervising training and planning the next session with Buenaventura, Torrent and Gerland. Finally, he spends one or two hours a day having one-to-one chats with players. Sometimes he’ll show them some kind of instructive video, at others they’ll have a coffee or lunch together and chat about personal things. The players are the important ones, the key to success and Pep has learned that he must devote time to them. What else does he get up to in Säbener Strasse? He studies, he analyses, he thinks and deconstructs other teams’ moves, and some of the moves that were popular in the distant past. He reinvents, watches, reflects, communicates and convinces.

Just a few hours after winning the European Super Cup in the dramatic penalty shoot-out in Prague, most of his players abandoned Säbener Strasse for international duty. They had almost no time to celebrate and, with Javi Martínez in hospital for his operation, Pep found himself almost completely alone in the sports ground. Mario Götze’s ankle had been put in plaster and he would spend the next few weeks on the injury list with Martínez, Thiago and Schweinsteiger. Together they would make a powerful and creative midfield, but Pep will have to put this particular dream on hold until well into the autumn.

What he would really love to do is manage the youth programme – train young players, oversee their development, teach them the fundamentals and get everything he can out of them. Perhaps he’ll do it one day, although it certainly won’t happen any time soon. He has three years in Munich and, if he doesn’t extend his contract, possibly a stint in England. Perhaps after that he’ll decide to abandon the world of the elite and start working with youngsters.

One day in the Camp Nou, towards the end of 2010, Pep instructed two of his youth players – Gerard Deulofeu and Rafa Alcántara, Thiago’s brother – to join the senior players’ training session for the first time. He told me all about it: ‘I
loved
working with them. It’s much easier to train youngsters than it is older players. Much easier. You feel like you’re really coaching. With older guys you have to watch and review what you say, how you say it, you have to take into account the result of your last match. You stand there watching the expressions on their faces and making sure you’re using exactly the right words. With the kids, you just take them by the scruff of the neck and bring all the talent out, just like squeezing an orange. I get so much more out of it – and it’s a lot more fun.’

These first few days in September are the best he’s had here so far. He’s only got four players to train (Starke, Rafinha, Contento and Kirchhoff), and he puts them to work with the B team, which itself has a new coach. Matthias Sammer has appointed Dutchman Eric ten Hag and for two weeks the two coaches work together to ensure that Bayern II begin to apply the same criteria to their game as the first team. The work they do now is about to yield great results. Bayern II will have a wonderful season and win the league. They will finish as the team which has scored most goals, whilst conceding the fewest. Nevertheless, they miss promotion to the Third Division because of an away goal conceded in the last second of the decisive play-off match.

Guardiola is keeping an eye on the Bayern youth academy. Some of his big stars have come through the youth sections at Säbener Strasse, guys like Müller, Lahm, Schweinsteiger and Alaba. However, so far this generation of youth players is showing no sign of being exceptional. Hermann Gerland,
Tiger
Gerland, who took over the club’s youth teams in 1990 and has a sixth sense for spotting young talent, is not optimistic about the short-term potential, although there are some notable exceptions, such as Højbjerg and Julian Green. Pep has grown enormously fond of Gerland. ‘He’s giving me so much help. So much! He takes me through every club and every player in the Bundesliga. He’s very loyal to Bayern and I’m delighted that the club suggested he work with me. I trust him and his advice completely. And I really admire the mutual respect that exists between him and the players.’

As well as working with the youngsters and running the training sessions with Gerland, Pep gets to spend some time with some of the legends of world football. People like Gerd Müller, who works with Ten Hag with Bayern II, and Mehmet Scholl, whose son, Lucas, plays for the under-19 team. But these pleasant encounters are few and far between and he can’t allow himself to get distracted. He’s worried about medical care at the club. There are specific concerns such as Götze and Schweinsteiger’s slow recoveries, although he understands that this is because their injuries are so serious. Then there are other issues, such as what happened in Dortmund when Neuer and Ribéry were training as if nothing had happened within 40 hours of the match they missed. At the time, Pep suggested amending the protocol. If the original injury isn’t serious he would like the players to travel with the team so that the decision can be made at the last minute. There is also the matter of the club’s arrangement with Doctor Müller-Wohlfahrt, widely recognised as the expert in his field. Many of the world’s top sportsmen and women have been treated in the ‘MW’ clinic, attracted by the doctor’s extraordinary diagnostic powers. He is capable of diagnosing most injuries just by placing his hands on the affected area and also specialises in the use of homeopathic remedies, which he uses in injections. Sprinter Usain Bolt, marathon runner Paula Radcliffe and golfer José María Olazábal, amongst others, swear that the medic’s ‘healing hands’ have cured painful muscular and joint-related injuries. Michael Jordan, Cristiano Ronaldo, Andy Murray, Boris Becker and even Luciano Pavarotti and Bono have all passed through Müller-Wohlfahrt’s hands.

Guardiola, however, would like a doctor present at training. At the moment the physios deal with anything that happens. Müller-Wohlfahrt insists that hanging about the training ground all day would be a huge waste of time for him or one of his assistants and points out that it is unlikely to cause injured players too much distress if they have to come to his clinic on Diener Strasse. He works in the centre of Munich in a building in the old quarter that was home to Emperor Luis of Bavaria in the 13th century. The doctor sees a huge number of patients every day, although if a Bayern player needs a diagnosis he will always get immediate attention. In the clinic, though – not at the training ground. This is one issue that will run and run and the season will end without any kind of satisfactory resolution.

28

‘HOENESS IS THE HEART AND SOUL OF THIS CLUB – HE’S VITAL TO ME.’

Munich, September 13, 2013

‘IT’S A BIT like a recipe,’ Pep says. ‘League titles are won in the last eight games, but they are lost in the first eight.’ Experience has taught him the importance of not losing the league in the first two months of the championship. Sure, you can drop a few points, but not too many. Two or three points behind, four at the most is all any team can afford at the end of the first eight games. That way you still have room for manoeuvre. Then, when it comes down to hand-to-hand combat, you will still be in a position to win, to show what your team is made of. You can’t fall at this final hurdle either, of course. This is the moment your men have to strain every nerve and sinew for victory. At least that’s the theory.

We are still very much at the start of the campaign. With four Bundesliga games under their belts, Bayern are in second place, two points behind their great rival, Borussia Dortmund. It’s as far behind as Guardiola’s team can afford to be but, quite apart from the two-point difference, there are problems on the horizon. One more slip-up like Freiburg and…

Vollgas
is the word Uli Hoeness used to express what he expected from Bayern from September onwards. Full steam ahead. And Guardiola was happy to pick up the gauntlet. ‘The president has told us it’s full steam ahead from now on and he’s absolutely right. We are now entering one of the most exciting moments of the year, with the start of the league, the Champions League and the DFB-Pokal. And we are ready for the challenge.’

Although in private Pep is tense and worried about the two-point disadvantage, he is always calm when he deals with the media. ‘I’m not stressed by the difference in points. I knew from the moment I signed for Bayern that I would be under a lot of pressure. We have only played four games and now isn’t the crucial time. That will come in May. Let’s see how we’re doing then. I’m completely confident that we’ll be in a strong position after the winter break. I have a good feeling about it. We’re going to have a great season and we’ll be in a strong position to fight for titles by April or May.’

Pep really enjoys working with Hoeness. He’s obsessed with football and as such could not have chosen a better club than Bayern, where he regularly spends time with some of the great legends of football. He lunches with Hoeness, the two of them competing to see who can consume the most
rostbratwurst
sausages. He has coffee with Rummenigge every day, chats to Paul Breitner at least once a week on the training ground, reads
Kaiser
Beckenbauer’s latest views, walks on the same patch of grass as
Torpedo
Müller,
der Bomber der Nation
, and shares the team’s ups and downs with Matthias Sammer. This is a dream come true for football-mad Pep.

Hoeness and Rummenigge are in trouble. The former because of an accusation of tax evasion which, within months, will land him in prison and the latter because he has failed to declare some luxury watches which were gifted to him in Qatar. He is facing a heavy fine. Despite all the evidence (Hoeness turned himself in to the German revenue), Guardiola is not about to start criticising them. These are the two men responsible for his appointment. He therefore takes great care about what he says. ‘Hoeness is the heart and soul of this club and is vital to me. When you listen to him speak about Bayern you realise how gravely important the subject is to him – it’s everything.’

I want to pause here and look for a moment at the Bayern management model, which has been analysed by experts all over Europe precisely because it is so successful. This is a debt-free club which has developed multiple sources of income. They have attracted committed and loyal sponsors, as well as more than 230,000 members who fill the stadium to capacity every week. With an annual income of more than €430million, they have also reported a profit every year for the last 20 years. In 2013 the club sold more than a million shirts and their coffers remain extremely healthy. A sense of deep pride underpins everything the management do, deservedly so given the long list of European clubs who are technically on the verge of bankruptcy. In general, people attribute their success to the fact that the club is managed by two ex-players but, in my opinion, this is nonsense. Bayern are successful because Hoeness and Rummenigge have been great managers, not because they are former players.

When he was forced to retire with knee problems in 1979 Hoeness, who was only 27, was appointed Bayern’s commercial director. He has now been involved in the management of the club for 35 years, is familiar with every department and knows every aspect of the club’s life, inside out. For three-and-a-half decades he has steered the club in the right direction, strengthening the business and building it into a huge but sustainable concern which has pursued sporting excellence whilst retaining the sense of being one big family. Rummenigge brings a modern, global vision of sport as well as a management style which combines individual accountability with collective responsibility.

Vollgas
, Hoeness said. The coach has commissioned a statistical analysis of Bayern’s attacking performance during the first five weeks of competition. He is not happy with his forwards’ results. The evidence is conclusive. In the seven games they played before the international break, Pep’s men took 162 shots at goal, an average of 23 per game, and they scored 16 goals, resulting in a conversion ratio of 10%. Unfortunately, it’s getting worse. Bayern are improving the way they deal with counter-attacks, but their efficacy up front is deteriorating with every game. In the last couple of matches they have managed only a conversion rate of 5%.

It’s Friday, September 13, 30 minutes before training starts and Pep is showing these stats to his men, recently returned from their respective national teams. He doesn’t bother asking them to be more accurate in front of goal because that would be pointless. They’re not missing deliberately. But he wants them to know the facts and insists again on the importance of cutting off counter-attacks at the source.

Bayern play Hannover 96 the following day in the Allianz Arena and already the storm clouds are gathering.

29

‘WE ARE ALL HIDING BEHIND THE COACH.’

Munich, September 15, 2013

PEP WAS PLEASANTLY surprised by the reaction of Uli Hoeness and Kalle Rummenigge the day after the European Super Cup match in Prague. Bayern’s top executives had immediately sprung to his defence. ‘Mourinho’s comments are completely out of order … but then perhaps it was a different match he was watching.’

The Chelsea coach had said: ‘Every time I play Pep I end up with 10 men. It must be some sort of UEFA rule.’ What Mourinho forgot to say that day in Prague was that Ramires’ tackle on Mario Götze had torn the ligaments of the German player’s ankle. It was Ramires’ second yellow card and he was sent off, but in truth, the severity of the tackle should have resulted in a straight red.

Pep was taken aback because he was so unused to getting this level of support from his bosses. During his time at Barça he had had to deal with numerous unwarranted and serious attacks on the team and the whole institution, and his was often the sole voice raised in their defence. In April 2011 Barcelona and Real Madrid had a run of four derbies in 18 days. These
Clásicos
were marred by excessive levels of hostility and a few Madrid players played with an aggression bordering on violence, whilst more than one Barça player indulged in diving and other unsportsmanlike conduct.