Pep Guardiola: Another Way of Winning: The Biography (10 page)

That requirement, to put the team before the individual, was something that Pep would experience first hand when, during his second spell in charge of FC Barcelona for the 2002–3 campaign,
Van Gaal edged Pep one step closer towards the end of his playing career and inched him towards the next phase in his journey from player to manager. ‘By the way, I put Guardiola out of the
team for Xavi,’ explains Van Gaal. ‘I think Pep understood. Players must understand that you make changes not just because of talent but because of the future. You have to think about
development and if you see a player dropping in form and the other improving, you have to act. That’s hard for a player to understand, maybe deep down Guardiola couldn’t. But it has
turned out good for the club that Guardiola progressed, that he eventually moved aside as a player and returned as a manager. Everything goes full circle. The culture of the club, of any club, is
essential; and it’s very important that the institution teaches the footballers the need to preserve that. You now have key players – Xavi, Iniesta, Puyol – who are applying to
their leadership things they learnt from Pep as a player and leader.’

Van Gaal’s legacy at FC Barcelona is perhaps one of the most misunderstood elements in the club’s history, largely a consequence of his uneasy relationship with
the local press, which constructs and disseminates the popular memory of the club to the public, converting perception into fact for future generations. For example, the Catalan media frequently
positioned themselves in favour of talented yet troublesome players like Stoichkov and Rivaldo, while simultaneously portraying Van Gaal as a cold, ruthless individual who completely failed to
grasp what FC Barcelona stood for as a club and a national institution. Yet the reality is altogether different and, while it’s true that the blueprint for the club’s playing traditions
was established by Johan Cruyff, it is Van Gaal who deserves much of the credit for building upon those foundations and advancing the methodologies and systems upon which much of Barcelona’s
current success has been based. What Van Gaal might not be aware of is the influence his teachings had on Pep who today, as we shall see, recognises him as a key figure of the recent success of the
side. ‘I am not sure he is the best coach in the world, as he keeps saying,’ Guardiola points out, ‘but certainly one of the best. I learnt a lot with him. I would have to ask
him, though, would you do things the same way if you had to do it all over again?’

His time under Van Gaal was not without problems, however, and Pep’s lengthy injury lay-offs led to some uncomfortable contract negotiations that distanced him from the board and afforded
him some bitter experiences in just how unforgivingly and cruelly the football world can treat those who earn their living from it.

It was while Pep was sidelined with injury during Van Gaal’s tenure that the club president, Josep Lluís Núñez, enquired as to the player’s well-being with one
of the doctors – and when the physical report was positive, Núñez persisted with his enquiry, asking: ‘OK, but what about his head? How is his head? Isn’t he a bit
sick in his head?’

Pep found out that his president doubted him, but, worse still, there was a spiteful rumour circulating on the streets of Barcelona that Guardiola’s ‘mystery’ injuries were
connected to the lamentable suggestion that he had contracted the AIDS virus. Pep has his
suspicions as to the source of these unfounded rumours: they didn’t come from the
squad, from colleagues or even from journalists; nor even from rival fans. Yet it was apparent that the board did nothing to silence the gossip and protect their captain.

For Pep, it became difficult to enjoy his football at a club without the support and respect of the board. The atmosphere around the team became increasingly negative and the mood soured further
when his close friend and Barcelona team-mate Luís Figo stunned the football world by moving to Real Madrid. It was a further symptom of the ruptures and divisions separating the club
president and his board, the dressing room and the supporters. The club had gone from being an environment that celebrated football at the height of the Dream Team’s successes, to an
institution enveloped by pessimism and recrimination. The supporters poured their frustrations into an overt expression of anger at what they perceived to be Figo’s ultimate act of betrayal
and treachery, turning the Camp Nou into a cauldron of hate upon the Portuguese winger’s return to the stadium where, just several months earlier, he had been worshipped as a hero. The noise
that greeted Figo as he stepped out on to the pitch in Barcelona wearing the white of Real Madrid was likened to that of a jet aeroplane and the hostility generated by the Barcelona supporters may
have sent the desired message to Figo but did little to improve the mood at a club mired in negativity.

Pep struggled to come to terms with the sheer force of hatred levelled at the Portuguese star, the godfather of one of his children, and the atmosphere surrounding the whole affair added to his
growing sense of unease. He finally felt that enough was enough and took the decision, approximately twelve months before his contract ran out in the summer of 2001, that it was time to leave FC
Barcelona. ‘When he has made his mind up, there’s no changing it,’ says Pep’s agent, Josep María Orobitg, whom he instructed not to open negotiations with Barcelona
regarding his contract renewal. Needless to say, it was not an easy decision: but as Pep described it, ‘I weighed up the bag of things I gain if I leave, and it was fuller than the one
containing things if I stay.’

Pep said goodbye two months before the season finished at an emotionally charged, packed Nou Camp press conference. He took his place in front of the microphone alone,
without the customary presence of a representative of the board. The president at the time, Joan Gaspart, someone who seldom missed an opportunity to share the limelight, was conveniently away on
business. Pep, his voice cracking with emotion, announced: ‘I came here when I was thirteen years old, now I am thirty and a father of a family. My career is slipping through my fingers and I
want to finish it abroad, experiencing other countries, cultures and leagues. I feel quite liberated: a little calmer, a bit more comfortable.’

On 24 June 2001, after eleven seasons in the first team, Pep Guardiola, Barça’s captain, the most decorated player in the club’s history and the last iconic symbol of the
Dream Team still playing at the Camp Nou, walked away from the club he loved. He had played 379 games, scored just ten goals, but won sixteen titles, including six leagues, one European Cup, two
cups and two Cup Winners’ Cups. He also departed as much more than just another great player: he left as a symbol of the team’s Catalan identity in an era defined by an influx of
foreign players.

After his final match at the Nou Camp, the return leg of the semi-finals of the Spanish Cup against Celta that saw Barcelona knocked out, Pep waited until everyone else had left the stadium.
Cristina, his partner, came to support him, just as she had done from the day they first met when he walked into her family’s store in Manresa – when a simple shopping trip to try on a
pair of jeans led to a relationship that would become a source of strength and comfort to Pep throughout the toughest moments of his career. Moments like this. The couple, alongside his agent,
Josep María Orobitg, made their way from the dressing room, down the tunnel and up the few steps that lead to the Camp Nou touchline; where he stood, for the very last time as player, to say
goodbye to the pitch he’d first laid eyes on as a ten-year-old boy sitting behind the goal in the north stand some two decades earlier. He soaked up the silence in the empty stadium, but he
didn’t feel like crying. The overriding emotion was that of a great weight being lifted from his shoulders.

An Italian village, the dining room of a house. Luciano Moggi sits down to lunch surrounded by bodyguards. Midday, summer 2001

‘When Pep left, it was a difficult time,’ recalls Charly Rexach. ‘They called him everything imaginable, he got a lot of stick without being to blame for
anything that had gone on. The home-grown players were always on the receiving end. He was burned out and he suffered a lot. Guardiola suffers, he’s not the type of person who can shake these
things off. He was overloaded, he felt a sense of liberation when he moved on.’

Pep was thirty years old when he played his last game for the club and was still in good shape, so it was inevitable that people expected him to move to one of Europe’s leading clubs.
Offers started pouring in. Inter, AC Milan, Roma, Lazio, all came calling from Italy. Paris Saint-Germain and even a couple of Greek clubs expressed an interest. In England, Pep’s
availability aroused the interest of Tottenham, Liverpool, Arsenal, Manchester United, Wigan, West Ham and Fulham. But Pep wanted to play for the team that had captured his imagination as a small
boy kicking a ball around the village square. He wanted to sign for Juventus, just as Platini had, his idol on the poster on his bedroom wall in Santpedor.

According to Jaume Collell in his excellent biography of Guardiola, Pep’s negotiations with Juventus played out like something from a mafia movie. The tale begins with a phone call to the
player’s agent, Josep María Orobitg, informing him that somebody from Juventus wanted a secret meeting with him. Consequently, a car arrived to collect the agent in Barcelona and took
him, via a number of B roads, to Turin. Barely a word was spoken in the car until they finally arrived at a modest hostel in a remote spot. ‘Orobitg went up the stairs and Luciano Moggi came
across, the general director of Juventus,’ Collell explains. ‘He was sitting at a round table, surrounded by shaven-head bodyguards, wearing the typical dark glasses. A chubby waitress
served abundant amounts of pasta but said little. Suddenly, the bodyguards left together. Alone, Moggi and Orobitg reached an agreement in less than three minutes.’ Orobitg says it took
forty-five
minutes but agrees with the description of the scene. The fact of the matter is that nothing was signed on paper.

Manchester United had been interested in him while he was still at Barcelona, but his agent could only listen to what they had to say at that time because Pep refused to allow him permission to
negotiate with another club while he was still wearing a Barcelona shirt. Sir Alex Ferguson put a lot of pressure on the agent, as he was planning for the season ahead and saw Pep as a key player
in his plans. Ferguson even presented them with an ultimatum: he wanted a face-to-face meeting with the Barcelona midfielder. Guardiola was hesitant and he turned Sir Alex Ferguson down. That was
the end of the matter. Ferguson was angry but Pep had no regrets. ‘Maybe the timing I chose was wrong,’ Sir Alex says now.

In the press conference ahead of the 2001 Champions League final at Wembley, when Pep said Ferguson had done the right thing in not signing him, he was really hiding the reality of that failed
transfer: after six or seven months of negotiations, meetings with Ferguson’s son and the agent Francis Martin, and after the player rejected huge financial incentives, Manchester United
moved on. In his place, Ferguson signed Juan Sebastián Verón along with Ruud Van Nistelrooy and Laurent Blanc. And United went on to finish third in the Premier League that
season.

Inter, Arsenal, Liverpool and Tottenham pressed on with negotiations. Inter showed considerable interest, but Juventus remained Pep’s preferred club. Yet, three months after the
aforementioned trip to Turin and continuing contact between the Juve president, Umberto Agnelli, Moggi and Pep’s representatives, something strange happened: the Italian club denied that the
secret encounter – even the pasta, the bodyguards and car ride from Barcelona – had even taken place and that no agreement had ever been reached.

The logical explanation for Juve’s U-turn was that Moggi had just dismissed the coach Carlo Ancelotti, who had given the thumbs-up to Pep’s signing, and replaced him with Marcello
Lippi. Juventus sold Zinedine Zidane to Real Madrid and suddenly their objectives changed: with the €76 million from Zidane’s transfer fee – then the
most
expensive in history – the Italians decided to build a younger team, bringing in Pavel Nedved, Lilian Thuram, Marcelo Salas and Gianluigi Buffon.

As the summer passed, opportunities and options from some surprising corners emerged. Real Madrid even sounded him out in a meeting in Paris. ‘Have you gone mad!?’ Guardiola replied
in a conversation that lasted all of two minutes.

The deadline for Champions League registration came and went, making it increasingly difficult for Pep to join one of the biggest clubs. He had even come close to signing for Arsenal, but, the
day before the deadline, Patrick Vieira’s proposed move to Real Madrid broke down and the deal taking Guardiola to north London collapsed.

It was a difficult time for Pep, not least because the Catalan press were asked by some enemies of the player to publish that no other club wanted him so the club would be protected from
criticism that they had lost a good player.

With the possibility of playing in the Champions League now no longer an option, Pep accepted an offer from Serie A side Brescia. The team coach, Carlo Mazzone, made a point of telling Pep as
soon as he arrived that he was there because of the president, not because he wanted him. Guardiola was determined to prove his worth with his work on the pitch and accepted the premise. He signed
a contract when the season had already started, on 26 September 2001, but his debut wasn’t until 14 October against Chievo Verona.

A month and a half after joining Brescia, the Italian team was already playing the way Pep, rather than the coach, wanted but Mazzone was shrewd enough not to object to the ideas Pep introduced
to the squad. One day, Pep asked for videos of the forthcoming opposition for the players and staff to analyse, something that had never before been done at the club. The fact is, instead of
viewing the move to Brescia as a step down in his career, Pep saw it as a way of getting to know a new style of football and consequently a way of enriching his tactical knowledge: at this stage he
had decided he wanted to continue to be involved in the game when his playing career ended. Football was his passion, his obsession, the thing he knew best, and Serie A was considered the league
that practised
the most advanced defensive tactics since Sacchi. His Milan of the eighties were regarded as having set the benchmark in terms of work rate and defensive strategy
over the previous two decades – and Pep was determined to learn as much as he could from his time in Italy.