Pep Guardiola: Another Way of Winning: The Biography (5 page)

At one point the team trailed thirteen points behind Madrid. ‘What I have done so far doesn’t guarantee me anything, if the fans have their doubts they will have their own reasons
for that,’ he said in one of the most delicately poised moments of the season. The statistics were still impressive, but less so than in the previous three seasons: the team was losing its
competitive edge and Pep felt it was his fault. After the defeat to Osasuna in Pamplona (3-2) in February, he said: ‘We’ve made too many mistakes. I didn’t know how to answer the
questions before they were asked. I failed. I didn’t do my job well enough.’

But in fact Pep had one trick left up his sleeve. He followed Johan Cruyff’s example by employing reverse psychology in admitting publicly that Barcelona were ‘not going to win this
league’. It had the desired affect. Players, suspicious that the manager was thinking of leaving them, wanted to show that they were still up for the challenge, still hungry. Barcelona clawed
back some ground on Madrid, getting to within four points of their rivals but it was too little too late. Defeat to their bitter rivals at the Camp Nou in May effectively handed the title to
Mourinho and the old enemy.

There were uncharacteristic complaints about the referee from Pep in various press conferences during the last few months of the
season: a search for excuses that revealed
how Guardiola was perhaps losing his focus.

Pep struggled to accept a fact of life: that after a period of unprecedented success (thirteen titles in his first three years with the first team), there must inevitably be a slump. If you win
all the time, there’s less desire to carry on winning. He tried to prevent this inevitable cycle by putting in longer shifts and making huge sacrifices. Even taking care of himself dropped
down his list of priorities, and health problems were ignored until they became debilitating, such as the slipped disc that incapacitated him for few days in March.

The coaching staff’s analysis was that mistakes weren’t being made during the team talks – they were still based on in-depth studies of their rivals and delivered with the same
enthusiasm and charisma as ever – but, rather, in their execution. But there were question marks over Pep’s faith in first-team newcomers from La Masía. Tello (who started on the
wing against Real Madrid at the Camp Nou in what was a key victory for Mourinho’s team) and Cuenca (in the eleven against Chelsea in the return leg of the semi-finals of the 2012 Champions
League) were expected to produce the same level of performance as Cesc, Alexis or Pedro, who were left out in one of the two games.

Could Barcelona afford to leave that sort of talent on the bench? Was Pep too close to the squad to actually see the wood for the trees?

These were pivotal decisions that affected the outcome of the season and Guardiola’s judgement in replacing experienced internationals with near-debutantes in season-defining games raised
more than a few eyebrows. It also had a negative impact on the confidence of the youngsters selected and the older players dropped.

José Mourinho watched it all from Madrid with a wry smile. The impact of Mourinho and his destabilising strategies is irrefutable even though Pep will always deny it. When asked what he
remembered of the previous Clásicos on the eve of his last as coach, Pep lowered his voice: ‘I don’t have fond memories, of either the victories or the defeats. There are always
reasons that aren’t related to the game that have made a lot of things incomprehensible to me.’ Really? He couldn’t remember even the 2-6 demolition at the Bernabéu? The
5-0 in Mourinho’s first Clásico, described by many as the best performance
in the history of the game? There was enormous pressure, not just from Mourinho but from
Madrid’s sporting press who went as far as insulting Pep and suggesting Barcelona’s performances were enhanced by drugs. For a sensitive soul like Pep it was enough to wipe out even the
best memories.

As the season was reaching the end, the decision about his future became unmovable – he was going to leave the club that was one of the most admired on the planet courtesy of his
leadership. He just had to find the right way to tell the club. And the players. And the fans. But how? If they won the Champions League everything would be much easier.

While he finalised the details of his departure, he decided not to share his decision with anyone, not even his parents.

Before he made an official announcement, the biggest hint that Guardiola gave about his future was inadvertently revealed in a chat with an Italian journalist, in his third year with the first
team, in an interview that was to feature in a DVD on the history of Brescia; but Pep, who normally doesn’t do ‘on-the-record’, one-to-one interviews but making an exception here
was betrayed and his quotes were leaked to Italian national television. It wasn’t so much an evaluation of his personal situation, but the description of an historic constant, applicable not
just to Barcelona but to the majority of great clubs. ‘In order to be in a great institution for four years,’ Guardiola said, ‘you must have a lot of courage. The players get
tired of you and you get tired of the players; the press gets tired of you and you get tired of the press, seeing the same faces, the same questions, the same things. In the end, you must know when
the time comes, in the same way that I understood that when I was a player and said, “Look, it’s time for me to leave”.’

It turns out that Pep now felt the time had come for him to leave as a manager, too.

Just after Chelsea qualified for the Champions League final after drawing 2-2 (winning 3-2 on aggregate) in Barcelona playing with ten men for almost an hour, Guardiola met the president, Sandro
Rosell, at the Camp Nou. ‘Come and see me at my house tomorrow morning, President,’ the coach said.

Pep also talked to his assistant, Tito Vilanova, telling him that, as Vilanova already suspected, he was not going to continue. Guardiola also surprised him with a prediction. ‘I think
they are going to propose that you take over,’ he said. ‘And I will back you up with whatever decision you take.’ Unbeknown to Vilanova,
his name had first
been proposed in a conversation between Zubizarreta and Guardiola the previous November. ‘Do you think Tito can replace you if you decide to leave?’ the director of football asked.
‘For sure’ was Pep’s answer even though he had no idea if his friend was going to take the job – or if Zubizarreta was being serious.

At 9 a.m. the following day, Pep Guardiola held a meeting at his house with Sandro Rosell, Andoni Zubizarreta, Tito Vilanova and vice-president Josep Maria Bertomeu. It was then that he broke
the news to the club hierarchy that he would not continue at FC Barcelona.

The meeting lasted for three hours as Pep explained his reasons for calling it a day. ‘You know all those things we have been talking about during the season? Nothing has changed. I am
leaving. I have to leave,’ Pep told them. The defeat to Real Madrid and the loss against Chelsea weren’t the cause, but both had served as the catalyst for the chain of events.

The following day he told his parents and, although his mother, Dolors, believed that her son’s ‘health comes first’, she also felt that her ‘heart shrank’ on
hearing the news. He needed, according to Dolors, ‘a place of rest and relaxation’. That is also how his father, Valentí, saw it: his son felt ‘overwhelmed by so much
responsibility towards the members, the fans and the club’. His dad – according to Ramón Besa in
El País
– understood and even predicted the outcome, having
said back in September, when Guardiola received the Gold Medal from the Catalan Parliament, that ‘as soon as the tributes start pouring in, it’s time to start packing your
bags’.

As journalist Luis Martín, also from
El País
, discovered, many tried to change Pep’s mind in the two days leading up to the formal public announcement. SMS messages
from Valdés, Iniesta, Xavi, and especially Messi, flooded his inbox. Even Vilanova asked him to reconsider. Zubizarreta ended up having a crazy idea, one of those forlorn hopes that you have
to express even when you already know the answer: ‘There’s a vacancy in one of the youth teams. Why don’t you take it? What you like most of all is training the kids, isn’t
it?’ Pep looked at him, trying to work out what was behind the question. He
answered him with the same sense of ambiguity: ‘God, that could be a good idea.’
The two friends laughed.

Two days after announcing his departure to the president, it was time to tell the players.

Nobody in the squad was sure of the outcome. Following the Champions League semi-final defeat to Chelsea, Carles Puyol, waiting around after the match to give a urine sample for a routine drugs
test, saw that Pep was stalling his arrival at the press conference. He thought it was a positive sign. So he told a team-mate: ‘He will tell us this week he is staying, you will see. He
doesn’t want to leave us now.’ Puyol, as he now admits, doesn’t have a future as a clairvoyant. After the Champions League game, the players were given two days off. They had
heard the rumours and knew about the meeting with Rosell but were unsure about what was going to happen.

The morning papers came with headlines which confirmed that nobody outside the club had a clear idea of what was about to take place; the front page of
Mundo Deportivo
split its front
page in two, one half with the headline ‘Pep to leave’ and the other with ‘Pep to stay’. The majority of players thought that the meeting before training was merely to
receive confirmation that Guardiola was staying. ‘He seems all right,’ they said to each other. They were hoping he had managed to shake off his fears and doubts and stay a bit longer,
even one more season.

Only a handful of people knew for sure what was going to be said. The players gathered in the dressing room at the training ground. There were no jokes, just a low murmur of conversation which
turned to silence once Pep walked in and started speaking. As the players were being told, Sky Sports News reported his decision. What he revealed was a shock. The Barcelona manager was
departing.

‘You’re the best and I’m proud of you all. But now I have not got the energy to continue and it is time to leave. I’m drained.’ He appeared relaxed but his voice
betrayed his emotions. He was using the same tricks that were so common to him when he wanted to show them where the weakness of the rival team was: he was trying to convince them it was the best
that could happen and to do so he dwelt on his players’ feelings. ‘Around October I told the president that the end of
my time as manager was close. But I
couldn’t tell you then because it would have been problematic. Now it is definite. The next manager to come in will give things that I can no longer give. He will be strong. It would have
been a risk for me to continue because we would have hurt each other. I think a lot of you all, and I would never forgive myself. There have been many moves that I have imagined that you have made
a reality. So I will leave with the feeling of having done the job well, of having fulfilled my duty. This club has an unstoppable power, but I am the third coach in its history with the most
number of games played – in just four years. What we have done has been exceptional because Barcelona coaches don’t last long. And we have lasted this long because we have won. But
while that was happening, my strength was disappearing. I am leaving as a very happy man. The president has offered me another position but I need to be away from it all if I want to recharge
again.’

There was further silence after those words were spoken. So he continued. ‘I wanted to tell you now that we are out of the big competitions so I have time to say goodbye to everyone
– and call you individually into the office to thank you personally. I don’t want applause or anything, so ... let’s get to training.’

And Pep clapped his hands together to emphasise that the talk was over; it was an order to get up and move on. In less than a quarter of an hour, the history of the club had received a
definitive twist. Players were confused, bewildered.

Pep asked very little of his footballers that day on the training ground. He knew that he had dealt them a bitter blow. For the players running out on to the pitch, that session represented the
first steps on the road to healing. For Pep, it represented the beginning of the end of a journey that had begun around three decades earlier, in a sleepy little Catalan village called
Santpedor.

Main square of the village of Santpedor. Almost any given morning in 1979

As you approach Pep’s childhood home in Santpedor, there is a striking view across the immense valley in which the village is situated. The air is fresh but it carries the
smell of the dry earth. Looming on the horizon, the rocky outline of Montserrat, Catalonia’s striking iconic ‘serrated’ mountain, soars up out of the valley like a giant cardboard
cut-out, providing a majestic backdrop for the sleepy Catalan village situated seventy kilometres from Barcelona.