Pep Guardiola: Another Way of Winning: The Biography (6 page)

One of the first buildings you come across on the outskirts of this village of only 7,500 inhabitants is the new home of Guardiola’s parents – built by Pep’s father, a
bricklayer – a modern, three-storey edifice just off the main road, in an area dotted with new-build properties. As you head towards the centre of Santpedor, a few dilapidated factories
remind you of the village’s more recent industrial past and provide a stark contrast to the medieval archways. Santpedor is the kind of village where people greet one another in the streets,
whether they know each other or not. And those who do know each other stop for a chat about the same topics, as any other day. The broad roads start to merge into narrow labyrinths, centuries-old
streets winding their way towards Santpedor’s two main squares, the Plaça Gran and the Plaça de la Generalitat. The latter also used to be known as the Plaça de Berga,
but now it is more commonly referred to as ‘the square where Guardiola was born’.

On any given morning in 1979, a skinny ten-year-old boy would come out of number 15 Plaça de la Generalitat and walk the few
steps towards the centre of the square
with a football under his arm. Known to the locals as ‘Guardi’, the kid, with spindly legs like twigs, would call out for his friends, including a girl named Pilar, to join him. He
would kick the ball against the wall until enough of his mates had arrived for a kickabout.

PlayStations didn’t exist back then and there were hardly enough cars on the roads to justify traffic lights or to pose any real danger to a bunch of kids engrossed in a game of street
football. Pep would play before going to school, on his way home from school. He’d take the ball everywhere to have a kickabout at breaktime, at lunchtime, in the cobbled streets, around the
fountains. He was even known to practise football during family dinners and his mother would tire of berating him, ‘Leave that ball alone for five minutes and get yourself over here!’
Like so many kids and so many mothers in towns and villages all over the world.

Back then everything was much more relaxed; there was less ‘protocol’, less ‘bureaucracy’, as Guardiola puts it. You’d go down to the square with the football and
you’d play until it was too dark to see the ball: it was that simple. You didn’t need to go to a proper pitch or organise matches, nor set a time to play. There were no goalposts or
nets, and nor were there signs warning kids that they couldn’t play ballgames either.

A metal garage door served as the goal and there were always arguments over who would be the keeper. Pilar never wanted to be the goalie; she had quite a kick and a good first touch – and
for more than a decade the women’s team in a neighbouring village would enjoy the benefits of her hours of practice with Pep and the gang.

There were always disputes about who got to have Pep in their team. The tactics were clear: give him the ball so that he could control the game. All his friends were aware that he was better
than the rest, that he had something that the others didn’t have. In the end, to avoid arguments, it was decided that Pep would be the one to choose the two teams – so that they were of
more or less equal ability – and it also meant that from an early age, without hesitation, Pep assumed his role as a leader.

And when, in one of those street football games that might last the whole of Saturday or Sunday, one of the kids damaged something in the square with a wild shot, a smile
from Pep would always get him and the rest of his friends out of trouble.

Nowadays, cars can drive through the square and even park in the centre. It’s no longer a place where kids can play.

When Pep returned to Barcelona to coach the reserve team, brief getaways to Santpedor and long walks in the surrounding countryside became a regular occurrence. Reflective to the point of
bordering on meditation, Pep also made numerous trips to his village when he was debating about making the jump from the reserves to the first team. Although it was hardly seen during the four
years that he was changing the football world as coach of the best team on the planet, his presence is felt in various corners of the village. The football stadium bears his name; his photograph
adorns several bars; there is a plaque on a stone in the centre of the square dedicated to FC Barcelona by the local supporters club, which, by the way, has gained one hundred additional members in
the past four years. The popularity of grass-roots football has grown to such an extent that the handball teams have dwindled. The children from the village only want to play football. And they
will proudly tell you that they are from Pep Guardiola’s village: Santpedor.

So, there’s a bit of Pep in Santpedor, but there’s also clearly a lot of Santpedor in Pep. The whispered conversations you hear around here are in Catalan, along with signs and
street names. The
senyera
– the Catalan flag – hangs from many balconies and graffiti on several abandoned buildings echo people’s sentiments for their nation and their
strong sense of Catalan identity. The vilage even had the honour of being named ‘Carrer de Barcelona’, a medieval Catalan distinction with all the privileges and taxes that came with
it. Santpedor was a ‘road to Barcelona’, the capital of Catalonia and Guardiola’s life-changing destination.

Pep is a very proud Catalan. An educated and courteous individual, he takes after his parents, the Guardiolas and the Salas, who are like
any other parents in the village:
modest and respectable. They sowed the seed. Or was it sown originally by Santpedor?

Pep’s friend David Trueba thinks both of them did: ‘Nobody has paid any attention to the fundamental fact that Guardiola is a bricklayer’s son. For Pep, his father,
Valentí, is an example of integrity and hard work. The family he has grown up with, in Santpedor, has instilled old values in him, values from a time in which parents didn’t have money
or property to hand down to their children, just dignity and principles. When it comes to analysing or judging Guardiola, you must bear in mind the fact that underneath the elegant suit, the
cashmere jumper and the tie, is the son of a bricklayer. Inside those expensive Italian shoes there is a heart in espadrilles.’

When Pep thinks back to his childhood in the village, to his parents, to the long games in the square, he doesn’t recall a specific moment, but a feeling: happiness. Joy in its purest,
most simple form. And that sensation comes back to him whenever he returns to visit his parents, or his auntie Carmen or uncle José, or any of the relatives still living in Santpedor, and
sits with them in the village square: until a legion of admirers gatecrashes his privacy and the moment is lost.

Back when he was a kid, and the sun had set on that village square, the young Pep would head home and set the ball in a corner of his bedroom, a modest space decorated by little more than a
poster featuring Michel Platini: the face of football when Guardiola was ten years old. Guardiola had never seen him play – in those days television did not show much international football
– but he had heard his dad and grandad talk about the ability of the Juventus player, his leadership and his aura. All that Pep knew about Platini were those wise words of his elders and that
poster of the elegant Frenchman – caressing the ball, head up, surveying the pitch and picking his next pass. The attraction was instant. Five years later, a young Camp Nou ball boy named Pep
Guardiola would earnestly try to get Platini’s autograph at the end of a match – but in failing he ended up learning a key lesson. That story will be told later.

A good student in his days at the village convent school, Pep was known as a
tros de pa
– a bit of bread, as they say in Catalan,‘a well-behaved child’ – soaking
up knowledge, always willing to
help in church. Just about the closest Guardi came to rebellion was disappearing early on the odd occasion his dad asked him to help out with
some bricklaying. He always looked as if butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth, an asset on the occasions he was asked to play the role of an angel in the village nativity plays.

Pep moved to a Catholic school a few miles from home, La Salle de Manresa, when he was seven: his first exodus. It was a strict environment and he had to adapt quickly to his new surroundings
and teachers – Brother Virgilio was responsible for teaching him his first words in English, a language he now switches to with ease whenever questioned at a Champions League press conference
in front of the world’s media. As well as Italian, and, of course Catalan and Spanish. Oh, and French, too.

At La Salle his personality traits continually emerged and developed: self-demanding, blessed with a natural charm and obsessed with football; but, above all else, Pep proved to be an excellent
listener and, like a sponge, absorbed knowledge from everyone around him, especially his elders. He was a bit taller and thinner than most, perhaps a consequence of the fact that he never stood
still – or so his mother thinks – and he was still the first player to be picked by the football captains and frequently the sole participant in one of his favourites games: keepy-uppy.
He played that by himself, because there was no point in competing: he couldn’t be beaten.

During one of those games at La Salle he was spotted by a couple of scouts from Club Gimnàstic de Manresa – the ‘wiry lad’s’ leadership and passing ability easily
caught the eye. With the blessing of his dad, Valentí, he began training at Gimnàstic two or three times a week and some key principles were quickly instilled in him:
‘Don’t stamp on anybody but don’t let anybody stamp on you; keep your head high; two-touch football; keep the ball on the ground.’ If the golden thread to success is
coaching, Pep had started off in the ideal academy.

Perhaps it was only natural that a kid from Pep’s village would support Barcelona, considering there was only one fan of Espanyol, their rivals from across the city. That Espanyol fan also
happened to be Pep’s grandad and there was even an Espanyol poster hanging on
the walls of the family home in his honour. But his elder’s preference didn’t
influence Pep’s sporting allegiance: ‘My grandad was the nicest person in the world and had such a huge heart that burst out of his chest. He had an enormous sense of compassion so he
almost felt compelled to support the smaller team, the underdog. In our village there was not a single Espanyol fan apart from him.’

A team-mate of his at Gimnàstic had a relative who was a season-ticket holder at FC Barcelona and Pep asked him if he could borrow it to see a game at the Camp Nou one day. In 1982 a
ten-year-old Pep set foot in the imposing stadium for the very first time to watch FC Barcelona take on Osasuna in La Liga. The street leading up to it was a river of people waving Barcelona flags
and Pep experienced ‘an incredible feeling’ of joy, of excitement, of being a part of something big, an epiphany. As he sat in row seven of the north stand, just off to one side behind
the goal, he muttered to his friend, as thousands of kids before him must have done: ‘I would pay millions to play on that pitch one day.’

In fact, while he was with Gimnàstic, Pep played in a few friendlies against the FC Barcelona academy sides, which provided him with some valuable lessons regarding his own and his
team’s limitations: he was the best player in that Gimnàstic side but he sensed there were many more kids like him, or even better, wearing the blue and red shirt of FC Barcelona.

It was around this time, and without his eleven-year-old-son knowing it, that Valentí filled in a form published in a sports paper offering kids the opportunity to take part in trials
organised by Barça.

‘Barcelona want to see you,’ his dad told him few days later, to his son’s amazement. Of course, he went to the trial: nervous, still very lightweight. He played badly. And he
knew it. A sleepless night followed. He was asked to return for a second day but he was no better. At the trial, Pep was played in an attacking wide position and he lacked the pace and strength to
excel. He was given one more chance, invited back for a third day. The coach moved him into central midfield where, suddenly, Pep was a magnet for the ball, directing the forward play and dictating
tempo. He’d done enough. Barcelona decided they wanted him to join them.

His dad kept that information to himself until he was sure it was in his son’s best interests. Valentí, and Pep’s mum, Dolors, were worried that those
daunting and stressful trips to Barcelona were unnerving their son, who returned home quieter than usual, apprehensive and unable to eat properly. After discussing it with his wife, Valentí
decided to reject Barcelona’s offer. They believed that Pep was too young to move to La Masía, too naïve to live on his own away from his family, not yet strong enough to compete
or to cope.

In the years following that trial with Barcelona, football remained a key part of the Guardiola family routine with constant trips to Manresa and throughout the region for league games and
friendlies with Pep promoted to captain of the Gimnàstic side. The dream of Barça, it seemed, had been forgotten.

A couple of years later, FC Barcelona made another phone call to the Guardiola household. Valentí picked up the receiver and listened to their offer.

‘We have to talk,’ he told his son after a training session with Gimnàstic. The family gathered around the dinner table, Valentí, Dolors and their thirteen-year-old
son, Pep. Dad tried to explain, as best he could to a young teenage boy, that there was life beyond the village and the Catholic school; he tried to prepare him for what he should expect if he left
home; that his studies were a priority; that a move to Barcelona would expose Pep to an entirely new level of obligations, responsibility and expectation. Up until that moment in Pep’s life,
football had been little more than a game, but, as Valentí told his son, he now had the opportunity to transform his life and make a living out of the sport he loved at the club he
adored.

Pep took his father’s words on board and understood what was at stake: he had already made up his mind that if Barcelona didn’t come back for him, he would abandon his dream of
becoming a professional footballer because he couldn’t take any further rejection. But Barça
had
called. The decision was made. Pep Guardiola was going to leave home and all
that was familiar behind him: he was going to move to the big city, he was going to give his all to become a professional footballer, he was going to pursue his dream of playing for FC
Barcelona.