Pep Guardiola: Another Way of Winning: The Biography (15 page)

Pep went to see Johan Cruyff soon after the stumbling start to the season, something that he would repeat frequently whenever he needed advice over the coming years. ‘I’ve got a
problem,’ he told his mentor. ‘I’ve got these two guys who I don’t know if I can control, they don’t listen to what I say and that affects how everybody else receives
my messages. And the problem is, they’re two of the leaders in the dressing room and the best players. I will lose without them on board.’ Cruyff’s response was blunt: ‘Get
rid of them. You might lose one or two games, but then you will start winning and by then you would have turfed those two sons of bitches out the team.’

Pep got rid of the pair, establishing his power in the dressing room and sending a clear signal to the rest. The team did start playing better
and winning, especially after
Pep signed Chico, now at Swansea, a player identified by Tito Vilanova as the central defender that the team needed. It was a B team whose line-up also included Pedro and, in the latter half of the
season, Sergio Busquets, who worked his way from the bench into the team to become their best player. From four tiers down in the Spanish league, Pedro and Busquets would become household names and
world champions within two years under Pep’s guiding hand.

Txiki Beguiristain was a regular visitor to the Mini Estadi to watch Pep’s B team throughout the season, following more reserve games than he had ever done in his four years as director of
football at the club. He believed in Guardiola and realised he was watching the development of something that could be used in the first team: variations in formation, for instance. Instead of
playing the most common 4-3-3 system at Barcelona, Pep occasionally used a 3-4-3 that had hardly been used since the days of the Dream Team and subsequently only very rarely by Van Gaal. At other
times, Pep would play with a false number nine; even sometimes deploying Busquets, a central midfielder, as a striker with three playing behind him. Pep’s do-or-die attitude from the
sidelines (constantly correcting and signalling during games, treating every match as if it were the last, intensely focused on the job, passionate and occasionally over-exuberant) as well as his
off-pitch behaviour (making the team eat together, scouting rival players and teams, unheard of at the time in the third division) suggested he was a leader, ready for management. Ready to lead at
any level. Any team.

As the season went on, Txiki became convinced that everything Pep was doing could, if necessary, be applied to the first team. Barça B finished the season as league champions,
automatically sending them into the play-offs to be promoted into the Second B division. People were starting to take notice of Guardiola’s achievements, not just within the club, where he
was acquiring a rapidly growing legion of admirers, but beyond Barcelona. Juanma Lillo was one of them: ‘What Pep did with Barça B is still of greater merit than what he did later with
the first team. You only have to see how the side played at the start of the season in the third division with “terrestrial, earthy”
players, and how they were
playing by the end. The group progressed as a whole, but also the players as individuals. I still laugh when I remember that people said he was too inexperienced to take over Barça B, let
alone the first team.’

And, of course, while all of this had been going on, as the B team was improving and behaving professionally, the first team had been declining. It wouldn’t be long before FC Barcelona
would be looking for a new manager.

Front seats of a plane taking the first team to China, summer 2007

For Rijkaard’s team, the 2007–8 season that was witnessing a revolution at the reserve level had started in a similar depressing fashion to the previous, trophyless,
campaign. Criticisms were mounting from all quarters and as the season progressed the coach gradually lost the respect of the dressing room.

Meanwhile, Ronaldinho was becoming increasingly introverted and had ceased taking orders from anyone. Behind medical reports stating that he had ‘gastroenteritis’ the club started to
hide his absences from training sessions. By the middle of the season he had been ‘in the gym’ or ‘indisposed’ more often than training.

Often the Brazilian arrived at the dressing room wearing the same clothes from the day before after being out all night partying. Frequently during training, he could be found sleeping on a
massage table in a darkened room at the training complex and, to make matters worse, a relationship between Ronaldinho and one of Rijkaard’s daughters became common knowledge.

On more than one occasion, Deco turned up to training without having slept because he had taken his sick child to hospital. While prioritising the health of his children over his job may not be
the greatest sin, his separation, one of ten marital separations or divorces within the squad, did not help him focus. Rafa Márquez would also nip off and visit his girlfriend Jaydy
Mitchell, often after training and occasionally staying over – which wouldn’t have been a problem if
she didn’t live in Madrid. Thiago Motta had such a great
night out on one occasion that one night became two and the club literally had to send out a search party to find out where he’d got to. On that occasion, the Brazilian didn’t escape
punishment – becoming something of a scapegoat for someone else gaining a reputation for his ‘samba’ skills: Ronaldinho.

After losing 1-0 to Real Madrid at the Nou Camp, Barcelona were seven points behind the leaders halfway through the season and by the autumn there were murmurings among senior board members that
drastic action was required, that the best thing to do would be to get rid of the undisciplined Ronaldinho, Deco and Eto’o – shifting the dynamic towards a younger, hungrier, more
ambitious generation led by Lionel Messi. They also doubted whether Rijkaard was the right man to lead the new order. The president, however, publicly and privately backed the Dutchman.

Off the record, Guardiola was being briefed on the situation by first-team players and Laporta’s allies. One even hinted to Pep in October that the prospect of him becoming first-team
coach was gathering pace behind the scenes: ‘Your name hasn’t come up officially at a board meeting, and you haven’t heard this from me, but you’re going to be the head
coach of Barcelona next season.’ In early November, Pep’s name was eventually raised at a board meeting by one of the directors, proposing that Rijkaard be replaced by the B team coach.
However, Txiki Beguiristain was opposed to plunging Pep into the middle of a crisis at the halfway stage of the season: too much too soon for a relatively inexperienced coach.

Not everyone agreed with Txiki. Johan Cruyff became convinced that there was no way back for the first team and that a change was needed. After ruling out Marco Van Basten – who was about
to sign a contract to take over at Ajax – Cruyff met with Txiki to discuss Pep’s potential. The former Dream Team coach then went to see how Guardiola was doing, visiting him at the
Mini Estadi to take the measure of Pep and the B team, before having lunch with him to talk football. Later, Cruyff sent a message to Laporta: ‘Pep is ready. He sees football with absolute
clarity.’ The president remained uncertain,
however, believing, hoping, despite all evidence to the contrary, that Rijkaard could turn it around and resurrect some of the
old magic from Ronaldinho and Co.

As the first team’s complacency and indiscipline became apparent to all, certain directors and a growing press contingent began to insist that there was only one man capable of restoring
order at the Camp Nou. Not Pep Guardiola, but José Mourinho. They argued that the Chelsea boss had the unique force of personality and courage to take the necessary but painful decisions. If
that meant a shift in the club’s footballing philosophy, some argued, then so be it: drastic times, drastic measures. And, after all, Mourinho had always dreamed of returning to
Barcelona.

On 27 November 2007, Barcelona drew 2-2 with Lyons, scraping through to the knockout stage of the Champions League in less than convincing fashion, conceding after some shambolic defending at a
set piece and giving away an unnecessary penalty. An anxious, agitated Rijkaard was sent off for the first time in his tenure at Barcelona.

That day the football department reached a significant conclusion, deciding that Rijkaard, with a year remaining on his contract, had to go.

Laporta continued to dither but, to be prepared, Marc Ingla (vice-president) and Txiki Beguiristain set about drawing up a Plan B. Ingla, a successful businessman with a background in marketing,
wanted to approach the recruitment in the same way that any other major corporation would set about hiring a senior executive: utilising a methodical and analytical selection process followed by an
interview stage, before finally making an appointment. This was a novel approach in the world of Spanish football.

A profile of the new manager was drawn up, including a set of criteria that the candidate had to fulfil: he should respect the footballing style inherited from Rijkaard; promote a solid work
ethic and group solidarity; supervise the work of the youth teams; place an emphasis on preparation and player recuperation; maintain discipline in the dressing room while being respectful of all
opponents and possess a sound knowledge of the Spanish league. Furthermore,
the next manager of FC Barcelona would have to have a feel and understanding for the club, its
values, significance and history.

Ingla and Beguiristain began with a long list of potential candidates. Manuel Pellegrini, Arsène Wenger and Michael Laudrup did not survive the cut when the names they had written down
were reduced to their final preferences. They were left with a three-man short list containing the names of the Espanyol coach and former Barcelona player Ernesto Valverde, Pep Guardiola and
José Mourinho. Valverde’s name was soon erased from the list once it became clear that too few board members were prepared to back him. It came down to Guardiola or Mourinho.

One lacked experience, but was performing miracles with the B team and was very much a ‘Barcelona’ man; the other might not have had the club’s DNA coursing through his veins,
but he ticked just about every other box and had the support of several key board members – including another marketing man and economic vice-president, Ferran Soriano, who said privately at
the time: ‘The Mourinho brand, added to the Barça brand, has the potential to make our product enormous.’

In January 2008, Marc Ingla and Txiki Beguiristain insisted upon arranging a meeting with Mourinho, and travelled to Portugal to interview him and his agent, Jorge Mendes, who had a good working
relationship with the club because he also represented the Barcelona pair of Deco and Rafa Márquez.

The meeting took place in a branch of a famous Lisbon bank, a venue suggested by Mendes to avoid any unwanted attention. Txiki’s flight was delayed and when he arrived he found Ingla had
already begun interviewing the Portuguese manager. Mourinho presented the Barcelona directors with a memory stick, containing a summary of his football philosophy and a strategy for
Barça.

It revealed how he planned to evolve their classic 4-3-3 using a different midfield – similar to the one he left at Chelsea with players like Essien, Makelele and Lampard. It also included
a list of potential recruits and the names of those who would be first out of the door at the Camp Nou. He had even drawn up a short list of names he proposed as ideal candidates for the role of
his number
two at the Camp Nou: Luis Enrique, Sergi Barjuan, Albert Ferrer or even Pep Guardiola. It became very clear that Mourinho had been very well briefed about every
aspect of Barcelona’s current malaise, unsurprising once it transpired that his assistant, André Villas-Boas, had become a regular visitor to the Camp Nou and had been compiling
detailed reports for him.

Mourinho told the Barcelona envoys that, while he wasn’t always comfortable with the ill feeling generated between the Catalan club and Chelsea throughout their recent clashes in the
Champions League, he explained that elements of his behaviour in front of the media were a necessary evil: a vital cog in the psychological machinery that he used to win football matches. Mourinho
explained how, for him, a game starts and frequently finishes at a press conference.

It was the first time that Ingla and Beguiristain had ever sat face to face with José Mourinho and the pair were impressed by his charisma and his clear football methodology. They
returned to Barcelona feeling positive in spite of Mourinho’s financial stipulations: he wanted a two-year contract at €9 million per season and €1 million for each of his
assistants.

There was one ‘but’ – the issue of José’s behaviour in front of the media. The two Barcelona representatives were left with a sense of unease about
Mourinho’s admission that he would continue to fight his battles in a psychological war on and off the pitch. They were torn: they liked Mourinho face to face, but found his double identity
unsettling – struggling to come to terms with how he could be utterly charming in private, but happy to cultivate such a ‘disrespectful’ public image if he felt that was called
for when fighting battles for ‘his’ team. His previous wrongful accusations against Frank Rijkaard – that the Barcelona coach had visited referee Anders Frisk’s dressing
room during half-time at the Nou Camp, in the first leg of the Champions League knockout stages that Chelsea went on to lose 2-1 – were still fresh in the memory.

Yet, despite the good vibes at the meeting with Mourinho, Beguiristain had come to the conclusion that Guardiola was the right man for the job and he gradually managed to persuade his
colleagues, including Marc Ingla, that Pep’s inexperience should not
be an obstacle. Some people didn’t need convincing: Johan Cruyff had never wanted Mourinho at
the club and Pep’s old friend and board member, Evarist Murtra, was already on board.

The nail in the coffin for Mourinho was when word of the meeting was leaked by his inner circle, providing Barcelona with the perfect excuse to rule him out. Nevertheless, it had never been a
straightforward decision, as Ingla admits now: ‘We weren’t entirely conclusive with Mou when it came to ruling him out as Barça coach.’ The Portuguese manager, after
waiting for a proposal from Barcelona that never came, signed a deal with Inter Milan that summer.