MP: ‘Is the team moving in the right direction?’
PG: ‘In the last 11 months the team has lived through enormous change and we have had moments of sheer brilliance as well as real setbacks, of which the Champions League was the worst. Some of our Champions League matches were outstanding: at the Emirates, Old Trafford and the Bernabéu, for example. And it’s those games, the ones in which we played the kind of football I wanted, that are important. And in time we’ll give the Bayern support a lot more of them, and then one day we’ll realise that the time has come to stop.’
Guardiola’s second year promises to be even more intense. Pep is going to be bolder and go deeper in terms of his playing style. And he’ll be working with players who are more convinced, more committed and more fluent in his language. This will be the Pep we glimpsed at the DFB-Pokal final, a man with a whole arsenal of weapons at his fingertips who will on occasion revisit old ideas. As we have seen this season, a team is a living entity, not a frozen image. It grows and flows, retreats and advances – a team is the sum of all its successes. It is a state of mind, although it is also so much more than that. It is about tactics and work, talent and ability. It’s about clear ideas and effective training, but it’s also about emotions and feelings. A team is like a journey. At times it’s unknown territory, full of adventure, at others it’s a well-worn path full of old routines. It needs to advance as a unit with commitment and clarity in a single, clear direction, understanding all the potential danger. It is a journey which has no end, or rather it has many ends but, ultimately, no final destination.
Back in New York over dinner Garry Kasparov had looked at Guardiola and said: ‘The minute I won my second World Championship in 1986, I knew who would beat me in the end.’
‘Who was it?’ the coach had enquired.
‘It was time, Pep. Time…’
‘When a club like Bayern calls you have to respond.’ Guardiola prepares to greet a press pack of 247 journalists – the biggest number ever to attend such an event at the club – at his official announcement as Bayern Munich head coach.
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‘Any team that has won four titles doesn’t need much of an overhaul.’ The images of Bayern’s treble-winning players loom large over Guardiola in the home changing room at the Allianz Arena.
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Despite insisting that his squad did not need many new personnel, Guardiola’s technical revolution meant a sharp learning curve for his players, who would have to adapt their traditional German style to a more possession-based approach.
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Guardiola surprised his new players by conversing with them in passable German during training sessions. ‘Our language on the pitch is all about giving instructions,’ he said.
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‘I know how much this means to him, his first title. I also know about his old rivalry with Mourinho.’ Franck Ribéry celebrates with Guardiola after his second-half strike against Jose Mourinho’s Chelsea in the UEFA Super Cup in August 2013. The Frenchman dedicated his man-of-the-match award to his new boss.
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‘Have you seen how well Lahm anticipates the next pass? How he turns and protects the ball? He can play on the wing or in the middle of the field.’ Guardiola’s conversion of Bayern captain Philipp Lahm from right-back to midfield linchpin was one of the foundations of their success
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Teenage midfielder Pierre-Emile Højbjerg was quickly identified by Guardiola as a prodigious talent and would go on to feature in the DFB-Pokal final in May after a traumatic season in which he lost his father. ‘He’s shown me how important it is to play without fear. Just to get on with playing whether you’re up against Xabi Alonso or a complete amateur,’ said Højbjerg.
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Guardiola quickly revolutionised Bayern’s training methods, introducing tactical and positional work at the expense of hard running. The Catalan would frequently tease his players over their insistence on running. ‘What purpose do these long runs have other than to hurt your back?’ he would laugh.
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Pep stretches after a training session while chatting with the author. ‘Pep is very fussy about his appearance,’ writes Perarnau.
