Pep Guardiola: Another Way of Winning: The Biography (23 page)

In contrast, Guardiola believed that the coach has to make the really big decisions every single day on behalf of every player in his squad. This creates a false sense of power because you
realise that, in the end, the footballers are the ones who go out and follow your instructions. The coach’s ideas and Messi’s talent and desire had to meet somewhere in the middle.

Deep down, Pep had never forgotten the lesson he learnt on that day that he missed out on Michel Platini’s autograph. Now he reminded himself that it would be useful in this case.

Guardiola’s boyhood hero, it will be remembered, had been allowed to remain in the dressing room while the rest of his team-mates
warmed up. It confirmed that the
greatest lie in football is that all players are treated as equals. Later, when Pep was a teenager, Julio Velasco, the successful volleyball coach, taught him that your best player could often be
both your greatest asset and your heaviest burden at the same time: ‘You must know how to seduce him, trick him into getting the best out of him, because in our job we are above them, but
we’re also below them because we depend on them,’ he told Pep.

Guardiola understood what he had to do, knowing that he intended to love all his players equally – but he wasn’t going to treat them all exactly the same.

Johan Cruyff had harboured just one doubt about Guardiola: ‘As a Catalan, would he be able to make decisions?’ The Dutchman considers Catalonia a nation that is often lacking in
initiative. Initiative would be key, in Cruyff’s eyes, because in his experience he had seen that every team in the world had its own Messi (that is, a star player, although clearly not at
his level); but not all coaches knew how to get the best out of him.

Guardiola pretty much answered Cruyff’s concerns on his first day in the job, at his inaugural press conference, when he announced that Messi would be liberated from the shadow of
Ronaldinho. But this had other implications, effectively ensuring that Messi wasn’t going to be the focal point through his actions but by default, because Pep would get rid of anyone who
could overshadow him. Although he had to keep Eto’o for a season longer than he initially anticipated, Ronaldinho and Deco were moved swiftly out of the club and out of Messi’s way. Of
the stars who remained, Henry was made to play on the wing when the Frenchman wanted to play as a number nine. There was only one ball and that belonged to Messi.

Guardiola knew that it would become impossible for anybody to try and compete with his star; he had never, ever, seen anyone like him. From very early on in his tenure, Guardiola recognised
that, while it was true his Barcelona team represented an array of talented individuals who were combining to form an outstanding football team, Lionel Messi was going to take that group to another
level. In subjugating every ego under one individual, by making just one
player the focal point for a team that otherwise defined itself as a true collective, Pep was asking
others to consent to something that could only be accepted by those who had lived and grown up alongside Messi and who knew, better than anyone else, that this was not simply the whim of some
star-struck coach. It was a decision based upon the knowledge that the star of this team would be someone truly, truly special.

So Pep took another step that delighted Messi. While he would be given the opportunity to lead the way through his football, the burden of leadership in other areas would not fall on his
shoulders. At just twenty-one, the weight of responsibility would be too much. Instead, the captaincy would be shared among the core of home-grown players. Not only would Pep give the youth team
footballers the chance to progress to the first team, but he would also give them the chance to become captains, role models and representatives of FC Barcelona. It was a responsibility shared by
Puyol, sometimes Xavi, Valdés or even Iniesta. They would captain the ship: Messi would be the wind in their sails.

It was in stark contrast to Messi’s position with the national team of Argentina: there he was not only expected to lead the way and make decisions on the field, but also to captain the
side. The armband imposed a burden on Messi, who just wanted to get on with playing his football, not to have to argue with the referee in defence of his team-mates, nor to be anybody’s role
model, nor give inspirational speeches.

In the same way that the coach, after some reflection, started understanding what made Messi tick, so Pep was convinced that he would understand everything that he would ask of him, and, if not,
he would charm him into understanding. However, Pep also knew that he needed something that would win the player over completely. And he found it, even though the new coach had to convince the club
that it was the right thing to do.

During Pep’s first few training sessions with the team in Scotland, Pep and Messi had two public confrontations.

In the first, Messi reacted angrily to a Rafa Márquez tackle. The players squared up to each other and Pep rushed over to them and
reprimanded them. Messi wanted to
avoid him but the coach took him to one side. The Argentinian stared at the ground and backed away from Pep.

A similar scene was repeated two days later. Guardiola approached Messi to ask him to explain his cold attitude during training. He told Messi that, if he had a problem, he should tell him to
his face but he knew exactly what was going on: Messi was sulking because he wanted to go to the Olympic Games in Beijing with Argentina – but Barcelona were against releasing him as the
dates coincided with the first round of the Champions League qualifiers against Wis
ł
a Kraków. The matter had gone before a sporting tribunal, where it was
established that the club was within its rights not to grant him permission to go, despite FIFA’s demands to the contrary.

However, while the club and Argentinian Federation locked horns, the player felt like a pawn in a dispute in which he had little interest. All he knew was that he wanted to play football for his
country in the Olympic Games – and Barcelona were denying him that opportunity.

It provided Pep with the chance he had been looking for.

The coach sat down with president Laporta, Beguiristain and Estiarte in the suite of the hotel in which the team were staying in the United States for a pre-season tour. He explained that if the
club could ignore the ruling and let Messi go to the Olympics, the long-term gain outweighed the short-term loss: it would allow him to get the best out of Messi. Nobody dared tell Pep that he was
a novice, that this was a decision that should be made by the club. Champions League football was at stake, after all. Pep asked them to trust him.

A little while later he had a chat with Messi. ‘Leo,’ he told him, ‘I’m going to let you go because I have been an Olympic champion and I want you to be one too. But you
owe me one.’

It proved to be the first building block in the construction of a relationship that grew stronger and stronger during the four years the pair were united at FC Barcelona. Pep’s gesture
brought them together at a time when they could have been driven apart before things even got going. Pep had decided again that, if mistakes were going to be made, they would be a consequence of
his own decision-making and not those of others.

Later, Pep would make Messi a promise: ‘Listen to me, Leo, stick close to me. With me you will score three or four goals every game.’

Before he made his debut in an official game with Guardiola, Messi travelled to the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. He returned to Barcelona an Olympic gold medallist – and he understood
that it would not have been possible without the intervention of his new boss.

‘If Leo smiles, everything is easier,’ Pep repeated often.

It was time for the showdown against the old enemy, in a match that could effectively seize the La Liga trophy from Real Madrid and hand the title to FC Barcelona in Pep
Guardiola’s debut season as a first-team coach. A win for the visitors to the Bernabéu would virtually guarantee them the championship, giving them a seven-point lead with four games
remaining; defeat would leave them just a point above their hosts. It was a genuine ‘six-pointer’.

Pep and his boys were facing the biggest challenge and the most high-pressure game of their time together so far, at the end of what had become an exemplary season.

Standing between them and glory were Real Madrid: not only their eternal rivals, but an outfit in extraordinary form, even if their football was a little dull. Juande Ramos’ team had
enjoyed a phenomenal second half of the season, collecting fifty-two out of a possible fifty-four points, drawing just one game, against Atlético de Madrid, after having lost at the Camp Nou
(leaving them, at that stage, twelve points behind Barcelona). ‘We haven’t been playing to our highest level in every game so that we can give our all when the time comes to have our
shot at taking the lead,’ said the Madrid coach.

The Catalan press was encouraging supporters to settle for a draw, trying to manage expectations ahead of a match in which the Barcelona fans were allowing their natural pessimism to creep in
and suspect that the worst might happen. But Pep was not only calling the changes on a footballing level, he was transforming the way the
culés
felt about themselves, restoring
their pride and injecting optimism
into a culture that always anticipated that things would go wrong for them in the end. On the eve of the game, Pep was having none of this
talk of a draw. He was going to the Bernabéu to win: to take the game to the home side and to beat them playing it his way. ‘We won’t speculate or leave it to fate. We will not
relinquish all that we have been this year. When we return from the Bernabéu, I want it to have been all about us,’ Pep told his squad.

If Madrid’s run of form had dictated that the league was going to be decided at the Bernabéu, Barcelona were going to accept the challenge. Their arch rivals were breathing down
their necks, piling the pressure on the novice coach and his emerging team; but it was a scenario that Guardiola relished rather than shirked: ‘I want the pressure. It is ours and I want it.
And if something happens and we lose, so be it: it is a final and finals should be played with ambition.’

As the Barcelona players made their way down the tunnel, towards the short flight of steps that would take them up and out on to the Bernabéu pitch, and into a cauldron of noise and
unbridled hostility, they had Pep’s final word’s ringing in their ears above the din: ‘We have come here to win! And at the Bernabéu there is only one way of winning: be
brave!’

Earlier that season, in the first Clásico of the 2009 campaign, Guardiola’s Barcelona had beaten Real Madrid 2-0. But the victory had not been as comfortable as
the scoreline suggests: Drenthe had a chance to score the first goal before Eto’o and then Messi sealed the win for the hosts. It is still remembered as a special night, not only because it
was Pep’s first Clásico as coach, but also because of his reaction to the victory. The expression on Pep’s face told the story – he had momentarily become a player again,
basking in the euphoria of an adoring Camp Nou. He could not hide the fact that his eyes had welled up with the emotion of it all, while the enduring image of Víctor Valdés and his
coach locked in bear hug summed up the bond that was being forged between this extraordinary group of players and their manager.

However, if that moment was special, it was merely a warm-up for the performance at the Bernabéu the following May. A night that would surpass all expectations.

The stifling early summer heat in Madrid that Saturday afternoon was particularly unbearable when the teams arrived at the Bernabéu. Pep’s preparations were complicated by the loss
of Rafa Márquez to injury and the impending trip to Stamford Bridge just three days later for the second leg of the semi-finals of the Champions League that would follow a frustrating 0-0 at
the Camp Nou. With a win at the Bernabéu significant, but not essential, speculation was rife that Pep might even rest some players with an eye on the game in London.

No chance.

Pep had made one thing clear all week: the league was going to be won that night, in the enemy’s backyard. And, to do that, Guardiola selected his strongest line-up available:
Víctor Valdés, Abidal, Dani Alvés, Piqué, Puyol, Xavi, Touré, Samuel Eto’o, Henry, Messi and Iniesta.

Pep had analysed Real Madrid in detail and, an hour and a half before the game, he got Messi, Xavi and Iniesta together
: ‘
You three against Lass and Gago have got the game. If you
do it right, three against two, we’ve beaten them.’ The plan was crystal clear. Lass and Gago were going to find a third man to defend, Messi would position himself as a false striker
in between the centre backs and those two.

Barcelona controlled the game from early on. Twenty minutes into the match, Xavi had a clear shot and Eto’o had another a few minutes later. But Madrid scored first. Higuaín found
himself in space, unmarked – and seized his opportunity. Guardiola was undaunted. Barcelona persisted with the game plan. Their manager had made them believe in what they were doing and they
just had to go along with it. As Cruyff had told Pep right at the start of the season, and Pep repeated to his pupils: be patient.

The
culés
didn’t have to wait long. Almost immediately after Higuaín’s goal, the score was brought level by Thierry Henry. Soon after, Xavi pulled the rabbit
out of the hat with a free kick. Before it was taken, the midfielder started making curious hand signals
to Puyol, repeating them insistently as if possessed. A second later,
he stopped. He turned his head, he seemed to see something that made his mind up definitively and went back to the job at hand, again making those curious hand signals. The next thing, Puyol was
leaving the pitch, only to come back on and catch the Real defence unaware. 1-2.

In the celebrations that followed the goal, the rest of the Barcelona players learnt that Xavi, Puyol and Piqué had been practising that move alone, and that they had kept it a secret
until that day. Four years later they would repeat the exact same set piece in South Africa while playing for Spain against Germany, the only goal of the semi-final of the World Cup.