Pep Guardiola: Another Way of Winning: The Biography (30 page)

No video doing the rounds on the internet, but, by listening to the footballers who were in the dressing room that evening, we are able to get an insight into what Pep told
them before kick-off at Wembley.

Pep came into the room with his jacket off, rolled up his sleeves and began talking, pointing every now and again at an image on the screen. He looked into his players’
eyes, speaking with intent in fast, clear Spanish. Pacing around, gesturing furiously, spontaneously, he would occasionally move up close and address one of his pupils directly, to drive home his
point.

‘I know we are going to be Champions, I have no doubt about it at all. Lads, I told you that you would take me to the final and that if you did that, I was going to make
you win. If we do things how we are supposed to, then we will be the superior team.

‘Manchester United also like to keep the ball, want to take away our protagonism on the pitch. You know we are not used to not having much of the ball, so we must keep
it. And if we take it off them, used as they are to having possession against other teams, they will be uncomfortable and struggle to defend.

‘Now, Eric [Abidal], have a look at this: Antonio Valencia always runs down the wing so you should play further up so Valencia feels less comfortable. Alvés,
listen to me: Park prefers diagonal movements instead of vertical ones, so use the outer zones. United have recently started taking short corners, so remember what we have been doing specifically
for this in training. It will be much better if United didn’t take a single corner today. And remember our own set piece that we have been practising all this week, we’ve not used it in
a match for at least three games to keep it secret from United, so that means you can surprise them with it.

‘You are going to be able to find and create space here and here. Right here. This is where the game can be won and lost. Keep an eye on the two v ones that are going to
pop up here, here and here. In midfield we will be four against three, we’ll have superiority in numbers in these central areas. Here is where you are going to win the game for me. Because I
have seen it, I have analysed it and I know this is where we will win it.’

So, it wasn’t the simple instructions that Cruyff gave his Barcelona players at Wembley twenty years earlier, no ‘go out and enjoy
yourself’. The message was ‘yes, we have to enjoy this match, but we have to suffer for it too’.

Javier Mascherano cannot help being a fan of Pep, of the delivery and timing of his speeches, of the quality of the message: ‘I’ve heard more than one player say:
“Son of a bitch, he’s nailed it!” That speech at Wembley was one that made the greatest impression on me. While he was talking, it wasn’t as if he was referring to a game
that we were about to take part in, it was as if we were actually playing it right there. He was up and down, side to side in front of the board, gesticulating; and if you shut your eyes and
listened to him, you were already out there in the middle of the action. Everything that he said would happen, happened as he said it would. During the match I was thinking; I’ve seen this
already, I’ve already heard all about it – because Pep has already told me about it ...’

There was one more moment of inspiration. A few words that would send Mascherano, for one, out on to the pitch with a tear in his eye.

Just after the players had warmed up, minutes before the match was about to kick off, completely unplanned, Pep decided to appeal to the players’ human instincts. As the
referee was trying to usher them out and into the tunnel leading on to the pitch, Pep quickly grabbed hold of them and gathering them around said, with pure determination in his voice:

‘Listen, lads, we’re going to do this for Abidal! He has made it here and is with us, we cannot let him down.’

Scouting report: Champions League Final Wembley 2011

First half:

Abidal was in the line-up.

Pep received a report from a friend in England that explained Manchester United had been training with a 4-3-3 but that finally they were going to play with their more usual
4-2-3-1: a formation that could convert into 4-4-1-1. ‘Are you sure?’ Pep had to ask till he was convinced. Barcelona came out with their classical 4-3-3.

The report from his friend was spot-on.

In the first ten minutes, Manchester United applied lots of pressure and intensity with man-to-man marking in midfield. Rooney stuck close to Busquets to prevent Barcelona
building from the back, through him. Giggs was all over Xavi. Barcelona struggled as they couldn’t find superiority in any part of the pitch and the game was in the hands of
United.

After ten minutes, the first of two key moves of that final took place.

Xavi dropped a little deeper, to receive the ball in line with where Busquets would normally start. It meant that Barcelona effectively switched to a 4-2-3-1. United
didn’t feel brave enough to send any player to mark Xavi that high upfield – and if they did, they reacted too late. It enabled Xavi to see more of the ball, in space – allowing
him to play with his head up, under little pressure, pick his passes and start dictating the game from deep. It was a good move; but it did mean that Barcelona’s superiority was taking place
a little deeper than they might have wished.

And then another tactical move changed everything.

Messi started to see more of the ball in midfield. He moved from his position higher up, in between the lines, to a midfield area where neither Vidi
ć
nor Ferdinand followed for fear of straying too far from their centre-back positions.

It effectively meant that the midfield was shaping up as Busquets, Xavi, Iniesta and Messi against Rooney, Carrick and Giggs.

From that moment on, Barcelona had control of the game. They scored in the twenty-seventh minute to make it 1-0. Rooney, however, pulled United level five minutes later and in
the following few minutes Barcelona appeared to be reeling from the sucker punch. However, they soon regained composure and control.

The Catalan team was brave in their pressing high upfield, too. One
passage of play highlights how high Barcelona pressed: United rushed twelve passes
together with none of them crossing the halfway line, so suffocated were they by the pressure of the Barcelona players in their own half.

Half-time:

The United players didn’t quite stick to the plan and received a dressing down from their backroom staff. Instructions were forgotten: like failing to
get the ball into the Barcelona box from deadball situations. One player came in for special criticism from Ferguson’s assistants: Wayne Rooney, who failed to track Busquets as the manager
had instructed him. Yet, as a sign of what some members of the United staff took as a reluctant acceptance of Barcelona’s superiority, Sir Alex was uncharacteristically subdued.

Second half:

Manchester United sporadically pressed high up, with Chicharito and Rooney running after the ball when it was passed back to Valdés, but the second line (Giggs,
Carrick) didn’t follow up the pressure. So Barcelona were building from the back quite easily and found Busquets often, who would then start the attack.

United did not have a solution, they didn’t even take a corner all game. Barcelona continued in the same fashion and it was in that vein that Messi received a pass in
midfield, unmarked, turned round and fired home a shot that made it 2-1 for Barcelona.

Messi’s performance illustrates the difficulties that rivals have when they face Barcelona. Even though Ferguson admitted that they never controlled Messi, he ended up
making ninety-seven runs, but 85 per cent of his moves were ‘low-intensity’. His choosing of his runs was game-changing.

Barcelona were so accomplished at the basics, knowing their system and personnel so well, that Guardiola could respond to anything United threw at them. Their attack involved
constant positional permutations between the front five, with the full backs often involved as well. A neverending display of ball and player circulation.

The United wingers started joining in, in midfield, making the centre of
the park quite congested, so Barcelona started attacking down the more open
flanks; especially down the right with Alvés.

The game was under Barcelona control when Villa scored Barcelona’s third goal after seventy minutes. One minute earlier, Nani had replaced Fabio, injured, and on
seventy-six minutes Scholes replaced Carrick. Now trailing by two goals, United went fully on the attack, Barcelona relaxed a bit and the game took a dangerous turn for Barcelona. Pep reacted by
taking off a winger and bringing on Keita to regain control – and it stayed that way until the end of the match.

Essentially, Barcelona looked far more like the Barcelona side we will remember than they did in 2009. The attacking wide players (Pedro and Villa) were more involved than
Henry and Eto’o (who were in reality strikers) were two years earlier. Busquets saw more of the ball despite the efforts of Rooney, and enjoyed relative freedom when Xavi and Messi dropped
deeper. Barcelona were superior.

The final word: The lifting of the cup, the managers

Somewhat surprisingly, Carles Puyol was left out of Guardiola’s line-up at the very last minute. Once the game was resolved, the coach introduced him
for the final moments so that he could participate in the final and receive the trophy. But the Barcelona captain insisted that Abidal lift the silverware. ‘This trophy is yours; go and get
it!’ Puyi told his team-mate. The French left back felt his ‘second family’ had given him his life back. Although he did not know it yet, his illness was to return with even more
serious repercussions; but that day the recuperating star had done more to inspire his team-mates with his determination and resilience on the road to recovery than, perhaps, he ever realised at
the time.

Ferguson, despite his competitive nature and instinctive desire to defend his own team, admitted that night to his closest assistants that it was impossible to compete with
their current European nemesis. He could not but admire the fact that they had achieved such high standards with such an extraordinary contribution from the club’s academy set-up (seven of
them in the line-up), the ultimate ideal in football. Rio Ferdinand and Wayne Rooney were in agreement with their manager.

And the competitive nature of Barcelona was undisputed. Before Wembley, Pep had lost only one final, the Spanish Cup against Madrid. In
fact, in his four
years as a Barcelona manager all the other finals played (eleven) were won.

Pep Guardiola: We were lucky at Wembley because in the semi-final against Inter we had to go by bus because of the volcano and the threat of another ash cloud meant we had to
go to London earlier. This gave us four days on our own, calm days, which was incredibly rare for us. We were away from Barcelona and the pressure of the people, friends and family. We were happy
at Arsenal’s ground and we had time to prepare well for the final. We could think about what we had to do to, and we prepared everything, every single bit. We didn’t miss anything and
in the final you can see that we played well, we were the better team. The first final, in Rome, was a lot more equal, but in the second, at Wembley, we were better prepared.

Sir Alex Ferguson: At Wembley, we had to decide how to play tactically against Barcelona because of Villa and Pedro and the way they penetrated, and the fact they had no
central striker made it hard to plan.

PG: Our preparation for that game was crucial. Things like that tend to get overlooked by analysts and pundits after the match but they make the difference in big
games.

SAF: In that final we were well beaten. We were playing a more mature Barcelona, the team had evolved and formed a complete unit. Piqué and Messi had matured, Xavi and
Iniesta performed like the players they are.

PG: It’s important to remember that finals are usually very close games, which is what made our performance against Manchester United stand out even more. There have
been other games when we’ve played really well, but it’s always more difficult to do that in a final because of the emotional factors that come into it and the quality of the
opposition.

SAF: At Wembley, the two wide players were big improvements on Henry and Eto’o in 2009, in terms of penetration. This is probably because Henry and Eto’o were
centre forwards rather than wide players. I remember contemplating a change of tactics and going against Messi – I toyed with the idea at half-time. But after the restart they got in front
and although we took a gamble in moving Valencia to right back and Nani to wide right, Barcelona always had control of that game in 2011.