Pep Guardiola: Another Way of Winning: The Biography (40 page)

José used the backlash of that humbling defeat to help him justify and argue that the supertanker that is Real Madrid needed to change course – convincing all aboard that they
should follow his direction. For Mourinho, that 5-0 defeat exposed the fact that the club needed a drastic change: from one being run by the president to one run by a winning manager who could
control signings, the academy, facilities, everything. In his quest to knock Barcelona from their perch, the Portuguese was going to transform, for the first time in history, the role of first-team
coach at Real Madrid into a general manager – and more, into the leading light of the institution.

Pep Guardiola and José Mourinho may have different styles of leadership and contrasting personalities but they have one very important thing in common: they both love
football, winning and are successful in the leadership of their respective teams. They control, plan, analyse and decide everything. They win by surrounding themselves with their praetorian guard
and discard those who don’t fit with their ideas for the squad. They both have superstar players whom they count on in the pursuit of silverware. A lot in common, then.

Pep wants to leave a legacy and a blueprint for the club that will last the test of time, so that the team can still keep up its winning ways long after his departure from the dugout. At Real
Madrid, and having reached a position of huge power, so does Mourinho – in his eyes, one of his main targets is to bring the club to the new century and set ways to keep them at the top.

The Portuguese’s charisma is preceded by his fame and success, but in Spain he had a tough challenge ahead in pleasing a fanbase with high expectations, who demanded attractive football
and silverware. He started providing both very early on.

Mourinho might put on a front with the media, yet another enemy, but he is generous with his players. He transmits love and respect to them. He is actually a lot softer than he lets on, although
his public persona tries to give people the opposite impression. He is honest
with them: ‘I’m not going to tell them they are doing things well if that isn’t
the case.’

Pep and José soon won their troops over.

Listen to Ibrahimović: ‘José Mourinho is a big star … He’s cool. The first time he met [my wife] he whispered to her: “Helena, you have only one mission.
Feed Zlatan, let him sleep, keep him happy!” The guy says what he wants. I like him.’

Or to Mascherano: ‘Never in my career have I seen a dressing room of players follow a coach with so much faith; what he says goes. I reckon it will be difficult to come across another. Pep
has the gift of leadership.’

‘He has got one thing going for him that no one can fail to notice,’ Patrick Barclay writes in his enlightening
Mourinho: Anatomy of a Winner
. ‘He is astonishingly
good looking. Players appear desperate to win his approval, like schoolgirls fighting for an approving glance from their favourite teacher. As well as being very handsome, Mourinho is always nicely
turned out, something most modern professional footballers take extremely seriously.’ Pep’s aura can be described in the same way: ‘You just want to impress him,’ Xavi
says.

Mourinho is constantly making notes in his now famous notebook, something he took from Van Gaal, his maestro. It was not the only thing he learnt from the Dutch coach. Or from Bobby Robson. Or
many other coaches he studied carefully.

According to Juanma Lillo, ‘Guardiola is a sponge, he learns from everybody because for him anywhere is a good place to talk about football, to confront ideas and turn a game into a
passion.’

Mourinho gets to Madrid’s Valdebebas training ground as early as seven o’clock in the morning and makes sure everything is prepared for the day ahead. Guardiola has been seen leaving
the training ground at ten at night and sometimes later.

They can both be characterised by their modernity, they employ all the new technology and methods possible to help the growth of their players. But they are also delegators, they lead a great
team of assistants and are capable of making their personnel feel responsible, valued, gifted. And both of them have earned themselves a reputation as being great listeners.

They know the institution and fanbase whom they are working for. They know how to direct their emotions, they can awake the enthusiasm and mobilise their players and fans to
do what they want. Both are very good at absorbing all the bad vibes directed at their clubs and channelling them away from their players. ‘I let people see me angry because I really am, but
sometime I pretend to be angry. These days coaches should play with their emotions,’ Mourinho says.

Like his Catalan counterpart, he imposed his timetable, his rules and minimal contact with the press. Both coaches are aware that they live in a complex world, almost a media bubble. News sells,
and the more exclusive and explosive the story, the better. Both are masters in the science that is handling the media, the message and the art of leadership, making their players stand out among
the greatest in the world by clarifying expectations, helping them get to know themselves better, motivating them to be self-disciplined.

When they close the dressing-room door and prepare to face the media, that is when they certainly do things differently.

Once Barcelona had knocked Shakhtar out of the quarter-finals of the 2011 Champions League campaign, Guardiola stopped going to the gym, where he used to spend a couple of
hours a day to help him overcome a discal hernia that had hospitalised him. He swapped his exercise regime for the preparation of a programme to steer his side through a run of four Clásicos
in eighteen days, starting with their league encounter, followed by the Copa del Rey final and then the home and away legs of the Champions League semi-finals.

For the league encounter, he decided to field the same team that was responsible for the 5-0 thrashing given to Madrid earlier in the season, apart from Eric Abidal who was recovering from his
operation. In the run-up to it Guardiola reminded his players that this game would not be a repeat of that extraordinary result; this time Mourinho would not be caught quite so off-guard.

Mourinho is especially good at making games difficult for the opponent: for that occasion, he let the grass on the pitch grow longer than usual so the ball didn’t run as much and he used
Pepe
as a third midfielder to detain Messi. This was the most defensive side Mourinho had fielded and one that was criticised by Madrid’s honorary president, Alfredo Di
Stéfano. But the idea was not to lose the first one, almost accepting the league was out of reach for Madrid, and focus on the other three Clásicos.

16 April 2011 – La Liga Clásico. Santiago Bernabéu stadium

The game finished with the teams tied at one goal apiece, practically assuring that the league title stayed at Barcelona. The tight marking of Messi by Pepe provoked the
Argentinian to respond angrily following his limited contribution to the game. When towards the end the ball went out of play, he struck it fiercely, hitting some spectators. ‘He had wanted
to hit the hoardings and it went high,’ one of his team-mates explained. There was more tension on the pitch than in the stands, and it spilled over into the tunnel after the game, with Pepe
once again a protagonist.

20 April 2011 – Copa del Rey Clásico. Mestalla stadium (Valencia)

The Copa del Rey final came four days later. Mourinho stuck with his midfield defensive trio but he moved them forward to try and create greater pressure on Barça. It was
a brave, aggressive Madrid team, with Ramos as centre back, Pepe giving his all and Khedira battling. Ozil acted as a false nine which disorientated Barça. The second half was agonising and
the match was finally decided by a Cristiano Ronaldo goal in extra time. For Guardiola, it was the first final out of ten that he had lost. No love was lost between the Spanish internationals on
either side: Busquets aggressively tackled Xabi Alonso; Arbeloa stood on David Villa and then accused him of play-acting, which angered the forward.

It was the tensest moment between both clubs.

Messi walked into the changing room, sat on the floor and cried. Guardiola, as usual, stayed away from the dressing room and didn’t say anything special to the players.

The squad were silent on the bus taking them to Valencia airport after the match. Just seven days later Barcelona and Madrid were going to meet again in the first leg of the semi-finals of the
Champions League. On the plane back home, Pep decided he had to do something to recover group morale – he wasn’t sure what – but he also knew that Mourinho
would try and take advantage of the pre-match press conferences to kick Barcelona while they were down.

The day after the defeat, the Barcelona manager admitted to one of his closest friends, ‘you have no idea how difficult this is.’ He didn’t mean physically, he was talking
about facing Madrid, dealing with Mourinho, and everything that had transpired that year: the provocations and comments coming from the Spanish capital. Along with the regular accusations over
Barcelona’s influencing of referees, the federation and UEFA – a radio station suddenly came out with an extraordinary and false allegation of doping: something that, understandably,
hit Pep where it hurt.

‘It is all so hard, this is too much,’ Pep admitted privately.

The problem went beyond Pep’s mental endurance: the constant friction made it difficult to take the right decisions, his juggling of so many roles – figurehead, coach, beacon of the
club’s values – was becoming too much to bear. One of his close friends heard him saying, ‘I am leaving, I’ve had enough.’ The next morning the crisis was averted but
Pep kept repeating to himself that he was not going to stay in the Barcelona job for long.

When Pep talks about Mourinho, suddenly an invisible wall pops up. His neck muscles tense, his shoulders hunch and he stops looking you in the eye. Clearly, he is not
comfortable with the conversation and it becomes evident that he wants the chat to move on. He feels that he has suffered personal attacks; he thinks his club and its values have been assaulted,
his players have been ambushed. And he is not sure why. He can’t comprehend why the rivalry could not have been limited exclusively to the sporting arena, to the action on the pitch.

Perhaps one day – and it may take a very long time for him to see it this way – Pep may be able to look back on those Clásicos against Mourinho and realise that, because they
pushed him as a person and as a coach to the limit, he emerged a better manager.

Every trophy, an entire campaign, was being contested against the eternal rival in a period of just eighteen days.

In that incredibly high-pressure period of less than three weeks, Pep had to establish a routine, a way of doing things that allowed him and the players to connect and disconnect before and
after matches.

He kept his preparation rituals the same, the timetables, training – but he tried to sell each Clásico to the players as a different movie. He demanded a victory in the league, gave
a day off after the cup final and, after the blow to the morale to his players as a consequence of the defeat, he needed a new strategy for the Champions League.

He spent every waking hour in his office dedicated to thinking and preparing for these games. Estiarte would tell him, ‘Let’s go, we’re not eating here today, we’ll go
and eat elsewhere so we don’t spend the whole day here.’ But when they were eating out, if a meal normally took an hour and a half, after forty minutes his friend could see Pep’s
mind was on other things: looking at him maybe, but not listening. So Manel would give up, get the bill and go back to the training ground.

On the eve of the first leg of the Champions League semi-final, José Mourinho unwittingly handed Pep the psychological edge he had been looking for.

On that afternoon, Mourinho burst into the press room of Real Madrid’s Valdebebas training ground like a whirlwind.

His face told the story, beaming from ear to ear – here was a man who had just masterminded victory over his club’s arch rivals, he had put one over Guardiola and he was about to
lead Real Madrid into a Champions League semi-final for the first time in five years.

Mourinho delivered his press conference referring to his Catalan opposition as ‘Barça’ for the first time since taking over at Madrid – usually it was just
‘them’. Another first: he also referred directly to Guardiola, singling him out, calling him Pep.

And then he let loose. He was asked about the appointment of experienced German official Wolfgang Stark as the referee for the Champions League semi-final. Previously, before Stark was named,
Guardiola said Mourinho would be ‘super happy’ if Portugal’s Pedro Proença was chosen. When Mourinho responded, he revealed his
most provocative side:
‘Besides the naming of the referee and the pressure that they exerted so Proença was not chosen, the most important thing is that we are in a new cycle. Until now there were two groups
of coaches. One very, very small group of coaches that don’t speak about refs and then a big group of coaches, of which I am part, who criticise the refs when they have made mistakes –
people like me who don’t control their frustration but also who are happy to value a great job from a ref.’

And then he turned on Guardiola.

‘And now, with Pep’s statement the other day, we are entering a new era with a third group, which for the moment includes only him, who criticise the correct decision of the referee.
This is something I have never seen in the world of football.’

Mourinho was referring to a goal by Barcelona’s Pedro Rodríguez that was disallowed for offside in the Spanish Cup final against Real on 20 April, and which video replays showed was
a correct decision by the referee.

‘In his first season [Guardiola] lived the scandal of Stamford Bridge [in the semi-final], last year he played against a ten-man Inter. Now he is not happy with refs getting it right. I am
not asking the referee to help my team. If the referee is good, everyone will be happy – except Guardiola. He wants them to get it wrong.’