During the four years that Pep Guardiola was in charge of Barcelona he did not give interviews for publication, with the exception of one that was supposed to end up on the history of Brescia DVD and somehow ‘mysteriously’ found its way on to the Italian television channel RAI!
Talking to Pep for this book was the only way I could open a hitherto closed window on his private world; to reveal what motivates him, what took him to where he is now, what fed his intuition to make the right football decisions; ultimately to try to comprehend what was taking him away from all he adored, or had once adored.
Before I met him privately, I felt like a naughty kid peering over a high wall to try to catch glimpses of a life, a mind, that, I was certain, was not exactly the same as the one that was discussed frequently and analysed to death. Clearly, as we all know, there are many Guardiolas: the public Pep, the passionate Pep, the fragile Pep, Pep the leader, visionary, role model and so on. In order to convey anything close to the real Pep Guardiola, it was important to try and peel away the layers, to work around the public profile and understand the man behind the finely tailored suits and the cool exterior.
Typically, meetings with Pep would be a planned twenty-minute chat at the end of a training session. More often than not, the press officer would return eighteen minutes after I’d arrived, with a knock on the door and a ‘do you want a coffee?’, code for: ‘time’s up’! If Pep brushed him off with a ‘don’t worry, we are OK’, it was a small success.
His private words mould this book. In any case, since the day he took over the first team at FC Barcelona, Pep has done enough talking in front of the press – at his 546 press conferences – to fill an encyclopaedia with his insights. By his own account, he has sat in front of the media for 272 hours, or eleven full days. That amounts to around eight hundred questions a month. Can you imagine? Every single word scrutinised, every gesture picked up on, every utterance interpreted and extrapolated by the world’s press.
He has been asked if he believes in God, if he writes poetry, about his politics, about the financial crisis and at least a hundred times if he was going to renew his contract (‘although I don’t really care if you do or not,’ one journalist once told him!). The pre-game press conferences, at least half an hour long, always became the story of the day, but there was more to take from them if you were an advanced follower of both the politics within the media and the character himself – you hardly ever got a clue about the team, but if you were intuitive you would find out about Pep’s state of mind.
So stop leaping around trying to see what’s on the other side of the wall. Take a seat, if you haven’t already, in one of the front rows of today’s empty press conference. You will be the only journalist present. Imagine Pep clutching a bottle of water, hurrying to the front table and eagerly taking his seat, nervously touching the microphone, prepared to offer you an insight into his mind. The answers to many of the questions you’d hope to ask might be revealed in the following paragraphs. Or maybe not.
Keep reading and find out.
The press conference starts now. Pep leans forward into the microphone, and starts to speak:
‘When I face the press and the players, there is always an imposing element, almost theatrical, in order to be able to reach them. But in the end I always transmit what I feel. There is an element of shame, of fear, of acting the fool that makes me contain myself a little, then there is what I have learnt from football and the thing is that it scares me to make a statement when I know that the game is uncontrollable, that tomorrow my words could come back to haunt me. That’s why I always search for the element of scepticism, the “je
ne sais quoi”, a doubt. That false humility that people always say I have, always giving the players the credit, isn’t because I don’t want
to acknowledge my own merits, I must have done something right, it is because I panic about having those words turned on me. Because by doing exactly the same as what I am doing now, I could lose tomorrow. I prefer to be wrong a million times than give my people the impression that I am sure about everything that I am not. Because if I get it wrong tomorrow through doing the same thing as I do now, they’ll say, “You weren’t that clever, how didn’t you see that?”
‘I win because I am in a team rich in very good players and I try to make them give their all and out of ten games I win eight or nine. But the difference between winning and losing is so small ... Chelsea didn’t win the European Cup because Terry slipped when taking a penalty, he slipped! I’ve given the players that example a thousand times.
‘Three or four books have been written about my leadership strategy. I look at them to discover myself and see if I really do those things, because I don’t know. They come to conclusions about me that I had never even considered.
‘Why am I more of a leader than a coach who has been training for twenty years and hasn’t won anything? It isn’t false modesty, I can’t find the reason because I wouldn’t have won trophies if I hadn’t been with Barça.
‘The players give me prestige and not the other way around.
‘I would go out on to the pitch with the players and go into the dressing room. I’m still very young and there are a lot of things that I would do. I’d go and hug them as a player. But I can’t do that any more.
‘How do I exercise my leadership? Why do I tell players one thing or another? Nothing is premeditated; everything is pure intuition with the players at all times. When they lose they are a mess, both those who played and those who didn’t. So, sometimes I turn up and hug one or tell another one something, it is pure intuition. Of the twenty decisions I make each day, eighteen are intuitive, through observation.
‘Is that all true? I can’t work solely through intuition, I have to work using my knowledge, I don’t want them to brand me a visionary. Furthermore, if I were I would make my players play in strange positions.
‘In the end we do what we can and feel, through our education, we only transmit what we have experienced. There are no general theories that apply to everything. And any one could be valid, what doesn’t work is imposing something that doesn’t work.
‘As professional as they are, they are also scared of losing and they look for that figure that gives them the key, that tells them: “Hey, come this way ...” this is what we coaches have to do. We have to transmit trust and security in all the decisions we make.
‘That trust, security and sincerity are the fundamental pillars for a good coach. The players have to believe in the manager’s message. He must always speak to the player fearlessly, sincerely and tell him what he thinks. Without deceiving him.
‘The players put you to the test each day; that’s why it is very important to be convinced about what you want and how you want to put it across. They are aware that luck is an important factor in the game, but they want to feel that the coach is convinced and defends the decisions he has made. The day we played against Espanyol at home (1-2), I got it wrong at half-time. A couple of weeks later, I mentioned it to them. They know that we aren’t perfect, but we are humble and sincere.
‘I don’t know in what aspect we are good coaches. We haven’t invented or revolutionised anything. The tactical concepts that we apply have been developed here, we have been taught them. The secret is in the details and in observing a lot. You have to pay a great deal of attention, constantly, to what happens every day, more so than to the weekend’s game: we are always aware of every aspect, of a player’s moods, their expressions, of thousands of almost unfathomable things that could make a difference. Observation is key.
‘When I lose I wonder if I am capable of being a coach, of maintaining that leadership, and if I win, the ecstasy lasts five minutes and then I lose it.
‘The fans need to know that their players work hard, the same as them. It is a good thing for people to know that we can be strict with them, fining them when they turn up late. The supporters have to see themselves reflected in the players. It is a question of defence because in difficult times people have to know that they haven’t lost because they are lazy, that the work has been put in.
‘I only know that a good leader is one who isn’t scared of the consequences of their decisions. They make the decision that their intuition tells them, no matter what happens.
‘In order to make decisions, you must be really convinced, they can’t be taken lightly when there is so much pressure. I don’t ignore the media element.
‘There are times when I am tired and I have to transmit energy and I don’t know how to do so. If you transmit it you’re not being yourself, and if you don’t transmit it you’re not being true to yourself.
‘With the first team, there are weeks when you are running on empty. In some training sessions I only observe because I don’t have the sufficient time or energy to direct them; Tito, Aureli or Loren Buenaventura direct them.
‘The key is to have a strong dressing room, knowing that we are stronger together than one person on his own.
them. That destroys me.
‘The substitutes would do a better job if their ungrateful manager gave them an extended run of games.
‘I do more work as a team manager than as a coach, because, as there are games every three days, there are few pure footballing training sessions and there is a lot of co-existence and it isn’t easy. But the lucky thing in this team is having found people with important human values.
‘A column in the press, instead of a front-page headline, is sometimes more influential on the players’ moods than my own opinion. I have to know which headlines have come out about a player. If I have two stars and there are three headlines about one, I’m going to approach the player who hasn’t had any.
‘There are things that denote how a team is. Today we planned to meet at five o’ clock and by 4.30 most of us were here. They know, because I have said it and they have seen it, that when they stop doing it, anyone can beat us. If each person does their job, and they know what it is because I make sure they know, then we are a team that is difficult to beat.
‘I have to conserve this passion that I have for what I do. The day that I stop feeling it, I will leave. Now I want to tell a player off and then hug him immediately after. If you lose that, that’s bad ... when I stop correcting a player during training, it will mean that I have lost my passion. When I no longer get excited, I will go. That’s what happened to me when I was a player.
‘At another team? It would be exactly the same. My closeness to my players is lessening. This year, less than last year, it is self- defence. Because I suffer, I prefer to distance myself.’
From his very first day in the job as coach, Pep went out of his way to appeal to the feelings of his players: demanding solidarity and effort from everyone. Those values represent a reflection of himself. He knew that in order to lead the group he must be consistent, manage the little details and big egos – and convince everyone, not only to do as he asked, but to believe in what he was asking them to do.
And his ability to communicate is perhaps his greatest talent.
Imagine you are a player now. It is the day of a home game. You have trained in the morning and then eaten with the rest of your team-mates in the training complex of Sant Joan Despí and then, as usual, Pep sends you all back home, to be with your families and have a rest. You love that, you don’t have to hang around for games and somehow training becomes more intense, energetic, more fun. You have to return to the Camp Nou later, two hours before kick-off.
Around an hour before the start of the game, and when you are not completely ready to warm up, Pep takes his jacket off. He wears a tight shirt, white most of the time, with a tie and the sleeves rolled up. He’s at work. You all head into a large room next to the dressing room and sit down to listen to him. He claps a couple of times, ‘Gentlemen,’ he shouts, and at that moment silence falls and you’re about to have your eyes opened by him, he’ll tell you the road to success in that particular match. He will make you see it, visualise it.
You go back to the dressing room and there you won’t see Pep, who hides in his office. As part of the process of becoming a manager, he began keeping his distance from the players and the changing room became almost exclusively for the players, so much so that on many occasions he could be seen waiting outside the door, shouting to one of his assistants, ‘how long before they go out?’ If he was told five minutes, he would linger awhile before going in and issuing rapid-fire instructions. He understands his presence could influence the footballers’ behaviour on their own territory. It should be a refuge where they, you, can say what you think at any time without fear of punishment. You can talk about girls, cars, even have a go at him if you want. Ask Xavi; he’ll explain it to you:
Xavi: Sure. He told us from the beginning, ‘I won’t go in there.’ It’s like a classroom without the teacher. And when the teacher comes in, there’s silence and it’s time to work.
Manel Estiarte: He has to go through the dressing room in the stadium because his office is at the end of it. But he will not be seen with the players unless it is to talk to them after a game, to motivate them or remind them of something, or to give them a hug before it. There is always a huddle and shout before the game. He arrives, they hug and he goes. As the ex-player he is, he always says, ‘This is the place where they joke, they might laugh at me, they might criticise me.’
You will be there with your rituals, one sock on before the other and things like that, you’ll talk about the match, about the team talk, about Piqué’s music. Valdés is quiet in a corner and so is Messi, who looks much smaller in that environment. After the warm-up, ten or fifteen minutes before the kick-off, but not always, Pep briefly appears to remind you of the two or three key points, small comments. And then he’ll disappear again.
Xavi: His presence makes you sit up and pay attention, it makes you alert. All he needs to say is ‘Are we ready or not?’
Javier Mascherano: And then he would give you the keys to the game, he doesn’t need a ten-minute talk.
Tito: The pre-match talks are in the hotel if it is an away game, or, if it is a home game, in the Pictures room. First of all he shows footage of the opponents, explaining their strong points and how we can hurt them. The strategy is explained, both ours and the opponents’.
Iniesta: The talks remind me of school, everyone in their place, and him in the middle talking, gesticulating emphatically, passionately, if the situation calls for it, if not, he doesn’t.
Valdés: In all the conversations that we have had I have always learnt something. I am quite shy and he taught me a lot about the importance of communication with team-mates, with the outside world.
Estiarte: No player looks at the floor, they have their eyes set on him.
Albert Puig (technical secretary of the academy): Yeah, he has that something, something between shy, sure of himself and very sure of himself – which is what grips you as if we were talking about a woman, that shyness and aura. That’s what he has.
Xavi: Lots of talks surprise me, lots of them. He thinks in white, you think in black; and you end up thinking in white.
Cesc Fàbregas: He sees football with an amazing clarity.
Tito: Before going out on to the pitch, the message is a motivational one, he doesn’t usually shout, he doesn’t need to. Pep’s tactic is to convince the players that everything that is said and done is for their own good. When they see that, they apply it and enjoy being out on the pitch.
An anonymous player: Ah, yes, those pre-game talks ... I remember one day at the Camp Nou, before the return leg of the semi-final against Valencia in the Copa del Rey (we had a 1-1 result in the first leg), he gave a speech full of sentimental lessons, about the club, what it meant to wear the shirt ... The magic is that after everything that this team has won, seeing Pep work makes you go out on to the pitch remembering, ‘God, I’m playing for Barça.’ There has never been one of those: ‘What a blow today, we play yet another game.’
Estiarte: There are secrets I will never explain. But let me tell you one of the most remarkable chats he gave. Perhaps Pep will get upset if I say it. In a period where we couldn’t find our best