Page 101 - Pep Guardiola: Another Way of Winning: The Biography

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
version, we were tired, people talked about refs helping us and all that, and Pep organised a meeting.
‘Gentlemen, do you realise that when you are tired and we think that life is difficult that one of your

team-mates has played thirteen games with a monster that was eating him inside? OK, we are tired,
we have excuses, but there are priorities: we are healthy and Abi has given us an example to follow.’
The same anonymous player: And how about what he said before going to Chelsea: ‘You’re all on
the phone all day, well while you’re at it send a message to your families and friends now before
going to warm up, promising them, ‘We’re going to go through’, because that way you’re all obliged
to give it your all out there as you’ve made a commitment to them.

And then you start shouting, ‘Come on, let’s go, let’s beat them.’ Someone else is clapping, it
smells of Deep Heat and the space becomes small, all of you trying to go through the small door, all