Page 119 - Pep Guardiola: Another Way of Winning: The Biography

FC BARCELONA v MANCHESTER UNITED. WEMBLEY 2011

The preparations

Wembley: one of the most iconic names in world football. Possibly the best final the game
could have picked at that moment: featuring two contrasting ways of understanding the

game, both competitive; two clubs that have paved the way in terms of academy
development, of their drive, their philosophy. And two managers who share a mutual
respect, reverence and competitive instinct towards each other.
Barcelona had just won their third consecutive league title, made all the more

commendable because no other European league had witnessed the same winner as the
previous season – for one simple reason: the 2010–11 campaign had started on the back
of the World Cup in South Africa, which is more taxing for the bigger clubs that provide the
best players. Incredible, then, that Barcelona had had eight of their players prominently

involved with the winners, Spain.
For the Catalan club, winners in 2006 and 2009, it was their third Champions League final
in six years, and that year they had also knocked out Real Madrid in a highly contentious
semi-final. After just three seasons as first-team coach, Guardiola had won nine titles out of

the twelve contested and could surpass Cruyff’s Dream Team by winning a second
European Cup. In contrast, Manchester United, Champions League winners in 2008, had
reached three finals in the previous four seasons, and had also just been crowned Premier
League champions, their twelfth in nineteen years.

The numbers help set the scene: the two best clubs in recent history were clashing to
decide who was the best in Europe. Both teams had won the European Cup three times;
their head-to-head record was also equal – three wins apiece and four draws.
Pep Guardiola did not overlook the fact that Barcelona had built their legend in the

modern era upon their first European Cup, secured in 1992 at the old Wembley stadium,
and this proved to be a useful motivational tool deployed by him whenever the moment
called for words of inspiration: whether whispered in a player’s ear on the way to warm-up,
or while taking a breather and a gulp of water during a break in training, or written on a

whiteboard in the dressing room before a match. The England cathedral of football was a
place of special personal significance for Pep, where he had first laid his hands on the
famous piece of silverware known as ‘Big Ears’ – also the day almost twenty years earlier
where Pep Guardiola the player had counted the steps that led up to the balcony where

they would be presented with the trophy.
The overall feeling of satisfaction of lifting the trophy as a manager surpassed anything
Pep had felt when winning the European Cup as a player.
In the summer of 2010, at the beginning of that season, Pep knew that to reach the same

heights of his first two years in charge, with the six consecutive titles in one calendar year,