Page 127 - Pep Guardiola: Another Way of Winning: The Biography

Sir Alex: People have asked if Pep and I spoke after the final, and the truth is we didn’t.
It’s very difficult after a final – one team is celebrating and the other is mourning, trying to

come to terms with the defeat. And then you have to deal with the media and attend press
conferences, so there’s not an area or time when you can have a glass of wine or talk to
each other because of that divide – one is winning and the other one is losing. Sometimes
you have to accept it, move to one side and acknowledge that somebody else has been
better.

After the hugs and the celebrations, the dancing and the fireworks; away from the noise,
in a quiet moment in the Wembley dressing room, Pep took Estiarte to one side, looked into
his eyes and said, ‘Manel, I will never forgive myself. I have failed.’

Manel was stunned. He would never forget how, in the immediate aftermath of such an
incredible achievement, when the most natural thing in the world would have been simply to
relish that moment, to bathe in its glory, Pep Guardiola was still capable of feeling that he
had let everybody down. Pep explained to Manel that he felt he could have done things
better. And Manel told him that, yes, it could have been a bit different, maybe; but they had

won. That was what mattered. But not for Pep: his quest for perfection, for improvement,
meant that as everyone around him could abandon themselves to feelings of absolute joy,
he could never be truly satisfied with himself.