Page 130 - Pep Guardiola: Another Way of Winning: The Biography

Víctor Valdés: Can I talk to you, boss?
Pep Guardiola: My door is always open ...
Valdés: I need to ask one thing: all that you are talking about is fine, but only if the centre backs
want the ball ...

Pep: I will make sure they want the ball.
That was it. End of conversation.
Valdés had zero tactical knowledge before Pep arrived. For the keeper the following four years
would be like working his way through a degree in tactics.
In those first few days in Scotland, Guardiola asked Carles Puyol, the captain, to join him in his
hotel room in St Andrews. The manager showed him a video: ‘I want you to do this.’ In it, different
centre backs received the ball from the goalkeeper in a wide position outside the box; they connected

with the full backs and positioned themselves to receive the ball again. It was stuff that defenders
have nightmares about because a simple mistake can mean conceding a goal. Puyol started his career
as a right winger, but was converted into right back because his skill was limited. Once, he even
came close to being loaned out to Malaga when Louis Van Gaal was the Barcelona manager, but an
injury to Winston Bogarde kept him at the club. Now, at thirty, he was asked to add a new string to his
bow.

Pep told Puyol: ‘If you don’t do what I need you to do, you are not going to play in my team.’
Pep’s warning was probably not necessary but it was another indication of where his priorities lay.
Puyol accepted the challenge. So did Iniesta.
‘When I found out Pep was going to be the manager,’ says Andrés Iniesta, ‘I was excited. He was
my hero. I knew something big was going to take place.’
The benefits of Pep having been a top-flight player could be seen straight away. Training in front of
the old Masía, near the Camp Nou, with journalists and fans watching, cameras picking up on little

arguments or discussions, was far from ideal. So Guardiola, who had advised on the latest designs to
the new facilities at Sant Joan Despí, a few kilometres away, pushed for the first team to move there
as soon as possible. The training ground then became a fortress where they could practise, relax, eat,
rest and recover in seclusion, away from the gaze of probing eyes. The footballers, surrounded by
professionals dedicated to looking after them, appreciated these layers of protection and the many
other necessary details that only a former professional could have forseen.

Allowing them to stay at home until just hours before a home game or travelling away on a match
day, thus avoiding the almost sacred hotel stay and abrupt removal from family life, was another
welcome decision. Pep thought there was no need to think about football every minute of the day and
players, dining with their families the night before a match, could even begin to forget that there was a
game the next day. Guardiola felt that switching them on only a few hours before kick-off was more
than enough.
Little by little the press was distanced, too, with individual player interviews being reduced or

banned entirely for long periods. Anything to keep the group sheltered. Not necessarily isolated, but
cosy, strong in its unity. He wanted to mother them, nurture them, but not control them. Once, he
himself had been denied such protection and it had left an indelible scar after the lone battle to clear
his name of doping allegations.
He knew Deco and Ronaldinho had lived in disorder, and that had spread among the squad. From
the moment of his arrival at the club, Pep sought to monitor his players’ nutrition, timetables,

preparation. Most of his team were footballers of slight physique so they needed careful attention. All
kinds of attention. If need be, he would even change identities, switch roles, on a regular basis, from