Page 132 - Pep Guardiola: Another Way of Winning: The Biography

elite football forces you to arm yourself with. But the little boy doesn’t disappear, along with the
fragilities that lie at the core of every human being and which can so often be the bedrock upon which
genius is built.
That kid in Pep the man found it very difficult to accept rejection, disapproval, from the people

close to him, from his players. In fact, there is nothing that hurt him more than one of his footballers
not looking at him or not talking to him when they crossed paths. It killed him. And it has happened.
‘The most unbearable drama: I try and manage a group where everyone is a person; that comes
before everything. I demand them all to think something in common, if not, you can’t win it all. And
that common feeling is like that of any human being: being loved. Having a job that we like and to be
loved for having it. For example, how do I convince a player whom I don’t love and whom I don’t
pick to play, that I love him? That is where the drama lies: ups and downs, ups and downs. Or do you

think that all the players love me?’ Dealing with the footballer and with the person behind the player,
is for Pep the hardest job.
He knows that his decision-making is invariably a barrier to everyone’s affection. It is certainly
easier to handle this build-up of feelings when you’re winning, but you don’t always win. And when
you lose, players tend to look for scapegoats. And in football, the guy who always gets the blame in
the end is sitting on the bench.

Asked if he regrets having let Samuel Eto’o, young Catalan Bojan Krkić or Zlatan Ibrahimović go,
Guardiola let his guard down and admitted the difficulties of dealing with it. ‘Every day I regret a lot
of things. The sense of justice is very complicated. Those who don’t play feel hurt and you need them
to have a lot of heart in order to avoid arguments. The closer I get to players, the more I get burned, I
need to distance myself.’
On the day he announced to his players he was leaving Barcelona, he was clear: ‘If I had continued
we would end up hurting each other.’

But, irrespective of the emotional implications, the decisions regarding those three particular
players, all strikers, were taken for the good of the group, especially to stimulate Messi’s relentless
progression. Guardiola’s admiration for ‘la Pulga’, and his further decision to organise the team so
as to benefit the player, was something that increased with time. It wasn’t just a romantic question; it
had its foundations in the laws of football. Guardiola remembers that, shortly after taking over the

team, during the fourth training session, Messi subtly approached him and whispered in his ear:
‘Mister! Always put Sergio in my team.’ La Pulga was instantly taken with Busquets’s tactical sense
and he wanted him on his side in every practice, every game. Guardiola was pleased that Messi read
football in the same way that he did and his faith in the Argentinian was renewed.
Pep Guardiola’s players often talk highly of their coach, but still, every rose has its thorn. Eto’o,
Ibrahimović and Bojan left Barcelona and not happily. All three had the same role at the club and all
three ended up leaving Barcelona in order for Messi to improve. The ‘number nine topic’ is an

extremely sensitive one in Guardiola’s plan. In the Cameroon forward’s case, he came within an inch
of winning the Pichichi (the award for the league’s top goalscorer) and was a decisive player in the
League and Champions League, where he scored the first goal in the final in Rome. At the end of the
season, Pep decided he wouldn’t continue with him the following season. What went wrong?
After Pep effectively put Eto’o up for sale in his very first press conference, the forward

completed a very impressive pre-season and once again quiet, friendly, almost unnaturally modest,
had won the respect of the dressing room and of Guardiola, who spoke about him with his captains
(Puyol, Xavi and Valdés): the decision was reversed; Samuel Eto’o was staying at Barça.
As the season progressed, Samuel was back to being the untameable lion, the footballer with a