Page 135 - Pep Guardiola: Another Way of Winning: The Biography

be fit for the encounter, and Pep the opposite: ‘Don’t mess with me or I’ll rip your head off!’
Ibrahimović screamed. In the end, he didn’t start the match, but he came off the bench to score the
winning goal.

The team continued channelling the ball to Messi during games and Ibrahimović didn’t understand
what he had to do. There’s this public perception of the Swedish star, backed up by his revealing
autobiography (I Am Zlatan) and his behaviour at times, of an arrogant self-opinionated young man
who lacks humility. Yet the real Ibra is somewhat less black and white. Before Christmas,
Ibrahimović wanted a discussion about his role and met Pep and director of football Txiki
Beguiristain. ‘Both me and Messi would be a lot better with a bit of support from everyone else; but I
don’t feel like anyone is trying to help me out here,’ he told them. ‘I need Xavi and Iniesta to pass to

me, but it’s as if they can only see Messi ... and I’m twice the size of him!’
Pep thought he could have a word with the two midfielders, and address the situation. However,
that would potentially mean taking the team in a direction that differed from the one he had envisaged.
Nevertheless, Guardiola tried to maintain harmony with Ibra in the squad.
Txiki Beguiristain found out that the player was becoming increasingly frustrated and, worse still,

showing it in front of other players. He told Pep the next morning and that same afternoon Pep took
Ibrahimović for lunch. The coach tried to explain what he wanted from him, how much the team
needed him and vice versa. He asked Ibra not to give up trying.
But the Swedish player couldn’t help feeling misunderstood. For him, lunch with the coach was not
enough. So there was a change after Christmas, and Pep noticed. The humble and responsive Ibra,
trying hard to behave and be more like the ‘schoolboys’ – his slightly patronising term for Pep’s loyal
home-grown students like Xavi and Iniesta. ‘This is not Zlatan, he is pretending. You just wait,’

people close to Pep were warning.
No, that was not him. During the Christmas holiday, as he confessed in his autobiography, he got
‘depressed’, even considering abandoning football because he was bewildered by the lack of
understanding between himself and the coach. After the break, the player’s arrogance and inner
tension began to emerge.

The New Year didn’t get off to a good start: Ibra turned up with burns on his face. The club found
out that they were caused by the cold, riding his snowmobile without enough protection. A double
breach of club rules that warranted a fine. Finally, everything changed, in February, when Pep moved
Messi from the wing to the centre. Ibra thought Guardiola was asking the same of him as had been
asked of Eto’o the previous season, and he was no Eto’o.
The striker suspected that it was Messi who was not pleased with him being the star during the first
part of the season and that the little Argentinian had complained to Pep. On one occasion, according
to the Swedish player, Messi sent a text message along those lines to Pep while the team was

travelling back from a game. And if Ibrahimović feels you have hurt him or are against him, he will
never forgive and forget.
The reality was, nobody wanted to listen to Ibra because the team was moving in another direction
and meanwhile, using the words of the player, ‘the Ferrari that Barcelona had bought was being

driven like a Fiat’. Often, Ibrahimović would start tactical discussions during training sessions and
would no longer hide the fact that he didn’t accept many of the coach’s instructions.
Pep was beginning to lose patience, too close to that breaking point where there is no turning back,
and sometimes he showed this openly, in front of his players. The relationship between player and
coach turned sour and Zlatan started to see Pep as an enemy. ‘He should be careful with me. Perhaps
in training I’ll lose control of my arm and give him a smack,’ he said at the time, and later wrote in