Page 138 - Pep Guardiola: Another Way of Winning: The Biography

president aside and warned: ‘If you make me stay I’ll wait till I’m together with the coach in front of
the media and then I’ll punch him ... I’ll do it, I will!’ When Sandro Rosell became Barcelona
president that summer, the first issue he had to deal with was the Swede’s exit. ‘I regret this
situation,’ he told the president. ‘Which club would you like to go to?’ ‘To Madrid,’ Ibra replied.

‘It’s not possible. Anywhere apart from there,’ said Rosell.
This is how Ibrahimović describes the moment he signed for Milan. ‘Rosell, Galliani, Mino, my
lawyer, Bartomeu and I were present. And then Sandro told me: “I want you to know that this is the
worst bit of business I’ve ever done in my life.” To which I replied: “That’s the consequence of
terrible leadership.”’
Ibrahimović had cost €66 million (Eto’o, who went the other way, was valued at €20 million and

Inter paid the outstanding €46 million in instalments) and he moved to AC Milan, at first on loan and
then in a permanent move the following season for €24 million. At Barcelona, Ibrahimović won four
trophies, scoring twenty-one goals and making nine assists.
After his sale, the Swede didn’t hold anything back. ‘My problem at Barça was the philosopher.
Pep thinks that he has invented Barça’s football ... Mourinho stimulates me, he is a winner; Guardiola

isn’t perfect. I was at Barcelona, the best team in the world, but I wasn’t happy.’ And there was more:
Ibra accused Guardiola of never having wanted to iron out their differences. ‘If you have a problem
with me, it is up to you to solve it. You are the team leader, you are the team coach. You can’t get on
well with twenty people and then, with the twenty-first, look the other way.’
Guardiola’s authority had been challenged, and also his vision for the team. The emotional distance
between him and Ibrahimović made the decision to get rid of him a bit easier but it came at a cost. He

had let himself down by not following his instincts, and he also felt that he had let Ibrahimović down
by not getting the best out of him. He just hoped his choice to allow Messi to emerge as the main axis
of the team would pay dividends.

Messi, the man-eater

For Messi, football is everything and everything is football. His happiest moments were when he was
little playing on a makeshift pitch with thirty others, dribbling and weaving his way past them all. ‘I
don’t know what would have become of me without football. I play in the same way as when I was a

little boy. I go out there and I have fun, nothing more. If I could, I would play a match every day,’
Messi says.
There’s something incredibly child-like about Messi. He acts in the same way on and off the pitch,
always distancing himself from the cameras and the attention, and what you see is pretty much what
you get. The club has allowed him to live as he would do at home back in Rosario, Argentina, with
his family around him. Unlike others at Barcelona, he’s never been forced to speak Catalan or
represent the club off the pitch more than is necessary. He doesn’t talk to journalists, nor does he have

a manager whom he can ring directly; he’s not acting out his life as part of some carefully managed
PR campaign. It’s all about what he does on the pitch.
At the World Club Cup in Tokyo, when Barcelona played against the Brazilian club Santos, Pep
pointed something out to a friend of his, to illustrate the difference between a star and a professional.
He told his friend to take a look at Neymar. The Brazilian had a special haircut for the final, he had
bought a big fancy watch and had some Japanese inscription added to his boots. ‘Now, look at Messi.

Best player in the world. Perhaps in history. But still just Messi.’