Page 140 - Pep Guardiola: Another Way of Winning: The Biography

one year to the next and he needed to find, once again, the right path after deciding that Eto’o and
Ibrahimović were not the right options.
Upon his arrival, Pep decided to play with a ‘punta’, someone like Eto’o: a quick and incisive,
highly mobile striker who is always looking to make runs behind the defenders. Then he realised that

that type of play, with small midfielders and Eto’o, created problems in terms of aerial defending.
With Ibrahimović’s arrival another system was established with different possibilities: a more fixed
forward who allowed long-ball play, depth, arriving up front from the second line. But that new idea
disappeared after just one year and a third way was established. Or was it the first? He went from
having the space of the forward occupied to having it free; no one would be a fixed number nine.
Messi would appear there whenever he thought it convenient.

It had been seen before, that ‘false striker’ role, as Alfredo Relaño recalled in a memorable
editorial in AS newspaper: ‘From Sinclair’s Wunderteam to Messi and Laudrup’s Barça, not
forgetting Pedernera’s River Plate, Hidegkuti’s Hungary, Di Stéfano’s Madrid, Tostao’s Brasil,
Cruyff’s Ajax.’
Those changes up front could have caused doubts, but the quality of the squad and a style that
combined possession and defined positional play allowed the team to win titles while a way of

attacking was being mulled over. The formula was reinvented following Ibra’s departure and the
arrival of David Villa. With Messi as a false nine – and Villa as a left winger. The result and the
success were instant: Leo went from winning the Ballon d’Or to the Golden Boot. He proved himself
to be an extraordinary goalscorer, a unique passer of the ball and a player who could open up
defences when necessary: he scored in six of the eight finals he played in under Guardiola.
Pep explains what his role was in the process: ‘Messi is unique and a one-off. We have to hope
that he doesn’t get bored, that the club can give him the players so that he can continue feeling

comfortable because when he is, he doesn’t fail. When he doesn’t play well it is because something in
his environment isn’t working, you must try and make sure that he maintains the calmness that he has
in his personal life and hope that the club is intelligent enough to sign the right players to surround
him.’ And that is one of the main reasons why FC Barcelona awarded José Manuel Pinto, Messi’s
best friend in the Barcelona dressing room, a new contract.
Of course, there is a lot more to it than making Messi comfortable. If the great teams in history are

measured in the crucial moments, Barcelona were going to become one of the most reliable ever. The
team was not only stylish, but competitive in the extreme – their players were insatiable, little
despots. As Pep would say, they are easy to manage because that attitude is the foundation for
everything. Among all of them, Messi symbolises that spirit better than anyone – an icon of world
football but one who still cries after a defeat.
Messi’s hunger to succeed brought him to tears in the dressing room in Seville when Barcelona
were eliminated in the last-sixteen round of the Copa del Rey in 2010. It was the third highest priority

of the campaign and, in Pep’s era that was in its second year, the first trophy that Barcelona would
fail to win. Messi played spectacularly and could have scored a hat-trick if it hadn’t been for Palop’s
sensational performance in goal for the opposition.
After the final whistle, the Argentinian could not hold back; he sat on the floor hidden away from
the world and started to cry like a little boy, the way he did in private, in his house, during his first

months at the club, when he felt alone, small and was suffering growing pains and the side effects of
the growth hormones with which he was being injected.
As Guardiola soon came to understand, there is nothing in life that the Argentinian enjoys more than
playing football (perhaps his daily siestas come close); why take that away from him by making him