Page 143 - Pep Guardiola: Another Way of Winning: The Biography

everyone after debuting in Rijkaard’s team at just seventeen when he was heralded as one of the most
promising players to come out of La Masía.
Bojan was hardly given a chance to shine under Pep and a loan move to AS Roma followed. The
youngster was clearly upset at not being able to triumph at his boyhood club, but he was even more

hurt by how Guardiola managed his departure. ‘I didn’t say goodbye to Pep, only those who treated
me well,’ he said shortly after leaving. ‘The relationship with Pep wasn’t a very good one.’
Those words troubled Catalan commentators. The Barcelona sports daily El Mundo Deportivo
wrote, ‘When Pep comes down to earth, walking on the same ground as we mere mortals, he puzzles
us. This is what Bojan’s comments have done: revealing a side to our coach that we didn’t want to
discover. The tale from our young player from Linyola has shown us a cold, unflappable manager,
protected by an enigmatic and impeccable image, capable of keeping complete control of his

feelings.’
At the heart of that debate lay the persona of Pep, untouchable, almost mystical, for the Barcelona
fans and media, a persona challenged by a former player, with emotive words that came straight from
the heart. ‘If Pep were to phone me asking me to return, I would tell him no,’ said Bojan, in an
emotional television interview made on his departure. ‘It would be difficult for me to trust him. I’m
not saying that our paths won’t cross again, but if he phoned me I would tell him no. I’ve not had a

good time. It wouldn’t be a good idea to be under his orders again.’
Bojan had left ‘primarily because I wasn’t playing’ and ‘I wasn’t happy’, but also because of ‘the
way [I] was treated’ by Pep. ‘Not playing is one thing, but another is not feeling part of the group; I
felt that whatever I did, he didn’t see it,’ Bojan said, touched by a painful sadness, powerless and
resigned. ‘My parents, my friends, my girlfriend, they all told me: “Speak to him” but the words just
didn’t come out. Perhaps because I was thinking: “Whatever you do, very little is going to change ...”’
The emotion was visible in the boy’s eyes. Distressed, he confessed that in the last stage of the

season he ‘wasn’t psychologically well’, he ‘had no desire to train’ in a successful team. ‘I didn’t
feel loved by my team-mates and a large section of the public.’ It all came to a head in the Champions
League final at Wembley. ‘There I saw that I had no role to play and that I had put up with not playing
for a long time.’ He gave himself some hope to take part in the final for a few minutes, since he saw
that ‘we were winning 3-1, Manchester couldn’t do anything and there was still a substitute left’. But
Pep preferred to reward Afellay.

After that he didn’t even speak to his manager. ‘I didn’t think there was anything to say, and I still
think that. He didn’t approach me either.’ Nor did he do so before going to AS Roma. ‘I said bye to
the people that treated me well, [between Pep and me] there was no farewell, neither on my behalf
nor on his. Nor were there phone calls during the summer.’ It was that raw. ‘I always say that Pep is
the best trainer there is. But I have been unfortunate to not form part of his plans and to receive that
treatment from him as a player.’
Nobody has the God-given right to play for Barcelona, not even those who come from the lower

ranks. So perhaps Guardiola should have been clearer. Bojan’s difficult period at AS Roma, where
he never managed to have a good run of games, suggested that it was his limitations and not a
personal caprice of the manager, that stopped his career at Barcelona.
The problem with all the strikers was clear: Messi was devouring them. But in the process of
improving the team, while its identity was being established other players fell by the wayside. The
Belarusian Alexander Hleb was another to find himself on the outside looking in and he also believes

that, in the end, things could have been handled better. ‘The important meetings to decide any weighty
issues were made up solely of home-grown players. Guardiola was a very young coach and in some