Page 149 - Pep Guardiola: Another Way of Winning: The Biography

– but mostly in forward areas, and he had scored with ease, from the last sixteen of the Champions
League – Pep began to demand more tactical discipline from him in a deeper position. He found it
hard to understand what was being asked of him and, as Cesc himself admits, ‘I was obsessed with it.
Until I understood that if they had signed me it was because of who I was, not for who I could be. I

couldn’t stop being myself.’
Pep wanted Cesc to feel he was on top of him, looking after him. Demanding more of him as the
player asked him to in that pre-season chat. As he did very publicly in a game versus Valencia, in that
phase where Cesc didn’t score goals even though he was performing well and accepting his new
responsibilities and obligations. Fàbregas had played perhaps one of his best games with the team,
assisting once for a goal, defending, passing, but missing chances. He forced a couple of incredible
saves by Diego Alvés, the Valencia goalkeeper, and on another occasion he mishit the ball. Pep

replaced him at 4-1, fans reacted well and gave him a resounding ovation.
Cesc felt happy with the game, but annoyed at not scoring. ‘God, the goals just won’t go in’, he was
telling himself. As he was walking off the pitch, he saw Pep coming over to hug him and became
momentarily defeatist. ‘Bloody hell, it’s so difficult to score, it won’t go in, that third goal took a
while’, he audibly communicated his frustration.
‘Bloody hell ...’ Pep replied half joking. As he did that, he pushed the player away and shouted,

‘What do you mean it won’t go in? Make it go in! You should have scored!’
Pep gave him a bit of stick and carrot when he needed it. Cesc is the kind of player who responds
to it. The coach applied it after a game against AC Milan where the midfielder didn’t play at all. In
the next training session, Pep came to him and told him, ‘You’ll play in your position in the next
game. I want to see you playing well, OK?’ When Pep talks about ‘your position’ he means that free
role he used to have at Arsenal.
Often when Cesc played, Guardiola deployed a formation, 3-4-3, that wasn’t fully convincing but

the coach defended one of Johan Cruyff’s maxims – if you have it, flaunt it; always use your quality
players. So if he had to place four midfielders and shrink the defensive line, so be it. Cesc is an
important player for his system when it works, because he gets goals coming from deep and that takes
some responsibility for scoring off Messi. Meanwhile, the Argentinian was free to move about in
attack and therefore it became more difficult for the centre back and opposing defences to mark.
But it didn’t always work.

There was too much to learn in one season, an overloading of information while he was trying to
find his place in the club and the squad that ultimately frustrated him. His game suffered as the season
progressed. ‘I had to take lots of responsibility at Arsenal. I need to follow more tactical orders at
Barcelona,’ Cesc admits. ‘And sometimes I felt lost.’
In the end, he not only stopped scoring regularly but he was also left out of the line-up in some
important games (such as against Real Madrid in April). That didn’t diminish his adoration of Pep.
So much so that within the club it was concluded that Pep’s departure could serve as a potential

liberation for Cesc as he prepares to replace Xavi eventually as a leader and axis of the team.
In hindsight, it must have been difficult for the former Arsenal star when he discovered that
Guardiola told the president and Zubizarreta that he wanted to leave the club just two months after the
player joined Barcelona in August.
The hug that Cesc gave Pep in the Camp Nou dressing room after Chelsea knocked Barcelona out
of the Champions League in 2012 was one of the longest. Fàbregas was emotional; he couldn’t

articulate it, but wanted Pep to continue and hoped his hug spoke for him.
But three days later, as Pep announced his exit in the dressing room, Fàbregas felt a resonance of