Page 153 - Pep Guardiola: Another Way of Winning: The Biography

Barcelona had to play Real Madrid four times in a fortnight in April and May 2011. That desire to
oppose good and bad and portray representatives of either side of the great divide as being symbolic
of either one or the other led to one of the most acrimonious periods in the recent history of Spanish
football.

A couple of occasions towards the end of Pep’s tenure, losing to Madrid and being knocked out of
the Champions League by Chelsea, worked as a litmus test and provided a rare glimpse of the other
side of Guardiola. His complaints about referees were a way of getting rid of feelings of frustration
that he had felt all season.
Those moments made little difference to those who see Barcelona as more than a club, who had
fallen in love with the team’s style and ethos – and in Pep Guardiola saw the essence of the ideal
man. Pep had been a reluctant social leader and the fans who were less intoxicated by his aura, the

minority, understood. The rest spoke about a Guardiola who only existed in the newspapers and in
their own heads. A Guardiola whom Pep himself never recognised. ‘Who are they talking about when
they talk about me?’ he asked himself when he read things about his methods, his moral leadership
and his supposed superhero virtues. ‘There are books that say things about me that even I didn’t
know.’
In fact, in many senses Guardiola was the opposite of that ideal portrait painted by his fans. He is

pragmatic, not philosophical, in the negative sense used by some, including Ibrahimović. He is a
coach more than a leader, more interested in the education than the competition. If he appeared to
have another role at the club after Joan Laporta left, it is because the club has been devoid of a moral
hierarchy and of authority, in the absence of which he didn’t shy away from the responsibilities. But,
in the necessary duality created in the public eye to make football more striking, a hero needs an arch
enemy to complete the picture. And he – the media and also the fans – found the perfect character: a
powerful opponent with a shared personal history with Pep but who had eventually become a

formidable opponent; who represented, in a superficial analysis, opposing values to Guardiola; who
thrived on displaying a contrasting personality to the Catalan manager – and who had been recruited
by Barcelona’s arch rival to stop their dominance in its tracks. In José Mourinho, Pep had found his
perfect comic-book nemesis.
In this drama, the characters are clearly defined. The good v the bad; the respectful v the
confrontational. They are antagonists and adapt each other’s role in contraposition to their rival,

which helps them define the character they have chosen to play. Clearly, Mourinho did look for the
head-to-head confrontation, and felt more comfortable with a constant battle that he felt was
necessary to unsettle a team and a club that were making history. Pep never relished those sideline
skirmishes – even though on one memorable occasion he decided to stand up to his enemy. But, at the
end of his four years at Barcelona, Pep admitted to one of his closest friends that ‘Mourinho has won
the war’: a conflict that he didn’t want to engage in and one that would ultimately tarnish for him the
memory of the great moments of football offered by both sides.

Yet, the most surprising part of this football operetta is that, if you look deeper, if you scratch the
surface, there are as many things that connect Pep and Mourinho, supposed adversaries, as separate
them.

When Bobby Robson went to Barcelona to sign his contract in 1996, a thirty-three-year-old José
Mourinho was waiting to welcome him at the airport, to help him with his bags and drive him to the
Camp Nou. Mourinho was devoted to the man he was going to translate for and help settle in his new