Page 160 - Pep Guardiola: Another Way of Winning: The Biography

It’s fair to say that both coaches are befitting of the clubs they represent. Mourinho said that
Guardiola is the best coach ‘for Barcelona’, a subtle reminder that he won titles in four different
countries. Pep has imposed a model in the club which places a lot of emphasis on players progressing
through the academy, where the players begin to develop feelings for the club and a sense of

belonging. Pep is an example of Barcelona-ism, whereas Mourinho is the guru whom Madrid needed
to recover belief.
Even aesthetically they are different: Guardiola is avant-garde, cutting edge; Mourinho is more
classical. Pep is the coach who brought Prada and Dior to the football pitch. Although his image goes
beyond his elegant suit, his image is also his attitude. His style is that of a human being with diverse
cultural interests, whereas Mourinho’s style is more similar to that of an Italian man, unostentatious
apart from the way he fastens his tie: a large, open knot for the Portuguese; straight and neat for the

Catalan.
The differences are to be found in their personalities, too. Mourinho knows what he wants at every
given moment. With Pep there are moments when it’s a yes, others a no, and he chops and changes his
mind. Sometimes he’ll ring a friend in the evening asking for help in one thing or another – and the
very next morning he’s changed his mind and rings them to tell them to forget about it.
With Mourinho, it’s clear from the start. ‘I’m going to win the league here in this country, then there

in that country and two years later, there. Then at fifty years of age, I’ll win the World Cup with
Portugal.’ The only deviation from the plan is in terms of age or timescale. If it doesn’t happen when
he’s fifty, then it will happen later.
He thrives on the other stuff he gets involved in, like going to London, toying with buying a house
there – keeping everyone on their toes and running around him. Perhaps a consequence of a
footballer’s career that never took off. Pep doesn’t have the need to make it all about his choices, his
next move, his arguments, his crusades: ‘I have played for Barça. Everything that is used to feed an

ego is unnecessary for me. Even praise makes me uncomfortable.’
Even their intelligence differs: Pep takes in as much knowledge as possible to help him with
decision-making. José does the same, although he also has a cunning edge. He mischievously went out
of his way to get Pep to a point when their rivalry escalated to never-before-seen levels in world
football. One imagines Mourinho shaving in the morning thinking what he can come up with. ‘Ah, I
know!’ he must have thought one morning. And in the press conference that day he threw a dart:

‘There are people, much more intelligent than me, who manage to sell an image of themselves
completely different to mine, but deep down, they’re the same as me.’ Very rarely has Pep felt the
impulse to answer Mourinho, but that day, less than an hour later, Guardiola mentioned his words in
his own press conference. ‘We’re similar in the sense that we both want to win, but apart from that no
... If that is the case then I’ve done something wrong. I’ve never wanted to bring myself to his level.
There are images that speak a thousand words. Both of us want to win, but our paths are very
different.’

The roads to victory may well be very different, but the cars they drive, the petrol they use to get
them there, are not so dissimilar. Mourinho is right.

The first game between Pep and José following the latter’s appointment at Real Madrid took place at
the Camp Nou. Mourinho had only had five months with his new squad and privately admitted that
football was a ‘box of surprises’. He had no idea exactly how his young team was going to react to
both the Barcelona style and the pressure – only when you open it, he would say, do you know what’s