Page 164 - Pep Guardiola: Another Way of Winning: The Biography

of his team-mates explained. There was more tension on the pitch than in the stands, and it spilled
over into the tunnel after the game, with Pepe once again a protagonist.

20 April 2011 – Copa del Rey Clásico. Mestalla stadium (Valencia)

The Copa del Rey final came four days later. Mourinho stuck with his midfield defensive trio but he
moved them forward to try and create greater pressure on Barça. It was a brave, aggressive Madrid
team, with Ramos as centre back, Pepe giving his all and Khedira battling. Ozil acted as a false nine

which disorientated Barça. The second half was agonising and the match was finally decided by a
Cristiano Ronaldo goal in extra time. For Guardiola, it was the first final out of ten that he had lost.
No love was lost between the Spanish internationals on either side: Busquets aggressively tackled
Xabi Alonso; Arbeloa stood on David Villa and then accused him of play-acting, which angered the
forward.
It was the tensest moment between both clubs.
Messi walked into the changing room, sat on the floor and cried. Guardiola, as usual, stayed away

from the dressing room and didn’t say anything special to the players.
The squad were silent on the bus taking them to Valencia airport after the match. Just seven days
later Barcelona and Madrid were going to meet again in the first leg of the semi-finals of the
Champions League. On the plane back home, Pep decided he had to do something to recover group
morale – he wasn’t sure what – but he also knew that Mourinho would try and take advantage of the
pre-match press conferences to kick Barcelona while they were down.

The day after the defeat, the Barcelona manager admitted to one of his closest friends, ‘you have no
idea how difficult this is.’ He didn’t mean physically, he was talking about facing Madrid, dealing
with Mourinho, and everything that had transpired that year: the provocations and comments coming
from the Spanish capital. Along with the regular accusations over Barcelona’s influencing of referees,
the federation and UEFA – a radio station suddenly came out with an extraordinary and false
allegation of doping: something that, understandably, hit Pep where it hurt.
‘It is all so hard, this is too much,’ Pep admitted privately.

The problem went beyond Pep’s mental endurance: the constant friction made it difficult to take the
right decisions, his juggling of so many roles – figurehead, coach, beacon of the club’s values – was
becoming too much to bear. One of his close friends heard him saying, ‘I am leaving, I’ve had
enough.’ The next morning the crisis was averted but Pep kept repeating to himself that he was not
going to stay in the Barcelona job for long.

When Pep talks about Mourinho, suddenly an invisible wall pops up. His neck muscles tense, his
shoulders hunch and he stops looking you in the eye. Clearly, he is not comfortable with the

conversation and it becomes evident that he wants the chat to move on. He feels that he has suffered
personal attacks; he thinks his club and its values have been assaulted, his players have been
ambushed. And he is not sure why. He can’t comprehend why the rivalry could not have been limited
exclusively to the sporting arena, to the action on the pitch.
Perhaps one day – and it may take a very long time for him to see it this way – Pep may be able to
look back on those Clásicos against Mourinho and realise that, because they pushed him as a person
and as a coach to the limit, he emerged a better manager.

Every trophy, an entire campaign, was being contested against the eternal rival in a period of just