Page 169 - Pep Guardiola: Another Way of Winning: The Biography

what they got was a series of parodies of Barcelona players and staff, from Valdés himself or Javier
Mascherano, to Manel Estiarte, portrayed in a swimming pool, wearing a tight water polo hat. Valdés
was the comedian in every role. It was beyond funny, it was hilarious.
What shocked Pep most was that this home-made comedy masterpiece had been created by one of

the captains, who had spent extra hours at the training ground after a demoralising defeat to give it
away as a gift to his team-mates. It was a treat that was repeated before the World Club
Championship Final in 2011.
The night before the most important game of the year the players went to bed crying with laughter.

Mourinho’s aggressive strategy worked in Barcelona’s favour; it boosted their competitiveness and
warmed them up for the forthcoming clashes. José had pushed Pep into unfamiliar and uncertain
territory – and he brought out the best and worst in the Catalan coach and the team. Pep had resisted
succumbing to Mourinho’s taunts throughout the season, but he finally broke – and revealed a more
human side than many wanted to believe existed. According to Víctor Valdés, he also showed he was

the leader that the team and the club needed.

27 April 2011 – Champions League Clásico. First leg. Santiago Bernabéu stadium. Real Madrid 0 Barcelona 2

Mourinho had been happy with his team set-up in the Copa del Rey final the week before, but this
time around he was looking for a result, even a goalless draw. During the match, with the teams
deadlocked at 0-0, something happened that left his plan in tatters: Pepe was sent off in the sixtieth
minute for a foul on Dani Alvés. Mourinho, angered, then got himself sent off and was forced to watch
the rest of the match from the stands. Following the dismissals, Madrid made no changes to the team,

they did nothing to try and salvage a result. Messi took advantage of the situation and scored two
goals in the last few minutes. It was after this defeat that Mourinho had one of his more memorable
outbursts: ‘Por qué? Por qué?’ (Why? Why?)
He accused Barcelona of having the referees on their side: ‘Why, in a balanced game, in which the
score is level, has the referee done this?’ He controversially went on to say that he would feel
‘ashamed’ to win the Champions League the way Guardiola had. ‘If I were to tell the referee and
UEFA what I think about what has just happened, my career would end right now,’ he complained. To

finish off his rant, and even more astonishingly, he wrote off his team’s chances of making a
comeback in the second leg. ‘Madrid has been eliminated from the Champions League final. We’ll go
out with pride, with respect for our world – the world of football, which sometimes makes me a bit
sick. It makes me sick to live in this world, but it is our world.’
The complaints continued. Barcelona reported Madrid to UEFA for Mourinho’s accusations and
Madrid responded by reporting Alvés and Pedro for faking injuries and alleging that Busquets called

Marcelo a ‘monkey’.
Mourinho was punished for the following five matches in the UEFA club competition, but the fifth
match was suspended for a probationary period of three years and the final penalty reduced to three
games on appeal. Pepe was suspended for one match. Meanwhile, FC Barcelona goalie José Pinto,
who received a red card at the end of the match, was suspended for three games.
In the post-match press conference, Guardiola went back to being his usual self – the cool, calm
and composed coach to whom we are accustomed. Unlike his rival, Pep refused to accept that the

second leg of the tie was a mere formality, used the press conference to remind the media not to get