Page 171 - Pep Guardiola: Another Way of Winning: The Biography

third game against Barcelona to work out how to beat them and adapt his team accordingly. During
the summer of 2011, the Real Madrid manager fine-tuned his squad and introduced new tactics that
would see them play a higher line than they had the previous season, moving his players closer to the
opposition area. He also spent that summer with an eye on the first official match, the season opener:

the Spanish Super Cup between the league and domestic cup winners. In other words, the first game
of the season against FC Barcelona. Pep, meanwhile, prepared with a focus on allowing his players
ample recovery time to put them in the best condition for the arduous season ahead.

14 and 17 August 2011 – the first Clásicos of the 2011–12 campaign. The Spanish Super Cup. Barcelona 5 Real
Madrid 4 (aggregate)

The first leg finished 2-2 at the Bernabéu. Three days later, Messi, who had hardly trained with the
team after his holidays, scored the winning goal just two minutes before the final whistle to secure a
3-2 victory for Guardiola’s side. But the match will be remembered for the toxic atmosphere in which
it finished after Marcelo was sent off for a dangerous tackle on Cesc Fàbregas, the sight of friends
like Xavi and Casillas rowing on the pitch and – worst of all – the sight of José Mourinho sticking his
finger in Tito Vilanova’s eye as players and officials from both sides argued on the touchline. The
unsavoury scenes led to players like Xavi and Piqué openly criticising their Spanish team-mates in

the Madrid squad for being sucked into Mourinho’s dark arts.
One Barcelona player, who has asked to remain anonymous, sums up the mood among the
Barcelona players: ‘Half the time, we know its only pantomime with him [Mourinho], and he’s only
doing it to wind people up, but it’s unbelievable the way he has the press wrapped around his little
finger – and even though poking an opposition coach in the eye is just about the most disgraceful thing
I’ve ever seen in a football match, look how quickly people seem to forget about it. And if you

remember, it somehow gets turned around so that we take the shit for it; the media saying, “he did it
because he was provoked!” It’s like fighting a losing battle all the time.’
Several months later, the two sides were to meet again, this time in the quarter-finals of the Copa
del Rey, not perhaps the most important competition the two sides would be battling for – but
Madrid’s performance at the Camp Nou, rather than the outcome, heralded a shift in dynamic between
the two sides.

18 and 26 January 2012 – Clásicos in the Copa del Rey. Quarter-finals. Barcelona 4 Real Madrid 3 (aggregate)

Following a 1-2 victory for Barcelona in the first leg at the Bernabéu, the return leg at the Camp Nou

was a tense affair, with some good football played by both sides, plus the usual controversy.
Barcelona looked very comfortable with a two-goal lead, but Madrid’s fightback to pull the scoreline
level and salvage a 2-2 draw had an effect upon the Barcelona public and players. With nothing to
lose, Real Madrid seemed to rediscover themselves and had the home side anxious, denting their
confidence. It finally proved that an ultra-defensive approach was not the way forward and sent a
message to the Madrid players who had, up until that night, been weighed down by an inferiority

complex. It was what, for a while, the Spanish players had asked the manager to do and Mourinho
accepted the switch in tactics. It was welcomed by attacking players, like Ronaldo, on Mourinho’s
side. And it provided a glimpse of what was to come.

Half-time at the Camp Nou. Barcelona are beating Real Madrid 2-0 in the quarter-finals of the Spanish Cup. In the home
dressing room, Guardiola is giving a tongue-lashing to his players.