Page 173 - Pep Guardiola: Another Way of Winning: The Biography

Yet the opposition weren’t Barcelona’s only problem, and sometimes they only had themselves to
blame, lacking a competitive instinct, forgetting the basic principles upon which their successes had
been founded or simply making stupid errors. Away draws to Real Sociedad, Espanyol, Villarreal
and the defeat against Osasuna all occurred for those reasons. In contrast, Real Madrid made no such

errors that season and were far more ruthless.
Guardiola recognised the symptoms: not competing well has nothing to do with playing well or
badly, it is about looking after the little details. Barcelona forgot that they needed to be Barcelona in
every minute of the match; yet, often, they weren’t effective enough when it was required, conceding
sloppy goals because of a lack of concentration, making the transition between attack and defence too
slowly, or simply starting games a little too relaxed and then reacting too late. Such attitudes and
errors, to name just a few, cost points and titles. Barcelona also failed to change their style even

when the conditions (pitch, weather) were against them. Is flexibility in terms of a team’s primary
style a sign of weakness or of strength? Isn’t adapting a virtue?
And then there was Messi.
Barcelona’s over-dependence on the Argentinian genius – especially in terms of scoring – became
a problem. The absence of an alternative plan to his brilliance handicapped the team. The injury to
Villa, Pedro’s loss of form due to constant muscular problems, a poor goalscoring contribution from

Cesc towards the end of the campaign; all forced Xavi to become a midfielder who had to get into the
box (he scored fifteen goals, a personal best). There was no recognised striker available – with the
confidence that twenty games per season gives someone to take a lead role. The team were short in a
striking position with no available youngsters in from the lower ranks who fitted the profile.
Pep identified the problem: the team was no longer as trustworthy on the really big occasions as
they once had been, not so long ago.
He had never promised titles but everybody had got used to them. He felt at peace, though, content

that he had fulfilled his obligations in giving everything to the team. ‘I do not believe the runners-up
are defeated. Manchester United were not a defeated club in Rome or at Wembley,’ he said in London
just before the semi-finals of the Champions League against Chelsea, the game that would define the
season. He wanted people to reassess the meaning of success: if clubs like Barcelona, Madrid,
United compete with a month to go, you have done what you were asked to do. The rest depends on
intangibles, on posts hit, on penalties missed, deflected shots: ‘Nobody can hold anything against us;

we have done what we had to do,’ he told the media at Stamford Bridge.
But Pep knew that the accumulation of success had a logical progression: the more you win, the
less you are desperate to win. At the highest levels in sport, a moment’s relaxation can expose you.
The side let their guard down after three years of unprecedented success and it cost them. That war of
attrition, that need to continue to fuel a competitive group under any circumstances was a lost cause
that took its toll on the manager, and was possibly the fight that burnt him out more than any other:
more than the exchanges with Mourinho, even. In contrast, while José was competing with Pep in

Spain, the Madrid coach did not need to spend a single moment trying to deal with that same
psychological problem: because his players grew hungrier for trophies the more they saw Barcelona
winning.
In the end the pendulum had swung the other way.

‘Two Picassos in the same period’ is how Arrigo Sacchi describes Mourinho and Guardiola. The
legendary Italian manager – a man who pushed football to another dimension in the eighties – feels