Page 176 - Pep Guardiola: Another Way of Winning: The Biography

Second Leg of the Champions League Semi-Finals. Camp Nou, 24 April 2012.
Barcelona 2 Chelsea 2

Football is a percentages game. By defending deep Chelsea had a small chance of going through that

increased slightly if they attacked every now and again with intelligence. But still the percentages, in
principle, were very unequal and in Barcelona’s favour: they were going to have the ball more often
and spend more time in Chelsea’s final third.
But that game had been played before. Against Mourinho. Against Inter in 2010. And in the first
leg.
It was, effectively, a replay.
Pep asked the team to play in wide positions, with double false strikers Messi and Cesc roaming

freely, and to move the ball from side to side until the gaps appeared. Barcelona were patient, and
when the spaces were created they were attacked by the home side like piranhas.
Twice Barcelona scored. In any other season, that would have been enough, especially after the
dismissal of Chelsea’s captain John Terry following a rash off-the-ball incident. Barça were battling
a formidable group of strong players, proud professionals who had a last chance of glory in Europe

and the task of destroying everything proposed by their opponents: a completely legitimate proposal.
Cahill got injured. Yet Drogba was immense, including his stint as a second full back, and Cech was
a giant in the Chelsea goal. But they couldn’t stop Barcelona creating chance after chance.
Pep’s team hit the post twice, had twenty-three shots on goal and six on target, Messi missed a
penalty. Any other season …
And Chelsea scored, again in injury time before the break. Similar lapses in concentration that had
cost Barcelona a defeat in the first leg were to hurt them again. Ramires lobbed the goalkeeper to
make it 2-1. Barcelona needed another goal with twenty minutes remaining, but it felt as if the

Catalans had run out of ideas, of belief. Possession was lost often, they lacked penetration, width.
The goal never came. And then, in injury time, Torres delivered the killer blow to Barcelona’s
dreams.
Chelsea had cashed in on their percentages.
Guardiola, his team, had run out of answers.

As Pep’s Barcelona progressed, celebrated their successes and grew in stature during the previous
four years, so did the personalities of the players. Or, better said, it became increasingly difficult to

harness their instincts for the team’s benefit: only natural after all. Xavi and Puyol had become the
elder statesman, World Champions and a massive presence in the game – and the acceptance of all of
it is always an issue that some deal with better than others. Gerard Piqué transformed himself into a
multinational star with a superstar girlfriend and while not necessarily a bad thing, it certainly meant
he was not the Piqué who had joined the club from Manchester United. It wasn’t easy for a big name
like Piqué to accept that Javier Mascherano had become the regular centre back while he was forced
to sit out some important games. As the team grew, Pep’s management decisions became more

complex. It is quite different giving orders to an emerging and promising young Messi as it is to a
double Ballon d’Or-winning megastar acknowledged as the best player of his generation.
At the end of that final season, one decision became crucial. A player can take being rested against
Racing de Santander or Levante, but it is a different proposition being on the bench against Real
Madrid – the match that serves as the barometer of every campaign. Any player seemingly ‘dropped’