Page 31 - Pep Guardiola: Another Way of Winning: The Biography

academy sides, which provided him with some valuable lessons regarding his own and his team’s
limitations: he was the best player in that Gimnàstic side but he sensed there were many more kids
like him, or even better, wearing the blue and red shirt of FC Barcelona.
It was around this time, and without his eleven-year-old-son knowing it, that Valentí filled in a

form published in a sports paper offering kids the opportunity to take part in trials organised by
Barça.
‘Barcelona want to see you,’ his dad told him few days later, to his son’s amazement. Of course, he
went to the trial: nervous, still very lightweight. He played badly. And he knew it. A sleepless night
followed. He was asked to return for a second day but he was no better. At the trial, Pep was played
in an attacking wide position and he lacked the pace and strength to excel. He was given one more
chance, invited back for a third day. The coach moved him into central midfield where, suddenly, Pep

was a magnet for the ball, directing the forward play and dictating tempo. He’d done enough.
Barcelona decided they wanted him to join them.
His dad kept that information to himself until he was sure it was in his son’s best interests. Valentí,
and Pep’s mum, Dolors, were worried that those daunting and stressful trips to Barcelona were
unnerving their son, who returned home quieter than usual, apprehensive and unable to eat properly.
After discussing it with his wife, Valentí decided to reject Barcelona’s offer. They believed that Pep

was too young to move to La Masía, too naïve to live on his own away from his family, not yet strong
enough to compete or to cope.
In the years following that trial with Barcelona, football remained a key part of the Guardiola
family routine with constant trips to Manresa and throughout the region for league games and
friendlies with Pep promoted to captain of the Gimnàstic side. The dream of Barça, it seemed, had
been forgotten.
A couple of years later, FC Barcelona made another phone call to the Guardiola household. Valentí

picked up the receiver and listened to their offer.
‘We have to talk,’ he told his son after a training session with Gimnàstic. The family gathered
around the dinner table, Valentí, Dolors and their thirteen-year-old son, Pep. Dad tried to explain, as
best he could to a young teenage boy, that there was life beyond the village and the Catholic school;
he tried to prepare him for what he should expect if he left home; that his studies were a priority; that
a move to Barcelona would expose Pep to an entirely new level of obligations, responsibility and

expectation. Up until that moment in Pep’s life, football had been little more than a game, but, as
Valentí told his son, he now had the opportunity to transform his life and make a living out of the sport
he loved at the club he adored.
Pep took his father’s words on board and understood what was at stake: he had already made up
his mind that if Barcelona didn’t come back for him, he would abandon his dream of becoming a
professional footballer because he couldn’t take any further rejection. But Barça had called. The
decision was made. Pep Guardiola was going to leave home and all that was familiar behind him: he

was going to move to the big city, he was going to give his all to become a professional footballer, he
was going to pursue his dream of playing for FC Barcelona.

A kid jumping on a bunk bed in La Masía, Barcelona. An early August evening, late
1980s

Soon after receiving the call, Pep, together with his parents and brother Pere, visited Barcelona’s