Page 39 - Pep Guardiola: Another Way of Winning: The Biography

why he’d lost the ball. Sometimes his obsessiveness was excessive.’
That same year, his talent for making the right pass, for setting the rhythm of a game, touching the
ball a thousand times a match and never for more than a second each time, his belief in the style of
play Cruyff had imposed, did not go unnoticed internationally and he was awarded the Trofeo Bravo

for the most promising European footballer in 1992.
His rise had been meteoric: he had become recognised as a world-class player in the two years
since making his debut. Even more league trophies immediately followed, one after another, but then
came the first big slip-up, one that would teach him something more than any victory. It was 18 May
1994: the all-powerful Dream Team was the bookmakers’ favourite in the European Cup final against
Fabio Capello’s Milan in Athens. The 4-0 defeat served up a slice of humble pie for Barcelona, a
lesson in the dangers of becoming overconfident, complacent even, and made all the more bitter

because the reason for the defeat was neither defensive nor tactical – it was mental, it was down to a
lack of preparation: ‘All of us thought that we were playing against a gang. We went out there
convinced that we were the better team and they put four past us. Their superiority was so great that I
just wanted the game to be over,’ Pep wrote years later.
After the golden era of 1990–94, Cruyff found it increasingly difficult to find new solutions and
motivational tools to counter the team’s problems, leading to the Dutchman making some strange

decisions during his last two seasons at the club. One in particular revealed Pep’s sensitivity. When
the goalkeeper Zubizarreta, a captain, a leader, a man whom Guardiola considered a brother, was
told by Cruyff he had to leave the club, Pep was devastated. He held it together until the night the
squad gathered in a restaurant to pay tribute to the man they knew fondly as ‘Zubi’. Pep disappeared
and was found, tucked away in a corner, in tears. Only Zubi was able to console him.
By 1994, Guardiola was established as the figure who orchestrated Barça’s play. ‘My role was to
move the ball around the pitch for my team-mates to finish off the move,’ he says. The departure of

Zubizarreta had made Guardiola the new leader, in charge of carrying out Cruyff’s instructions on and
off the pitch.
Even if sometimes, albeit rarely, he forgot what his role involved. He understood football as a
team sport, but his genuine appreciation of the game made him an unconditional admirer of the best.
His adoration was particularly reserved for the magical players capable of transforming a game into a
spectacle. When Romário joined the club, Cruyff wanted the Brazilian to accompany him and Pep, the

captain, for dinner. The coach was stunned by the admiration, the reverence even, that Pep showed
towards the newcomer. In fact, such was his fawning adoration of the new star that when Romário
disappeared to the bathroom, Cruyff had to remind Pep to stop acting like a star-struck fifteen-year-
old.
Unfortunately, the quality of the squad had deteriorated since that fateful night in Athens. With
eleven trophies, Cruyff was Barcelona’s most successful manager (Pep would surpass him) and he
still is the club’s longest serving; however, in his final two years until his departure in 1996, he failed

to deliver any silverware and underwent a very public and acrimonious falling-out with club
president, Josep Lluís Núñez.
In his final season in charge (1995–6), Cruyff signed Luís Figo from Sporting Lisbon but results on
the pitch did not improve substantially enough. The end was on the cards as soon as it became
mathematically impossible for Barça to win the league: something that happened with two games
remaining, just after they had been knocked out of the UEFA Cup by Bayern Munich in the semi-finals

and beaten by Atlético de Madrid in the Copa del Rey final. Cruyff’s relationship with President
Núñez had become untenable and it all came to a head on 18 May, just before the final training