Page 51 - Pep Guardiola: Another Way of Winning: The Biography

charca declaring eternal admiration for each other.
Pep and Bielsa have much in common: they love teams that dominate, that want to be protagonists
on the pitch, to seek out the opposition goal as the main priority. And they can’t stand those who
resort to excuses when they lose: even though losing is, for both of them, a debilitating sensation that

depresses and isolates them because they cannot bear the shame that comes with defeat – they feel
they have let the whole group down when they don’t come out with the points. Bielsa’s teams ‘can
play badly or well, but talent depends on the inspiration and the effort depends on each one of the
players: the attitude for them is non-negotiable’, Marcelo, ‘el loco’, told him, adding that his sides
cannot win if he cannot transmit what he feels. Pep agreed, taking notes all the time.
It is no mere coincidence that Pep used many of Bielsa’s ideas, methods, expressions,
philosophical nuggets in two key moments of his own career as a coach: in his presentation as a

Barcelona first-team manager in front of the press and also in the speech he gave on the Camp Nou
pitch in his last home game as manager. ‘Do you think I was born knowing everything?’ he answered
when someone pointed out those coincidences.
Before leaving the villa, Bielsa posed Pep a challenging question: ‘Why do you, as someone who
knows about all the negative things that go on in the world of football, including the high level of
dishonesty of some people, still want to return and get involved in coaching? Do you like blood that

much?’ Pep didn’t think twice – ‘I need that blood,’ he said.
At the end of his spell in Argentina he felt that he was better prepared than ever before; not totally,
because Pep will never allow himself to be completely satisfied, but he felt ready enough to start
putting everything he had learnt to the test.
Upon his return to Spain, Pep was linked with a position at another Catalan club, Nàstic de
Tarragona, then struggling in the first division, where he would have been Luis Enrique’s assistant.
The names of both Pep and Luis Enrique were discussed by the Nàstic board but both were ultimately

considered too inexperienced, with neither having managed at any level before, and a concrete offer
never arrived.
Instead, another opportunity arose: FC Barcelona wanted to talk to Pep about bringing him back in
some capacity to the club he had left seven years earlier.

Monaco. UEFA Club Football Awards. August 2006

While Pep Guardiola was trying to discover himself, learn new tools for his managerial career, his
beloved Barça had become the fashionable club of the era. The 2006–7 season kicked off with a

show of appreciation for Frank Rijkaard’s side, which in a couple of seasons had won two league
titles and a European Cup in Paris against the Arsenal of Arsène Wenger, Thierry Henry, Robert
Pires and Cesc Fàbregas. Many felt in fact that that team was on the brink of becoming the greatest in
the club’s history. At the UEFA Club Football Awards ceremony, on the eve of the European Super
Cup, Barcelona captain Carles Puyol won the award for best defender, Deco the award for best
midfielder, Samuel Eto’o the award for the best forward and Ronaldinho was recognised as the best
player of the competition.

Yet that coronation of the team’s achievements paradoxically heralded the beginning of the end for
Rijkaard’s Barcelona, as the first signs of indiscipline became apparent.
The Monaco trip had been a case in point.
Back at the hotel where Barcelona were based before the European Super Cup final against