Page 52 - Pep Guardiola: Another Way of Winning: The Biography

Sevilla, the coach had, to the astonishment of many, invited a Dutch pop group to join him at his table
for dinner the evening before the game. After the meal, instead of enforcing a curfew, Rijkaard
allowed the players the freedom to go to bed at a time of their choosing, inevitably resulting in a late
night for the usual wayward suspects. The following day, on the morning of the match, Ronaldinho

was authorised to leave the hotel to attend a photo-shoot with one of his sponsors, while the rest of
the squad were left to their own devices, effectively given the morning off to wander the designer
boutiques of Monaco. It was in stark contrast to Sevilla, their Super Cup opponents, who, under the
direction of Juande Ramos, spent the day preparing for the game according to the Spaniard’s usual
discipline and order. The end result of the respective teams’ preparations was self-evident and
reflected in the scoreline at the end of the match: a 3-0 victory for Sevilla. That defeat served as the
first warning sign of the many that were to surface throughout the following season.

In that summer of 2006 the dynamic had shifted in the Barcelona dressing room, triggered by the
departure of assistant manager Henk Ten Cate, who left for the job of first-team coach at Ajax. With a
reputation as Rijkaard’s sergeant major, Ten Cate’s absence served as the catalyst for a complete
breakdown in discipline within the Barcelona dressing room. The Dutchman had always kept
Ronaldinho on a tight leash and every time the Brazilian star put on a few pounds – something that
happened all too often – the outspoken Ten Cate would not mince his words, letting him know exactly

what he thought of his expanding waistline, putting him in his place in front of the rest of the squad
and yelling that he was showing a ‘lack of respect towards his colleagues’. Ten Cate had maintained
a love-hate relationship with Samuel Eto’o, but the Cameroonian remained determined to win his
respect and prove his worth. Rijkaard and Ten Cate made the perfect double act; the ultimate good
cop/bad cop routine, but without Henk banging his fist on the table, Rijkaard’s nice guy routine led to
chaos.
Johan Neeskens followed Henk as Rijkaard’s new assistant, but didn’t have it in him to play the

tough guy and, consequently, it was difficult to control the process that was causing the team spirit to
disintegrate. In fact, nobody suffered more as a consequence of Ronaldinho’s subsequent drop in
standards than Ronaldinho himself. Here was a player who in the space of nine months went from
being applauded off the Bernabéu pitch by Real Madrid fans in appreciation of his unforgettable
performance in a Barcelona 0-3 victory on their rival’s turf, to a figure of ridicule for the press who
grew more accustomed to seeing him ‘perform’ in his own personal corner of a nightclub in

Castelldefels than on the Camp Nou pitch. It was his waistline, rather than wonderful football, that
caught the eye these days. Meanwhile, Eto’o suffered a knee injury and, in a decision that was to have
serious consequences, was allowed to recuperate away from the club, distancing himself from the
day-to-day life of the team.
Rijkaard was aware of the stars’ behaviour, but indulged them, ever the optimist that the players
were mature and responsible enough to know when to draw the line. It was a mistake. And, by the
middle of the 2006–7 season that started poorly in Monaco, it was a trend far too late to reverse as

Barcelona’s results and their performances reflected the breakdown in discipline. The December
defeat in the World Club Cup to International de Porto Alegre (featuring a magnificent seventeen-
year-old Alexander Pato) was symptomatic of the declining standards among players and staff –
Rijkaard had not even shown a video of the opposition to the players when preparing for the match.
After Christmas, the South American players (Rafa Márquez, Deco, Ronaldinho) were given a few
extra days off but, even so, the three of them arrived late for training. There were no sanctions.

The director of football Txiki Beguiristain faced a conundrum: halfway through that season, going
into the Christmas break, Barcelona were second in the table, just two points behind Sevilla and three