Page 55 - Pep Guardiola: Another Way of Winning: The Biography

By the summer of 2007, even though always learning, Pep felt ready – he wanted to coach and he
knew how to do it and with which resources.
Txiki Beguiristain, then director of football at Barcelona, had other ideas, seeing Pep as the perfect
fit for a more logistical role than a hands-on coaching position, which is why he called Pep offering

him the job as director of youth football at Barcelona. Txiki saw Pep as a coordinator, an ideologist,
with a capacity for teaching and communicating the ‘Barça way’ to the youngsters coming through the
ranks. As director of the junior categories, Pep would be responsible for organising the youth set-up,
selecting the players and their coaches, overseeing training methods and playing a key role in
designing the new systems and the building where they would all be based, replacing the old Masía.
Beguiristain had wanted to leave the club that same summer, a year before his contract ended, but
when he learnt that Pep might consider coming back to Barcelona, he was prepared to continue for

another season, with Guardiola as his right-hand man and understudy, grooming him as his successor
in twelve months’ time.
Before Txiki could even think about proposing Guardiola’s return to Laporta and the board, Pep
needed to build a few bridges, starting with some repairs to the two former Dream Team players’
own relationship that had been practically non-existent for at least four years. Pep and Cruyff were
also distant for a while: the pair hadn’t quite seen eye to eye, back when Pep was still playing for the

club, over an incident that occurred just after the Dutchman had left the team. Cruyff’s successor in the
dugout, Van Gaal, had got rid of several home-grown players – Oscar and Roger García, Albert
Celades, Toni Velamazán, Rufete – and Cruyff couldn’t understand how Guardiola, the captain, let
that happen without saying anything. When he told Pep, ‘Come on, help out the guys from the youth
teams’, Pep said he wanted ‘nothing to do with this managerial stuff’, that he couldn’t intervene in the
decisions of the coach. Cruyff was not impressed.
But there was something else that divided the former Dream Team coach and captain. When Pep

accepted the proposal of Lluis Bassat to become his director of football should the 2003 election
campaign be successful, it came as something of a surprise to a group of former Dream Team players
– Txiki, Amor and Eusebio – who had made a pact, with Johan Cruyff’s blessing, that they would not
publicly back any candidate ahead of the vote and would offer their services to the eventual winner.
The former players were under the impression that Pep was part of the group and felt a degree of
betrayal upon discovering that he had opted to publicly support Bassat. Laporta (with the backing of

Cruyff behind the scenes) was victorious, leaving Pep somewhat isolated from the group and, as a
result, he didn’t talk to Txiki or Johan Cruyff, or even Laporta, for a few years afterwards.
But Pep had allies on the club’s board. On the day that his name was put forward, Evarist Murtra, a
vocal director and friend of Guardiola, had a dental appointment. This meant that he arrived late to
Txiki Beguiristain’s presentation in which he proposed certain changes to the management of the
youth set-up: Beguiristain had considered Pep for the role of manager of all the youth team coaches,
together with Alexanco; Luis Enrique would work for them as coach of Barça B. Laporta asked

Beguiristain to sum up his ideas for Murtra’s benefit. The director listened. He was aware that at the
time Guardiola had just got his coaching certificate and that what he really wanted to do was coach,
not direct; put on a tracksuit and give orders on the pitch, not in offices. So, when Beguiristain left the
meeting, Murtra followed him out, acting as if he was going to the bathroom. When the sporting
director was about to take the lift Murtra told him, ‘Txiki, before confirming the job with Luis
Enrique, do me a favour and give Pep a call first, just in case what he wants to do is coach.’

So, in the summer of 2007, a meeting between Txiki and Pep was arranged in the Princesa Sofía
Hotel near the Camp Nou in order to discuss Guardiola’s potential return to the club. Beguiristain