Page 59 - Pep Guardiola: Another Way of Winning: The Biography

methodologies acquired after a career working with a variety of different managers. He paid
particular attention to detail: from control of the players’ diets, rest and recuperation time; to scouting
opponents by recording their matches and using his assistants and staff to compile detailed match
reports ... in the third division!! On occasion, if Guardiola felt that he didn’t have enough information

on a particular opponent, he would go to their matches himself.
He became as demanding of himself as he was with his players and staff but, in everything he did,
he always made it a priority to explain why he was asking them to do something. He was always the
first to arrive and the last to leave, working mornings and afternoons at the training ground. Every
aspect of running the team had to be under his control: he demanded daily reports and updates from
all his staff. Nothing was left to chance.
And, if necessary, albeit rarely, he would remind those around him exactly who was boss.

Midday on 6 December 2007. Barça B were playing at Masnou’s ground and leading 2-0 going
into the second half; however, Barcelona threw away their lead and allowed the opposition to
salvage a point: ‘The telling-off was tremendous,’ one of the players recalls. Normally, Guardiola
gives himself time to analyse the game and talks it through with the players the following day, but that
afternoon he made an exception. ‘He closed the dressing-room door and told us that many of us didn’t
deserve to wear the shirt – that these team’s colours represented many people and feelings and we

hadn’t done them justice. We were terrified,’ the player insists.
The most severe reprimand the team received was for one particular indiscretion. In October 2007,
the daily newspaper Sport revealed what Guardiola had said to the players in a dressing-room team
talk. According to the paper, Guardiola referred to the kids competing in Operación Triunfo – the
Spanish equivalent of The X Factor – as an example for the players: ‘He told us that the kids are
given an incredible opportunity and that they do everything they can, giving their all to make the most
of what may be a one-off opportunity – and that we had to do the same,’ explained one of the players.

‘And later, when he saw his words repeated in print, he went mad and said that divulging dressing-
room tales to the press was betraying team-mates.’
On another occasion, Guardiola dropped Marc Valiente, one of the team captains, making him
watch the game from the stands, simply for leaving the gym five minutes earlier than he was meant to.
According to Luis Martín, Guardiola justified his decision by saying simply: ‘No weights, no games.’
Sporadically, his players would join Rijkaard’s team for call-ups or training sessions. However,

their elevated status did not prevent Guardiola from making an example of them. Just three games into
the season he hauled off former Glasgow Celtic player Marc Crosas in the forty-sixth minute of a
match. According to one of the players, ‘Crosas got a right telling-off at half-time for not running. As
soon as he lost the ball in the second half he was taken straight off.’ Perhaps Guardiola was aware of
the effect that this would have upon the junior players in the B team, as one of them explains: ‘We
saw him doing that to a first-teamer and thought “what would he do to us?”.’ The senior players,
meanwhile, understood perfectly well, and as one recognised: ‘He always used us as an example, but

he was always fair with us and everyone else.’
Pep was finding solutions to the team’s problems, relying on instinct and experience to motivate,
inspire and get the best out of the youngsters. When the team qualified for the promotion play-offs, he
told them: ‘We’ve made it this far together, now it’s time for YOU to win promotion.’ But one of his
motivational methods proved quite expensive. ‘He told us that every time we won three games in a
row, he would take us all for lunch. He took us out three times, he’s spent a fortune!’ one player

recalls.
But club lunches weren’t his only expense: Guardiola also had fines to pay for having been shown