Page 64 - Pep Guardiola: Another Way of Winning: The Biography

already begun interviewing the Portuguese manager. Mourinho presented the Barcelona directors with
a memory stick, containing a summary of his football philosophy and a strategy for Barça.
It revealed how he planned to evolve their classic 4-3-3 using a different midfield – similar to the
one he left at Chelsea with players like Essien, Makelele and Lampard. It also included a list of

potential recruits and the names of those who would be first out of the door at the Camp Nou. He had
even drawn up a short list of names he proposed as ideal candidates for the role of his number two at
the Camp Nou: Luis Enrique, Sergi Barjuan, Albert Ferrer or even Pep Guardiola. It became very
clear that Mourinho had been very well briefed about every aspect of Barcelona’s current malaise,
unsurprising once it transpired that his assistant, André Villas-Boas, had become a regular visitor to
the Camp Nou and had been compiling detailed reports for him.
Mourinho told the Barcelona envoys that, while he wasn’t always comfortable with the ill feeling

generated between the Catalan club and Chelsea throughout their recent clashes in the Champions
League, he explained that elements of his behaviour in front of the media were a necessary evil: a
vital cog in the psychological machinery that he used to win football matches. Mourinho explained
how, for him, a game starts and frequently finishes at a press conference.
It was the first time that Ingla and Beguiristain had ever sat face to face with José Mourinho and the
pair were impressed by his charisma and his clear football methodology. They returned to Barcelona

feeling positive in spite of Mourinho’s financial stipulations: he wanted a two-year contract at €9
million per season and €1 million for each of his assistants.
There was one ‘but’ – the issue of José’s behaviour in front of the media. The two Barcelona
representatives were left with a sense of unease about Mourinho’s admission that he would continue
to fight his battles in a psychological war on and off the pitch. They were torn: they liked Mourinho
face to face, but found his double identity unsettling – struggling to come to terms with how he could
be utterly charming in private, but happy to cultivate such a ‘disrespectful’ public image if he felt that

was called for when fighting battles for ‘his’ team. His previous wrongful accusations against Frank
Rijkaard – that the Barcelona coach had visited referee Anders Frisk’s dressing room during half-
time at the Nou Camp, in the first leg of the Champions League knockout stages that Chelsea went on
to lose 2-1 – were still fresh in the memory.
Yet, despite the good vibes at the meeting with Mourinho, Beguiristain had come to the conclusion
that Guardiola was the right man for the job and he gradually managed to persuade his colleagues,

including Marc Ingla, that Pep’s inexperience should not be an obstacle. Some people didn’t need
convincing: Johan Cruyff had never wanted Mourinho at the club and Pep’s old friend and board
member, Evarist Murtra, was already on board.
The nail in the coffin for Mourinho was when word of the meeting was leaked by his inner circle,
providing Barcelona with the perfect excuse to rule him out. Nevertheless, it had never been a
straightforward decision, as Ingla admits now: ‘We weren’t entirely conclusive with Mou when it
came to ruling him out as Barça coach.’ The Portuguese manager, after waiting for a proposal from

Barcelona that never came, signed a deal with Inter Milan that summer.
Txiki, allied with José Ramón Alexanko, Barcelona’s academy director, informed the other
directors that his first choice was Guardiola. ‘I explained to the board why I wanted Guardiola,
rather than why I didn’t want another coach,’ Beguiristain recalls. He told the board that he was
aware of the risks when it came to Pep’s managerial experience, but that, as a successful former
Barcelona player and captain, Guardiola understood the club and the players better than anyone else;

that he had a grasp of how to work with key sections of the media; he understood the Catalan
mentality and could deal with the internal and public disputes. And if that wasn’t enough, he was