Page 65 - Pep Guardiola: Another Way of Winning: The Biography

displaying all the signs of developing into an outstanding coach.
Txiki, confident the board would eventually back him, even told Rijkaard that Mourinho was not
going to be the chosen one, as the media had predicted; that he would be very surprised when he
found out who it was going to be.

By March 2008, the football department and key board members had made their minds up:
Rijkaard had to go – and the ideal replacement was right under their noses. Guardiola was their man.
Now they just had to convince Laporta, the president.
From January of that season, Joan Laporta accompanied Txiki and Johan Cruyff to a few Barcelona
B games. Pep sensed that all eyes were on him but he was not even sure himself if he was necessarily
the best solution for the first team. In fact, after witnessing Barcelona beat Celtic in a deserved 2-3
Champions League victory in Glasgow in February – where the Catalans displayed their class to end

Celtic’s formidable European home record – Pep wondered if that might prove the turning point for
Rijkaard’s team. He even told people close to the Barcelona board that he thought as much, that the
team was getting back to their best and that they ought to stick with the Dutch coach.
But, soon after, Deco and Messi got injured and the team started to decline once again. Then the
unthinkable happened, the nightmare scenario for every Barcelona fan and player: fate decreed that
the first game after Real Madrid mathematically became La Liga champions would be against their

bitter rivals. It meant that the Barça players would have to suffer the ultimate humiliation and form a
pasillo – a guard of honour – to welcome the Madrid players on to the pitch in front of an ecstatic
Bernabéu. In an act that was seen as an abandonment of their team-mates, Deco and Eto’o made
themselves ineligible for the Clásico by deliberately picking up two seemingly ridiculous yellow
cards in the previous game against Valencia, their fifth of the season that led to a one-game
suspension for each footballer.
The key players in the side, the Catalans and home-grown talents, had had enough: they wanted a

change, they wanted Guardiola, who was an icon for their generation. On several occasions, senior
footballers visited Joan Laporta to describe to the president the unsustainable situation in the dressing
room.
Their intervention in day-to-day life at the club helped prevent the dressing room from completely
tearing itself apart and, alongside Puyol and Xavi, players like Iniesta, Valdés and even Messi
stepped up to the plate and worked hard to restore some pride and order. It was a significant moment

in the career and development of Lionel Messi who started out in the first team being seen as
Ronaldinho’s protégé, but, as the Brazilian became increasingly wayward, Messi avoided the threat
of being dragged down the same path by seeking out more responsible mentors in the forms of Xavi
and Puyol. It was the right choice.
Guardiola could not help but witness the real depth of the disarray within the first team. He was
aware of the situation; he was being informed by senior players and some of the evidence started
leaking into the press. He finally also came to the conclusion that Barcelona needed a change the day

his youngsters played behind closed doors against the A team. Guardiola discovered Rijkaard
smoking a cigarette, something of a habit for the Dutch boss. Ronaldinho was taken off after ten
minutes, Deco was clearly tired and the reserve boys, still in the third division, were running the first
team ragged. A member of Rijkaard’s staff approached Guardiola and asked him to tell his players to
ease off a little. Pep had doubted if he was ready to manage the first team, but this told him one thing:
he could do a better job of it than was currently being done.

With Pep now finally on board the Guardiola bandwagon, there was still the president to convince.
Joan Laporta wasn’t just wrestling with his loyalty to Rijkaard and the star players who had