Page 77 - Pep Guardiola: Another Way of Winning: The Biography

Pep continued the methodologies and practices introduced at St Andrews when the team returned to
their base in Barcelona, where he went even further in overhauling the daily habits of the players and
the club. The new training complex was shaped very much according to Pep’s instructions, to such an
extent that today it epitomises Barça’s philosophy. Guardiola changed things so that the players felt

like employees of a football club and not Hollywood stars, in the knowledge that success was
achieved through hard work, not just having fun. A dining room was designed to encourage all the
players to sit down at meal times together, something commonplace in Italy but previously unknown
in the first team at FC Barcelona.
Whereas previous training sessions that used to take place on a training pitch next door to the Nou
Camp had a fairly high-profile feel about them because of their location, the Joan Gamper Training
Ground, to which the first team had moved in January 2009, was strictly off limits to press and public

on a daily basis. It was such a revolutionary step that the media christened it ‘La Ciudad Prohibida’ –
‘The Forbidden City’.
During their eleven-hour chats in Rosario, Argentina, Marcelo Bielsa told Pep all about his
thoughts on the media – as well as everything else – and insisted that it was wrong to give priority
access to a big television company over a small newspaper. Pep followed suit and introduced a new
rule at Barcelona whereby he refused to give one-to-one interviews so as to avoid favouritism and

getting drawn into media politics. From day one, Pep decided that he would speak to the press, but
only at press conferences. He stopped taking calls from local journalists and avoided meeting them in
private.
He also bucked the Spanish tradition of getting the team together in a hotel the day before a match.
As Guardiola explained at the time, ‘People don’t spend the day before they go to work locked up in
a hotel. We just try to make things the same for them. If they don’t rest, they’re not looking after
themselves and that means they’ll play worse and lose their jobs. I judge my players on the work they

do, not on their private lives. I’m not a policeman. I’m in bed at ten o’clock and I’ve got no urge to go
and check up on my players. That’s why I’d rather have them at home and not cooped up in a hotel
with nothing to do. We’re just trying to use common sense.’
Pep’s line of thinking was clearly the experience of a former top player at one of the world’s
biggest clubs, now capable of empathising with the modern star as a manager, or so Xavi thinks: ‘For
me, two of the most important novelties were the move to the training ground and getting rid of the

hotel meetings. Working at the training ground gave us a lot of peace of mind and allowed us greater
co-existence. It helped too that he made us eat together after training sessions. What is more, that way
we watch our diet. I recognise that, at the start, it was a bit of a pain for me because I couldn’t make
plans, but you get used to it straight away and you realise that it is of benefit to you. With the meetings
it was the same. I wasn’t used to being at home a couple of hours before the match and at first it was
very strange for me. I felt like I wasn’t well prepared. It felt like I was too switched off. I even
thought that fate would punish me with a bad game for not giving 100 per cent of my time to it

beforehand. But I soon realised that, with these new rules, I would also benefit. Thinking too much
can put too much pressure on you; this turns into nerves and I have learnt to analyse what is really
important. Minimising the meetings reduces our stress levels all year round.’
‘I can’t promise titles but I am convinced that the fans will be proud of us,’ he said on 17 June
2008 in the press conference at which he was presented as the new manager of FC Barcelona. ‘I give
you my word that we will put in an effort. I don’t know if we’ll win, but we’ll persist. Fasten your

seat belts, you are going to enjoy the ride,’ he said on 16 August 2008 at his presentation at the Camp
Nou in front of a stadium full of fans.