A close friend of Pep Guardiola is awaiting the Manchester City manager’s exit from tactical talks ahead of the match against Brentford. “How long did it take you to prepare the meeting?” asks the guest who has just arrived from Leeds after following Marcelo Bielsa’s trail. And the coach, who spent just 20 minutes with his players, answers “four days” to the satisfaction of Argentine mathematician and journalist Adrián Paenza.
Guardiola lives for football and lives for City in a city that is not particularly attractive to live in like Manchester. He can’t get enough of Manchester after finishing exhausted at Barça. He also limited his stay in Munich with Bayern to three years. However, he has not left Manchester City since his debut in 2016. Those who resign may be his assistants or even his close friend Txiki Begiristain, the best sporting director in City’s history, the most intelligent player on the team. Dream Team —word by Johan Cruyff— and protector and emotional thermometer of Guardiola. Begiristain now runs between Premià and San Sebastián.
Several have left in more than nine years, it is not very clear whether they are bored with Manchester, tired of Guardiola – or the wear and tear of being at his side – or so empowered that they wanted to fly alone and feel more comfortable in London (Mikel Arteta, Enzo Maresca) or even Mexico (Domènec Torrent). There are also free and wise people who come and go like Juanma Lillo, nothing like Lorenzo Buenaventura, whose kindness and knowledge of physical preparation always accompany Guardiola.
“The street doesn’t punish in Manchester”, summarizes Begiristain to explain the coach’s happiness and fanaticism towards the Premier. There are no crowds or games, there is no politics and the noise is concentrated in the stands of stadiums like the Etihad. The judgment depends on the game and the result, which is all the more reason to focus on the game and prepare for the game against Brentford with the same enthusiasm and dedication as for the visit to Liverpool. Guardiola is comfortable with Khaldoon Al Mubarak (the owner), Ferran Soriano (the general manager) and his inseparable Manel Estiarte.
He doesn’t feel scrutinized or watched, he walks and drives without the feeling that someone is following his steps and he knows that the press’ biggest concern is knowing why he thinks so much about preparing a training session, executing a press, marking a line-up or visualizing a game, until he gets so worked up that he loses it, like Porto’s final against Chelsea in the 2021 Champions League or the Munich semi-final against Madrid in 2014. Overthinking it is called in England; guarded It is classified in Barcelona and Madrid. Some media even reproach her for her excessive gestures, Catalan nationalism and “philosophical” interventions, a term coined by Zlatan Ibrahimovic. The character’s expressiveness is used precisely to diminish his importance as a coach, certainly the most influential in modern football after Johan Cruyff. Nobody metabolized it better. cruifism that City’s coach and his impact are of such caliber that many regional teams want to play like Guardiola’s team.
There is no method or recipe from Guardiola because his obsession is to dominate the game and the ball moves, teams change and continuity is further interrupted with VAR. The coach commits himself to a routine that gives him security: a thorough analysis of the rival, even if he has the same players and coach as last season, and the different game situations that his players will encounter so that they have solutions, as Leo Messi stated on the program Valdano Universe.
“Pep has something special about watching the games, preparing them and broadcasting them; everything he said in the preview happened,” said number 10. “It seemed so easy and simple that everyone wanted to copy it. I found many Guardiola Right there I realized what we did”, concluded Messi. The evolution of Guardiola’s football can be followed through Messi, Lahm, Kimmich, Stones, De Bruyne, Rodri, Haaland.
Change and innovation are permanent because he never refers to his work, he doesn’t limit himself to telling his players the four slogans of a famous ex-footballer or remembering jokes in meetings with his colleagues, but he acts with the enthusiasm of a newcomer to the game due to the novelty discovered by the newest coach or the contribution of the most surprising team, eager to contrast it on the field, just as when he debuted in Barça’s reserve team in the Third Division. To the adjectives of demanding, perfectionist and stubborn about the beauty and harmony of the game, he responds that he only wanted to be a coach since he started at Barça.
Few defined themselves better than Guardiola himself: “Dedication, passion and love; no one surpasses me in that”, he recalled in the wake of the match. “A genius who thinks, reasons, investigates, doesn’t stop”, adds Begiristain. “He works like a mule,” added his father, Valentín. “Just like mathematics, the pleasure of life for Guardiola is always having a problem on the board without a solution or to be solved”, summarizes Paenza. An exercise whose solution requires your own energy and talent and a context of peace, respect and concentration like the one that exists in Manchester.
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