Noel and Neuer give us a clue, but why couldn’t Beeb get to Pep?

Pep Guardiola: Chasing Perfection

Tonight: BBC1, 10.40pm

YOU don’t have to be an admirer of Manchester City (though it might help) to believe that when Pep Guardiola’s trophy-bagging teams are playing at their best, the world really does seem to be a better place. Football from another world: dazzlingly fast, innovative, spectacularly skilful, mesmerisingly intricate. Now, with this new film Pep Guardiola:

Chasing Perfection, the Beeb have tried to find out why. What makes Pep the most successful, the most admired and the most fascinating figure in world football? The other big question is why this wasn’t a four-part series rather than just a one-off, which feels mean. The trouble is we have been spoiled by recent sports documentaries on the streamers. I know women who have never looked at a snooker table in their lives who are now fascinated by every move Ronnie O’Sullivan makes thanks to breathtakingly revealing doc The Edge of Everything on Amazon; No one who saw the Amazon series The Test, about the Aussie cricket team’s recovery after the sandpaper scandal, can forget coach Justin Langer kicking over a rubbish bin in fury before quietly bending down, picking up all the rubbish and putting it back in the bin. You won’t find much of that in this film. Or any new access to Pep at all. He might be chasing perfection: the programme, not so much. What you have is a host of pretty good talking heads taking us through Guardiola’s career. Pep’s right-hand man Txiki Begiristain holds the show together and talks revealingly about his friend’s guiding principles: loyalty and teamwork, and on the field the need for possession and high-speed passing, moving the ball out from the back and pressing to win it back immediately when it’s lost. It is Pep’s insight to play the genius Lionel Messi in midfield, as a false No 9, that turns Barcelona into the side who brought joy to anyone who loves football. The relationship with Johan Cruyff, the Dutch master who ran Barca before Pep and was his guiding inspiration — and clearly still is — gets due recognition, though it leaves you wanting more. One fascinating insight from Pep’s early days as B-team coach at Barca is how much he took from the handball team: speed, possession, perfect passing. Who knew? It’s good to see Carles Puyol, Pep’s awesome defender at Barcelona, still looking terrifying even when just handling some mineral water. He spills the beans on Guardiola’s gripping rivalry with Jose Mourinho, the manager at Real Madrid who had been rejected by Barca — not at all the right stuff for the Nou Camp. One of the best features of the film is how it explores the rivalry between Guardiola and Mourinho, the light and the dark. Noel Gallagher, the long-time fan without whom no City item on TV is complete, is on hand to rave about Pep ‘changing football’, adding: ‘That makes him special. His legacy is played out on every pitch in the country on Sunday mornings.’ It is the players who give the show its lift. Here’s Manuel Neuer, the Bayern goalkeeper, handsome and Teutonic, talking about the challenges Pep faced at Munich, a place which makes an average snakepit look like a holiday home. And here’s Ilkay Gundogan, Pep’s one-time skipper at City, chatting about elite sport in perfect English with the effortless elegance of a professor of philosophy at Heidelberg University. Or listen to Rodri, the Spain midfielder bafflingly left out of the City team who lost 1-0 to Chelsea in the 2021 Champions League final. ‘No, he didn’t explain,’ says a visibly upset Rodri. ‘But to have success you first have to fail.’ Good point. Pep’s players are so easy with any aspect of the modern world, so talented and decisive, so highly intelligent, you feel they should be running a country as well. If they could take the pay cut. Which they probably couldn’t. But whatever the shortcomings, you still have the football — admittedly in short spurts as if once a show is on a main terrestrial channel, you can’t have too much actual sport in a sports programme. But this really is the beautiful game. And any chance to see it in action is better than nothing. David Bowie’s on the soundtrack as well, so it can’t be too bad.