Guardiola will triumph with City … but Messi is fine where he is!
SAYS LEGENDARY BARCA PRESIDENT JOAN LAPORTA
‘Mourinho was never the right man for Barcelona’
WHEN Joan Laporta offered Pep Guardiola the Barcelona job in 2008, the coach replied: ‘You haven’t got the balls to do it.’
He did have the balls, overlooking Jose Mourinho to appoint the former captain who had one year of managerial experience with Barcelona B. The show of faith saw the club win 14 trophies.
Manchester City hit no such Guardiola jackpot last season. ‘It will come,’ Laporta tells Sports
mail from his law firm’s office on the swanky Avenida Diagonal in the heart of Barcelona.
‘Pep will triumph with City. And when he does it will have even more merit, because he will have done it without Leo Messi.’
A former Barcelona president, but with ambitions of returning to the position, Laporta looks just as bronzed, barrel- chested and ballsy as ever in his skull and crossbones braces. He has always had plenty of attitude but he can be gracious too, never once attending to his phone on the desk in front of him that does not stop lighting up with messages throughout the conversation.
He is still a big friend of Guardiola. There is genuine affection when he says: ‘I would have liked for him to stay at Barcelona for his entire career but I am enjoying watching him in the Premier League.
‘We got it right beyond all expectations when we appointed him. We knew he would win things, but he won everything.’
Does he ever reflect on what would have happened if he had appointed Mourinho instead? ‘Not even for a second. Mourinho is a great professional but Guardiola was much better suited to our club. There are other ways of seeing football but we have our own way. We are sons of the Dream Team.’
That Dream Team, coached by Johan Cruyff, has just celebrated 25 years since it won the club’s first European Cup, with Pep on the pitch and Laporta in the stands as a fan.
Will Guardiola be able to impose the ‘Barca way’ on City and on the Premier League?
Laporta believes he will, allowing for a little customisation of the blueprint. ‘Pep looked great to me when I saw him last week. He was very animated and excited about the future,’ he says of their meeting at a golf tournament to raise money for the Cruyff Foundation.
‘Next season they are going to incorporate players who suit the system more and it doesn’t have to be exactly the same system as the one he put into practice at Barca. He is an intelligent man, he will adapt it. And he has an emotional intelligence too. He knows how to take the dressing room with him.
‘He told me that he is very comfortable in Manchester. The first season was a success as they qualified for the Champions League. Now the way they plan to go about strengthening, they are going to be very strong and people will be very excited by it. His track record is his guarantee.
‘I am convinced he will succeed if they keep faith. And that is where he is very lucky to be with Txiki Begiristain and Ferran Soriano, who know him so well.’
There is no chance of City chief executive Soriano and director of football Begiristain, both former Barca men, losing faith. But that does not mean owner Sheik Mansour will not get rid of all three of them at the end of next season if there is no progress.
Laporta earned a reputation as Barca president for sticking by his coaches. He backed Frank Rijkaard and Guardiola in the difficult times — although in Guardiola’s case the difficult times lasted two matches, a debut defeat away to minnows Numancia and then a home draw.
Laporta whispers a Spanish curse word under his breath at the memory of that opening day 1-0 loss. ‘After the Numancia game they called us a bunch of teenagers for having appointed Guardiola. But Pep and myself bonded a lot that day. Once you take a decision you have to trust it.’
There were plenty of factors present at Barcelona that are not at City that make Guardiola’s task harder — the absence of Messi being the main one.
‘I’m very Cruyffista’, Laporta says. ‘Until I was 11 years old when Cruyff arrived as a player in 1973, we had won nothing in my lifetime. So imagine when he turns up and we become champions.
‘Cruyff was the best player in the world in his era. But what Leo does — and me and Johan spoke about this many times — makes him the best player ever.’
Having been Cruyff’s biggest fan, Laporta became his lawyer and then made him honorary club president. ‘It’s strange because it feels like he is still here, but I miss not being able to reach out and touch him,’ he says.
And yes, Cruyff did agree Messi is the all-time best. ‘The football is beautiful with Messi but he also
has this incredible winning mentality,’ says Laporta. ‘For me it’s about those three: Cruyff, Maradona and Messi. Sometimes I look at Leo and he’s a mix of the other two.’
Laporta’s excellent relationship with Messi’s dad Jorge seemed to make contract renewals easy. Now the 29-year-old Argentine has been allowed to go into his final year without signing a new deal.
Laporta recalls: ‘ In 2006 Inter made an offer to pay the buy-out clause, which was €150million.
‘We said to his dad: “Look, they are going to pay you a lot of money but there you will just win financially. Here he will get the glory. Your son is destined to be the greatest ever. Here, he will have a team around him that will allow him to do that.” I don’t think it will ever make sense to sell Leo.’
Would Messi have triumphed elsewhere, even in England on the proverbial cold, wet night? ‘Even covered in mud in the pouring rain he would have done it. He has done it in all conditions.’
All the talk of Pep and Messi is making Laporta edgy. ‘Let’s not give Pep ideas,’ he laughs. ‘Leo is just right where he is at Barca and Pep will triumph with City.’
How Guardiola would love to have Messi back. You can imagine he would not mind having his old president fighting his corner again too, although those who know them both suggest their intensity made things combustible at times.
Laporta denies there were any serious fall- outs. ‘We were very united,’ he says. ‘And it would have been crazy to be fighting when we were winning trophies.’
Guardiola left Barcelona the season after Laporta. ‘Pep was having to be president as well as coach,’ Laporta says referring to Sandro Rosell, who replaced him as president and is now in prison accused of belonging to a criminal organization, receiving illegal commission fees and money laundering.
Laporta picks out Guardiola’s team thrashing Real Madrid at the Bernabeu in 2009 as one of his best memories. ‘It’s a wonderful feeling inside but one that you contain out of respect,’ he says of the team trouncing their rivals as he sat in the directors’ box.
‘The whole state was there with the regional president dressed all in white and we win 6-2 and Carles Puyol kisses the Catalan flag on the captain’s armband, imagine it!’
He has also not forgotten that when he was taken to court by his presidential successor for having left the club in debt — something he has since been cleared of — Guardiola spoke up. ‘He had the courage that you don’t always get in football to publicly support us.’
Laporta says if the current board had any shame they would resign over the tax evasion investigation that followed Neymar’s transfer. And if they did he would stand as president again.
He includes Ronald Koeman in a list of future managerial candidates, praising the job he has done at Everton. He says Mauricio Pochettino has done a fantastic job at Tottenham, but could he manage Barca with his links to city rivals Espanyol? ‘Well we could at least say he has come out of the city of Barcelona,’ he says mischievously.
If the current board see out their mandate to 2021 then it might be too late for 54-year-old Laporta to stand. ‘There is always renewal,’ he says. ‘The future of Barca could one day be Pep as president and Xavi as coach. Why not? A club needs a soul. The shirt needs to have weight to it.’
He remains passionate about the importance of homegrown players. ‘You form players in La Masia or in the Etihad Campus and if they reach the first team then they have something more than just talent. They have the soul of the club too.’
Before Guardiola can return to Barcelona in any presidential capacity he has to win something big with City and prove that away from his boyhood club — and without Messi — great things are still possible.
‘If they give him the backing I am convinced he’ll do it because he is a winner and he is brave,’ says Laporta. ‘The Premier League is very difficult, but he won’t shy away from the challenge.’