DECEMBER
as a person. Four weeks before the Champions League final against Arsenal, Rosell released the book ‘ Welcome to the real world’, a tell- all exposé on the Laporta administration. In 2008, vice- president Soriano also resigned.
On the pitch, things were little better, in spite of Messi’s inevitable rise to superstardom. Out of shape and out of motivation, Ronaldinho was increasingly resembling his puppet which just smiled and shouted “fiesta”.
Under their new president, Ramon Calderon, Real Madrid took advantage.
Fabio Capello arrived to stamp some more authority on a squad lacking a backbone – or Galacticos. Figo had joined Inter; Zidane had retired; Ronaldo would join Milan in January. Beckham remained but Capello made it clear he wasn’t wanted, only to change his mind once impressed by the midfielder’s application.
In their place came players Madrid needed: Fabio Cannavaro and Ruud van Nistelrooy in 2006, then Arjen Robben and Wesley Sneijder a year later. Van Nistelrooy scored 64 goals in 96 appearances.
With Barcelona struggling, Los Blancos won successive league crowns. In possibly the most Real Madrid move of all time, Capello got the sack after the first title for not winning stylishly enough. He was replaced by the prickly former Barça and Madrid playmaker Bernd Schuster, who presided over a goal- hungry title- winning campaign. The Galacticos were gone but the trophies had returned, and that was enough.
Come May’s Clasico, the league long since wrapped up, Madrid twisted the knife. Barça, 18 points behind their rivals, had to perform the the dreaded guard of honour.
“Barça, it’s just here,” guffawed front page, complete with helpful dots outside the Bernabeu tunnel where all the players should stand. Eto’o had made sure he was suspended and didn’t travel. Madrid won. 4- 1.
IN CLASSIC MADRID FASHION, CAPELLO WAS SACKED FOR NOT WINNING STYLISHLY ENOUGH
The next day, Laporta announced Rijkaard’s successor: a former ball boy and club legend from the Catalan interior, whose hero was local protest poet and songwriter Lluis Llach.
B team boss Josep Guardiola i Sala was now Barcelona’s head coach.
Like his footballing mentor, Johan Cruyff, two decades earlier, Guardiola trusted both himself and the Barcelona way.
Almost immediately, he told Ronaldinho to find himself a new club. There was a new zip, especially when Spain’s victorious Euro 2008 squad members started arriving at the team’s pre- season training camp in Scotland. Sergio Busquets, a central cog in Guardiola’s midfield for Barça B, was immediately promoted.
“I remember thinking after the first training session at St Andrews – always with the ball, great pressure, intensity from Pep – ‘ things are going to go well for us’,” Xavi later told
Most important was getting Messi on board. The relationship between player and manager was initially frosty, as the sulky 21- year- old was still fiercely loyal to Rijkaard, who’d given him his big break. However, relations improved after Guardiola, against club orders, allowed Messi to join up with Argentina at the Beijing Olympics. The manager himself valued his own gold medal with Spain in 1992.
Barcelona picked up one point from their first two matches, against Numancia and Racing Santander, but a 6- 1 rout of Sporting Gijon was a sign of things to come. “Trust in him,” Puyol told last year, “and results usually follow.”
The machine Pep built established a 12- point lead, but a relentless Real Madrid – now with Juande Ramos in charge – had cut it to four before May’s Clasico. Guardiola didn’t panic. He played Messi as a false nine for the first time, with Eto’o and Thierry Henry either side. Messi created one goal and then scored two more in a staggering, era- changing 6- 2 win for Barça. Xavi helped himself to four assists.
N/ A 1999– 00 2001– 02