He’s always had a blast!
GUARDIOLA’S MARC OF RESPECT FOR MENTOR
PEP GUARDIOLA has always looked up to Marcelo Bielsa because he loves his style of football.
The Spaniard was stunned when Bielsa presented him with his tactical analysis of Barcelona after they beat the Argentinian’s Athletic Bilbao in the 2012 Copa del Rey Final, admitting: “You know more about Barcelona than me!”
The Manchester City boss had previously sought out Bielsa at his home in Argentina in 2006 before he began his own stellar coaching career.
Bielsa biographer Tim Rich explains: “In October 2006 a visitor came to Maximo Paz searching for Bielsa: Pep Guardiola. He, too, was in a lull in his career.
“He had finished playing for Barcelona in 2001 at the age of 30. There had been two frustrating seasons in Italy, at Brescia and Roma, and a lucrative one in Qatar.
“Now he found himself in the northwest of Mexico, playing for a newly
BIELSA says he dies after each defeat – and seemed prepared to do so when he went to his front door holding a hand grenade to confront Ultras after his team Newell’s Old Boys lost 6-0 to San Lorenzo in 1992.
“I die after each defeat,” Bielsa said at the time. “The week that follows is hell.
“When the mistakes are of such a grotesque magnitude, the conclusion has to be that the
■ promoted club, Dorados de Sinaloa. It was obvious Guardiola would want to talk to Bielsa.
“When he and Gabriel Batistuta were playing together in Rome, Batistuta advised him to look him up: ‘If you want to be a coach, you have to get together with this man.’
“On October 10, 2006, Guardiola, accompanied by the Spanish film director and novelist David Trueba, got together with Marcelo Bielsa.
“The first hour was taken up with Bielsa questioning Trueba, who had just finished his second film, about the manager is responsible.” He was not the only one who thought that way.
Soon the Barras Bravas were at the door of his home in Rosario.
There were about 20 of them, demanding he come out and face them.
Bielsa came out clutching a hand grenade. “If you don’t go now I will pull the pin,” he warned.
They dispersed. cinema. He only stopped when Trueba said: ‘You haven’t come all this way to talk about films, have you?’
“The talk switched to football. They started and they could not stop.
“Trueba recalled frantic conversations about teams, tactical planning, anecdotes about the game.
“Bielsa’s computer was used to check facts and settle arguments. Then Bielsa positioned Trueba between two chairs to act out a move in a game.
“They turned to the practicalities of management such as dealing with the press.
“Bielsa explained why he never now gave exclusive interviews. ‘Why am I going to give an interview to a journalist at a powerful paper and deny one to a little reporter from the provinces? What’s the criterion?’
“When he became Barcelona boss two years later, this was a policy Guardiola would follow. It would be the same in Munich and Manchester.
“He would not grant one-on-one interviews, but talk to the media only via press conferences, where anyone could ask a question.
“Then Bielsa turned to Guardiola: ‘Why do you, who knows about all the garbage in football, the dishonesty of people in the game, want to return to that environment and manage? Do you like blood so much?’
“Guardiola replied: ‘I need blood.’”