Pep’s mentor already owes Blues as he starts new job
JUANMA Lillo already has something to answer for as he starts his new role at City as he denied Blues fans the pleasure of seeing Pep Guardiola play for them!
The current Etihad boss had a short trial period with the club in 2005, and the then-boss Stuart Pearce was keen on signing the former Barcelona ace, who impressed everyone with his ability in training.
But City could not offer much money-wise, and Guardiola got a call from the other side of the world which sat nicely with his sense of duty and destiny.
It was from Lillo, who had been appointed as manager of Mexican outfit Dorados De Sinaloa, and wanted Guardiola to join him.
That appealed to Guardiola - Lillo, dubbed ‘the last revolutionary of Spanish football,’ was one of his coaching heroes, and he had pledged, several years earlier, he would not retire from playing without turning out for a team coached by him.
Pearce and City missed out, but Guardiola played for Lillo for just six months before hanging up his boots. Now, as it often does, the game has turned full circle, and Lillo is working under Guardiola as assistant manager, filling a gap left by Mikel Arteta when he left to become Arsenal manager in December.
The 54-year-old is every bit the football obsessive - a football coach since he was 16, the story goes in Spain that he never learned to ride a bike as a child as he was always too busy with a ball.
That obsession saw him become, at the time, the youngest manager in La Liga’s top flight after taking Salamanca to promotion at the age of 29.
But despite his reputation as an innovative thinker - some credit him with ‘inventing’ the 4-2-3-1 system - and the fact he clearly inspired trust and loyalty in his players, Lillo always flitted around the edges of the big time.
He was sacked by Salamanca six months into the season, with the team anchored to bottom spot - but the entire squad signed a letter urging the board to think again, and taking the blame squarely on their own shoulders.
When Guardiola was appointed to his first coaching job, in charge of Barcelona B, Lillo attended every game and would sit for hours with the bold young prodigy, analysing every pass, every movement.
Lillo’s philosophy was summed up in an interview with The Blizzard, in which he said ‘The objective is the journey. In a race you can be first, miles and miles ahead of anyone else, and then, metres from the line, fall over.
“And? Are you going to write that
race off? You ran brilliantly ... what enriches you is the game, not the result. The result is a piece of data.
“The birth rate goes up. Is that enriching? No. But the process that led to that? Now that’s enriching.
“Fulfilment comes from the process.
“You debate the game, not the results. Results are not debatable, they are. Do you buy a paper on a Monday morning for a euro and the only thing in it is list after list of results?
“Do you go into a football stadium, in the last minute of a game, have a look at the scoreboard, and leave? You watch 90 minutes, which is the process.
“You can’t validate the process through the results. Human beings tend to venerate what finished well, not what was done well. We attack what ended up badly, not what was done badly.”
That notion, that it is the way you play that truly matters and that a good outcome is a happy by-product has been Guardiola’s mantra.
It will be interesting to see how Lillo’s influence makes itself felt.