Secrets behind a winning machine
SO, who is Pep Guardiola?T he extraordinary achievements of his managerial career are easily recalled but what makes the man tick?
Thanks to Pep Confidential, a book by respected Spanish journalist Marti Perarnau about Pep’s first season with Bayern Munich, answers to those questions can be found.
Published in the autumn of 2014, it makes for a compelling read. Below, Sportsmail highlights some of the fascinating insights...
THE PHILOSOPHY
When you think of Guardiola’s allconquering Barcelona, one phrase comes to mind — tiki-taka — what Sir Alex Ferguson called ‘The Passing Carousel’. Mention the phrase to Guardiola and his eyes blaze. Manchester City will not be keeping the ball to hypnotise. Guardiola wants them to seek and destroy.
‘I hate tiki-taka,’ Guardiola says. ‘I hate it. Tiki-taka means passing the ball for the sake of it with no clear intention. It’s pointless. Don’t believe what people say. Barca didn’t do tiki-taka! It is completely made up. In all team sports, the secret is to overload one side of the pitch, so the opposition must tilt its own defence to cope. That’s why you have to pass the ball. It’s only to draw them in and then to hit them with the sucker punch. Pam! Pam! That’s the style of play.’
MATCHDAY NERVES
Guardiola gets so wound up on the day of a game that he finds it impossible to eat. He drinks bottles and bottles of water but the tension that comes with knowing a week’s work will be put to the test means he cannot stomach anything.
Once the game is over, however, his appetite is voracious. He drinks a glass of champagne — two if the victory has been significant — and his preferred matchday dish at the Allianz Arena is marinated salmon, usually with ‘extra pepper’.
Nutrition is vitally important to the Spaniard. He is fastidious about his appearance and loathes the idea of being overweight. He demands his squad refuels properly after each game, making sure they all eat in the players’ restaurant.
DINING WITH A GRANDMASTER
During his sabbatical in New York, Guardiola was introduced through a mutual acquaintance to Garry Kasparov, the greatest chess player of all time. Over dinner, in October 2012, Guardiola tried to delve into Kasparov’s mind to see how he stayed at the top.
Guardiola, Perarnau writes, is a man ‘who questions everything in his search for perfection; he realises the search is impossible but it is the search that drives him on’.
Many things Kasparov said struck a chord, not least the ability to see things from a different perspective.
‘You wouldn’t attack in the same way from a mountain top as you would from the wide-open countryside,’ Kasparov told him.
FOOTBALL, FOOTBALL, FOOTBALL
His wife, Cristina, and three children mean the world to him but he is always plotting the next assignment. Those closest to him try to get him to switch off but Spanish water polo player Manuel Estiarte, a lifelong friend, explains the futility of the task.
‘You invite him for a meal, hoping he will forget about football but 32 minutes later, you see his mind wander. He is nodding as if he is l i stening, i n actual f act, he is probably t hinking about t he opposition left back.’
DEALING WITH FAILURE
The title of the book that sits beside his bed is intriguing: Saber
Perder. Written by David Trueba, a film director and novelist who is another close friend, translated it means ‘Knowing how to lose’.
Guardiola regards defeat as cathartic and it lays the foundations for future achievements. He isn’t afraid to fail and isn’t afraid of scrutiny.
‘Criticism is helpful,’ he says. ‘That is why I am critical of myself and the players. It keeps the mind alert’.