Manchester City news: Pep Guardiola and the dark side of a managerial sensation
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Yaya Toure is doing kick-ups in a changing room with a look of boyish happiness on his face. It’s 2012 and Manchester City’s midfield ace is in his pomp as Sport interviews him for a feature. Just one question - on how the methods of his manager at Barcelona, Pep Guardiola, compare to those of then City boss Roberto Mancini - briefly disrupts his good mood.
“It’s quite complicated, because Mancini is a manager who always wants to become close to the players,” he replies. “Guardiola was quite difficult - but I don’t want to speak about him, because now it’s the past and I want to focus on City.”
Duly rushed through as if Toure were barrelling past a wheezing defender. The pair might have made up since (although Toure’s absence from City’s Champions League squad isn’t a great sign), but the Ivorian was cold on his ex-gaffer then.
He’s not alone. You might say it’s impossible for an omelette-maker not to break eggs; that any manager will make enemies among their players. Yet some of Guardiola’s fall-outs are more visible, more spectacular than the usual.
Zlatan Ibrahimovic spent a chunk of his 2011 autobiography I Am Zlatan trashing Guardiola, the man who had brought him to Barcelona in 2009. “Spineless coward” was among the Swede’s descriptions of a manager he paints as passive-aggressive in his dealings with those in the Barca squad who weren’t in awe of him.
It’s tempting to observe that Guardiola has a ruthless, unyielding streak beneath his affable exterior. Unlike his fellow European super-coaches such as Carlo Ancelotti or even the infamously cantankerous Jose Mourinho, Guardiola has no reputation as a masseur of superstar egos. As Joe Hart, currently adjusting to life on loan in Turin, could perhaps attest.
Yaya Toure is doing kick-ups in a changing room with a look of boyish happiness on his face. It’s 2012 and Manchester City’s midfield ace is in his pomp as Sport interviews him for a feature. Just one question - on how the methods of his manager at Barcelona, Pep Guardiola, compare to those of then City boss Roberto Mancini - briefly disrupts his good mood.
“It’s quite complicated, because Mancini is a manager who always wants to become close to the players,” he replies. “Guardiola was quite difficult - but I don’t want to speak about him, because now it’s the past and I want to focus on City.”
Duly rushed through as if Toure were barrelling past a wheezing defender. The pair might have made up since (although Toure’s absence from City’s Champions League squad isn’t a great sign), but the Ivorian was cold on his ex-gaffer then.
He’s not alone. You might say it’s impossible for an omelette-maker not to break eggs; that any manager will make enemies among their players. Yet some of Guardiola’s fall-outs are more visible, more spectacular than the usual.
Zlatan Ibrahimovic spent a chunk of his 2011 autobiography I Am Zlatan trashing Guardiola, the man who had brought him to Barcelona in 2009. “Spineless coward” was among the Swede’s descriptions of a manager he paints as passive-aggressive in his dealings with those in the Barca squad who weren’t in awe of him.
It’s tempting to observe that Guardiola has a ruthless, unyielding streak beneath his affable exterior. Unlike his fellow European super-coaches such as Carlo Ancelotti or even the infamously cantankerous Jose Mourinho, Guardiola has no reputation as a masseur of superstar egos. As Joe Hart, currently adjusting to life on loan in Turin, could perhaps attest.
“I hear a lot the word ‘ruthless’ about Pep Guardiola,” says Guillem Balague, Spanish football expert and author of an acclaimed biography on Guardiola. “But which coach wants players that don’t fit his mould? Nobody.
“It’s just that there’s a lot of coaches who don’t feel brave enough to take the decision [to move a player on], so they’re cowards for not doing it. I don’t know if it’s ruthless, because he spoke to Joe Hart - and I’m sure Joe Hart had heard what was coming. And I’m pretty sure he didn’t hear it too indirectly, if you get my drift. There were messages being sent toward his direction before Pep arrived.”
“So, ruthless - I don’t know. There is a long list now of people who complain about their treatment by Pep Guardiola as players: Bojan Krkic [at Barcelona], Ibrahimovic, Dante [at Bayern Munich] is another one. They all left a club that they wanted to be in. Well, sorry.
Maybe you weren’t good enough or maybe you didn’t fit in. So, I think they’re reacting to the myth. They see so many nice words said about Pep that they say: hold on, he kicked me out and he’s not so nice!”
Kicking players out has, however, become a Guardiola hallmark. When he took over as Barcelona manager in 2008 aged just 37, he famously decided that the likes of Ronaldinho, Deco and Samuel Eto’o - three players who had been key to Barcelona’s mid-2000s success - needed to move on, pronto. The two Brazilian-born stars left that summer. Eto’o survived and actually played a key role in the treblewinning 2008/09 season, yet never fully won Guardiola over and the Cameroon striker was swapped in a part-exchange deal for that man Zlatan in 2009.
Some of Ibrahimovic’s rants against Guardiola since can be seen as sour grapes, but one theme he returns to is this: Guardiola doesn’t handle strong personalities well.
“Do you think Franck Ribery and Arjen Robben are not strong personalities?” asks Balague. “Or Xavi, or Andres Iniesta? What happened with Ibra is that he did not get it. As we know, he’s a magnificent player… But there was this kid Lionel Messi there. He was on the right-hand side and his moves - his diagonal runs - a lot of the time crossed paths with Ibra. So the coach said, as so many other coaches have told strikers who play next to Messi: ‘Ibra, would you mind moving to one side?’ And Ibra’s reaction was: ‘But I’m Zlatan!’ He was being told: ‘Sorry, but you’re not the big star - this other guy is the big star.’ And he never understood that.
“He had that situation and - I don’t know - perhaps Pep is not the best one at dealing with conflict. So he just thought: ‘Okay, he doesn’t get it and I’ve been trying to explain it for three-quarters of a year.’ So Pep decided that he’s got to move on and he didn’t expend any more energy in trying to end it nicely for Ibra.”
As Balague mentions, there are strong signs that Guardiola doesn’t relish personal conflict and confrontation. Between 2010 and 2012, he and Jose Mourinho co-existed in Spain as managers of Barcelona and Real Madrid. It’s illuminating to look at, not least because the pair meet again this Saturday in the Manchester derby.
Pep’s Barcelona won more battles, winning five matches to Real Madrid’s two victories in a period overstuffed with El Clasicos (there were also four draws). Yet Guardiola never felt as though he won the war. He found the increasingly sulphurous atmosphere around the games hard to handle, later claiming: “I don’t have fond memories, of either the victories or the defeats.” Given those matches included Barcelona’s celebrated 5-0 win over Real in 2010, that’s a powerful statement of just how tough he found it.
It also begs the question: if Guardiola so dislikes the animosity that Jose can bring to managerial rivalries, did he have his head in his hands when he discovered that he would be sharing not just a league but also a city with Mourinho this season?
Balague chuckles in response: “I know for a fact that Xabi Alonso has joked [with Guardiola] about that for months now: ‘Oh, you’re going to go into a restaurant in Manchester and Jose would be there - what will you do?’
“But the context is very different to what it was. Barcelona, Mourinho felt, got the red carpet when they walked on to the pitch: by the media, by the fans, by the referees, even by rivals who were more interested in getting autographs than tackling players. So he came to Real Madrid with the intention to destroy all that - and that meant on and off the pitch. So of course he can be a nightmare to deal with, but I just don’t see it happening again.
“We saw Mourinho’s first press conference [at Manchester United] when he was asked about Pep. What he said, if you read between the lines, is: ‘What I did was business. Nothing personal.’ And I know that Pep Guardiola doesn’t share that view. He thinks that business is life, life is business and you cannot separate both. That if you attack him as a coach, you attack him as a person. But at the same time, the way he puts it is: ‘We are in the biggest league in the world - it’s only logical that Jose Mourinho is there as well.’”
Mourinho seems keen for a ceasefire right now, although it will be interesting to see how that holds up if the two Manchester clubs end the season vying for the Premier League title. One memory sticks with Sport from our interview with Mourinho in 2015. The then Chelsea boss was waxing lyrical on Messi’s influence on European club football.
“With him is very, very normal to win competitions, to win Champions Leagues, to win finals,” Mourinho said. “They [Barcelona] change the manager - it doesn’t matter who the manager is - the one who is always there is Messi.
“He won with [Frank] Rijkaard, with Guardiola, with [Luis] Enrique... Nobody has any doubts that he makes a huge difference in football. There will be always a Champions League with Messi, and a Champions League without Messi.”
Once more, you don’t need to look hard between the lines to read Mourinho’s point. ‘I won the Champions League with Porto and Inter Milan,’ the subtext would seem to yell. ‘These other managers, they won it with Lionel Messi in the team. Anyone could do that.
Guardiola’s admirers would point out that Messi - plus Xavi and Iniesta, for that matter - were also in the Barcelona side for two years before he took over. And the club won exactly nothing in those two seasons. It took Guardiola’s impact, alterations and ideology to jumpstart a glorious Barca reign that has yielded six La Liga titles, four Copa del Reys and three Champions League wins in the eight seasons since 2008.
Yet Guardiola’s time at Bayern Munich more evenly divides opinion. The glasshalf- full perspective is that Bayern have never played such swashbuckling attacking football as in the three years under his stewardship, winning three Bundesliga titles (including two domestic doubles) in style. Critics point to three Champions League semi-final exits in succession and say it was a job never fully completed.
Such is the sky-high bar by which Pep Guardiola is judged. Forget the fact that, from Barcelona B to Bayern Munich, his eight seasons as a manager have resulted in seven first-place league finishes and one second spot (in his final season at Barcelona). For many, this Manchester City project is going to be seen as the true test of Guardiola’s genius. The squad he has taken over is strong, but not as packed with proven world-class performers in the same vein as Barcelona or Bayern were. Yet Balague is encouraged by the early signs.
“It will still require another year to shape the squad to his liking, but for me there’s three signings that define what he’s trying to do. That’s Leroy Sane, who is young, has pace and is a specialist in what he does. Nolito is another specialist. Any other top, top club in the Premier League might have looked at him and gone: ‘He’s not good enough, is he?’ But Pep and City needed a player who understands what he’s got to do - and he scores goals in the process. Then [goalkeeper] Claudio Bravo, of course. Those three define what he’s trying to do: win, but in another way.”
That method is by having everyone at the club - from the players to the top brass - buying into his vision for success. There are those who will be galvanised by the intensity, passion and attention to detail that he brings: Raheem Sterling appears an obvious early example at Manchester City. Those who don’t buy into his idea, meet his standards or fit his gameplan of highoctane, attacking, passing football will find themselves shipped out. Compromise is not something Guardiola tolerates well.
In this way, he’s not so different from his counterpoint Mourinho, even if the approach is different. Crudely, Mourinho is the manager who analyses an opponent so he can nullify their strengths; Guardiola scrutinises a rival in in order to single out their weaknesses and overpower them. Yet both are relentless, obsessive winners not used to accepting second-best.
That applies to this weekend, this season and in the years to come. Enjoy the ride.
A new, fully updated version of Pep Guardiola: Another Way of Winning by Guillem Balague is published this month (Orion Books)