In our second unique extract from the brand new e-book on Pep Guardiola’s Etihad reign, Marti Perarnau, the person closest to the perfect coach on this planet, reveals how Lionel Messi flirted together with his mentor and why the Metropolis boss turned down Cristiano Ronaldo.
Pep meets Messi to debate reunion
August 18, 2020
Pep Guardiola is reeling after Metropolis are dumped out of the Champions League by Lyon. As he heads residence for a much-needed vacation, he receives a message from his former protege who’s fed up with life at Barcelona…
All of it begins with a WhatsApp despatched by Sergio Aguero to the Metropolis squad. ‘One thing large is perhaps occurring. Leo’s simply requested me how lengthy Pep has left on his contract.’
Everybody again in Manchester is straight away buzzing however Pep, on a flight again from Lisbon, does not see the message for a number of hours.
Pep reads the textual content: Leo’s requested when my contract expires. It isn’t clear what’s behind Messi’s query. Maybe Barca are hoping to lure Aguero away from Metropolis so the 2 pals can accomplice up? Pep decides to not waste any extra time on it.
Fifteen hours later he is again within the air. This time aboard the small non-public aircraft he makes use of for his journeys to Barcelona. Coaches Juanma Lillo and Lorenzo Buenaventura are with him, en path to a well-earned break. As they contact down in Barcelona, Pep switches his telephone again on. There is a message. Simply 5 phrases: ‘Hello Pep: how are you?’
It is 4pm on August 17, 2020, and Pep’s head is throbbing. They have been unceremoniously knocked out of the Champions League by Lyon. The bottom level of an totally depressing season. It is hit him laborious. His gamers are struggling too. There is a sense of shocked disbelief within the squad and a few gamers are nonetheless indignant: even livid. Others are simply down within the dumps.
Pep Guardiola and Lionel Messi got here near a reunion at Manchester Metropolis in 2020
Messi despatched a textual content to Guardiola earlier than they mentioned a possible transfer to the Etihad
Now, in Barcelona, Pep’s wanting ahead to 2 weeks of vacation earlier than he returns to the gray skies of Manchester to begin his fifth season with Metropolis.
Unbeknown to Pep, Messi can also be scuffling with a serious headache of his personal. For the previous 4 days, he is been brooding over the 8-2 mauling handed out to Barcelona by Bayern Munich. Disgrace. Humiliation. Their worst lead to dwelling reminiscence. It is all too painful and Messi has make a decision. It is time to take the initiative. He wants to maneuver on.
Maybe Pep has a spot in his squad for his former protege.
In one other a part of Barcelona, Pep’s nonetheless feeling the consequences of his sore head when his telephone buzzes.
They meet the following day. Twelve o’clock at Pep’s place. It is the second time they’ve met like this. The final time was in the summertime of 2016 when Messi was dealing with a 21-month jail sentence for tax fraud and in search of a lifeline.
Messi was brooding after Barcelona’s 8-2 defeat by Bayern Munich within the Champions League
Guardiola was equally moody within the wake of Metropolis’s shock loss to Lyon in the identical competitors
A transfer to Metropolis appeared like a potential choice. His dad, Jorge, contacted Metropolis’s chief government Ferran Soriano, who requested Pep to fulfill with the participant. For the primary time in years the 2 males met up in Barcelona, at Leo’s home on that event.
It was clear to Pep that Messi was critical about Metropolis probably providing a sensible resolution to his issues however the coach did not detect an entire lot of enthusiasm for the transfer. Certain sufficient, inside days, the participant had begun to vary his thoughts. Abruptly Manchester misplaced its enchantment and the entire thing got here to nothing.
4 years on, the scenario’s very totally different. Messi’s frustration with Barcelona has mounted with every Champions League elimination over the previous few years. He is quickly shedding persistence together with his membership. Which is why he is right here, sitting on Pep’s large couch, prepared to speak. ‘Boss, I simply need to go so far as I presumably can. I nonetheless need to do nice issues.’
The pair of them are nonetheless speaking six-and-a-half hours later.
They’ve by no means had this sort of lengthy, intense dialog earlier than. Again at Barca, every time they chatted it was at all times in regards to the recreation, the ways for use or their subsequent opponent.
However they’ve each modified so much since then. The quiet, reserved child, who solely appeared to return absolutely alive with a ball at his ft, is now a grown man. With a beard!
That is an grownup who is aware of what he needs and has rigorously thought-about every thing he is about to say. Knowledgeable, with an exhaustive data of soccer, who speaks with precision and intelligence. Pep’s heard how a lot Messi’s modified however now he is witnessing it for himself. And right this moment, it is Leo who does a lot of the speaking.
Messi has a really particular objective. Sick and bored with the best way he is been handled, and of the dishonesty and betrayal he feels he is needed to put up with. He is prepared to go away.
Messi was prepared to go away and he chatted to Guardiola at his residence for six-and-a-half hours
Pep can relate. He himself feels he needed to put up with comparable therapy as a participant, meted out by then membership president Josep Lluis Nunez, who had additionally appeared to take towards Johan Cruyff and do every thing he may to push the good Dutch coach out of the membership. Pep, as a brand new coach, had comparable issues beneath president Sandro Rosell.
In Johan Cruyff, Pep Guardiola and Leo Messi, the membership had three of their brightest and most sensible sons, all of them skewered on the lance of mediocrity.
So no, Pep does not want the main points. He understands precisely what Messi’s saying.
‘You do know that it rains so much in Manchester?’
Everybody understands what’s at stake. Pep makes it clear he’ll be keen to increase his contract if the transfer goes via. Jorge and Soriano will deal with the negotiations. Messi nonetheless has a 12 months left on his contract and has a launch clause of €700million (£600m).
No person thinks that may current insurmountable issues and the membership certainly owe Messi, not least for his refusal to talk publicly in regards to the disgraceful therapy he feels he is endured.
Guardiola was reminded of his former protege’s excellent soccer imaginative and prescient and tactical data
Immediately, Pep discovers in Messi a person who’s surprisingly well-informed about world soccer. It is apparent that he has excellent soccer imaginative and prescient and a exact grasp of the ideas, tactical variants and improvements they chat about.
They talk about Liverpool and Bayern, Antonio Conte and Thomas Tuchel, Kevin De Bruyne and Kalidou Koulibaly. Pep talks him via Metropolis’s squad, their new signings and the defenders he is acquired his eye on. Leo has opinions on all of it.
It is clear to Pep that Messi becoming a member of Metropolis will carry a lot greater than a reunion together with his former star participant. It could imply a right away, gigantic shot of adrenaline for the group – nonetheless struggling and in a state of shock after their Champions League elimination. It is all that Pep’s been in a position to discuss: ‘How on earth am I going to maintain these gamers motivated now?’
And his technical workers really feel precisely the identical method. After the Lisbon debacle the group will want greater than new signings, some tactical improvements and some motivational speeches.
Lionel Messi may very well be the reply to all their issues, the lacking hyperlink that turns every thing round. It could be an excellent transfer for each the participant and the coach.
At six o’clock on that Tuesday night in August, the concept of attending to work collectively once more appeals to them each.
Messi was seen as the reply to a few of Metropolis’s issues and the concept of a reunion appealed
‘We prepare laborious in Manchester…’
‘Would not hassle me. I am prepared for laborious work.’
‘And I nonetheless give lengthy tactical talks. Perhaps you may get bored…’
‘I am going to cope, I can deal with something you throw at me.’
‘Leo, we’re each a lot older than we had been. Perhaps we can’t get on now.’
‘Pep, I simply need the prospect to do nice issues, to really feel like I am able to smash it once more.’
At 6.30pm they are saying goodbye with a heat hug. It isn’t going to be simple but when they pull this off, there isn’t any realizing what they’ll obtain.
On September 3, a textual content from Bernardo Silva arrives: ‘Is it true about Messi?’
Pleasure mounted at Metropolis however Messi finally stayed at Barcelona for yet one more 12 months
‘How would you are feeling about him coming?’
‘I might run twice as a lot!’
The thrill’s mounting on the prospect of Messi becoming a member of Metropolis’s ranks.
It is that sense of excited anticipation that the group’s been missing. There is a normal sense of complacency. A mixture of egos swollen by all their previous successes plus the departure of Mikel Arteta to change into Arsenal supervisor has led to a particular, if delicate, dip in requirements.
On the finish of their quick break, Pep and Lillo use the flight again to Manchester to attract up hypothetical plans. When the opposition have possession each of them see Leo stationed close to the centre circle, forcing their opponents to play on the surface, the place Metropolis will likely be extra aggressive in profitable again the ball. When Metropolis have the ball, Messi will transfer up in direction of the field, bringing his team-mates with him.
In the meanwhile, in fact, it is nothing greater than an mental train. Every thing has to fall into place earlier than they’ll begin to plan for actual.
Certain sufficient, Messi does not present up at Barcelona for the post-summer Covid testing. However, sadly, it is also wanting more and more possible he will not be making an look in Manchester any time quickly.
Negotiations have tailed off. Then Jorge Messi reaches an settlement with Barcelona.
Wanting to keep away from getting right into a protracted authorized dispute with the membership, Messi has determined to remain for yet one more 12 months.
There’ll no reunion for Pep and Leo in spite of everything.
Cristiano was no colossus any extra
November 6, 2021
It is derby day and Metropolis win 2-0 at Manchester United. There may be one second that exhibits why Guardiola gave a powerful ‘No’ to signing Cristiano Ronaldo when the striker got here calling months earlier, earlier than he rocked up once more at Outdated Trafford.
United are being taken to the cleaners within the so-called Theatre of Desires. Derby day in Manchester lastly has its lifeblood once more – Outdated Trafford can let followers in as soon as extra, now that pandemic restrictions have been eased.
It is exactly 20 months for the reason that final derby was performed in entrance of a crowd of seething, baying followers and the house aspect are taking part in calamitously. Metropolis fly out of the traps.
Metropolis’s grasp of positional play delights their coach with particular mentions in dispatches to Bernardo Silva, who ghosts out and in of the false 9 place, and the ‘free electron’ Joao Cancelo. The latter, central to unlocking Metropolis’s magic proper now, provides to the three assists he offered in Bruges the opposite evening with two extra towards Metropolis’s metropolis rivals.
5 in per week – hats off to Joao.
The lead takes six minutes to attain. Cancelo’s cross, Eric Bailly’s uncoordinated personal aim. Between the twenty eighth and thirty fourth minutes, David de Gea saves United’s blushes and what appear like being 4 stick-on targets. It is a hurricane in sky blue.
Guardiola turned down the prospect to signal Cristiano Ronaldo earlier than his Man United transfer
Bernardo Silva completed off a 26-pass transfer as Metropolis cruised to a snug win over Ronaldo and Co at Outdated Trafford in November 2021
Complete domination, which could have resulted in a report win however for the Spanish keeper – which explains his horrified expression, and the desolation of team-mates throughout him, when Silva materialises behind United’s closely populated defensive position to make it 2-0 simply earlier than the break.
Silva’s second follows 86 seconds and 26 passes of Metropolis smarts. It begins when Cristiano Ronaldo is attempting to counter-attack however wastes his move.
That is not the majestic goalscoring colossus of years passed by. Removed from that model, in reality.
He supplied himself to Metropolis final summer season however Pep wasn’t . There is no query in any respect that Guardiola respects his immense capacity to complete possibilities in addition to his excellent bodily situation, however how may any such participant match into the precision machine the Catalan has painstakingly and strategically constructed at Metropolis?
Thanks however no thanks, Cristiano. Not even after Metropolis’s try and signal Harry Kane and purchase an outright centre ahead resulted in failure.
The Pep Revolution (Ebury Highlight, £22) is out right this moment. © Marti Perarnau 2024. To order a replica for £19.80 go to www.mailshop.co.uk/books or name 020 3176 2937.
