[新聞] Guardiola: Barça in his blood

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Guardiola: Barça in his blood

He was always destined to return to the Nou Camp after 17 years
as a player, yet, writes Pete Jenson, in one season as coach he
has even eclipsed his mentor Johan Cruyff


Pep Guardiola has a mantra that sums up not only the 38-year-old's
philosophy but also the decision to give him the job of Barcelona
coach in the first place. He said it on Wednesday night, after
becoming only the sixth man in history to win the European Cup
as a player and a coach: "There is nothing more risky than not
taking any risks."

When he was put forward as a candidate for the position last summer,
Guardiola had a year's experience in football management. He had
just got Barça's youth team promoted to Spain's Second Division.
The other CV on president Joan Laporta's desk boasted one European
Cup and four league titles – Jose Mourinho's .

But after a word in his ear from Johan Cruyff, Laporta rejected
Mourinho and opted for the sharp-suited string bean who had gone
walkabout in 2001 after 17 years at the club – passing through
Italy, Saudi Arabia and Mexico – before finally coming home to
the team he first served as a ball-boy.

It did not start well. Barça went to Numancia – the club with the
tightest budget and worst ground in this season's La Liga – and
lost, but Cruyff always believed the decision to gamble on the
prodigal son would pay off.

"We knew that Guardiola was going to play good football and from
that starting point you can go a long way," said the Dutchman. It
was also not the first time Cruyff had taken a chance on Guardiola
and been proved right. As a player his peers agreed that he was not
the quickest or the strongest, that he was average in the air and
lacked a decent shot. In spite of all that he was among the best
in the world as a holding midfielder.

"I would have been an average third division player had it not been
for Cruyff," he modestly recalled. As it was he won six league
titles, a Champions League and an Olympic gold. When he finally
left Barcelona in 2001 Guardiola ended up at Brescia after waiting
and never receiving the offer he wanted from Juventus and turning
down advances from England, allegedly from Sir Alex Ferguson at
Manchester United.

He later earned a move to Roma but was barely used by coach Fabio
Capello. While at Brescia he also endured the nightmare of a
positive test for nandrolone in a game against Piacenza. But unlike
other high-profile cases at the time – Japp Stam then at Lazio and
Edgar Davids then at Juventus – he continued to plead his innocence,
arguing that his body naturally produced high levels of nandrolone.
He served a four-month ban and finally had his name cleared in 2007.

Spells in Quatar and Mexico took him further and further from
the spotlight after his Italian adventure. An intensely private
man, he has three children, Marius, eight, Maria, six, and Valentina,
one, with his partner Cristina Serra, who he met in her parents'
clothing store, aged 18. His quiet return to Barcelona as youth-team
coach two years ago was in keeping with his low profile.

Players talk of an unpredictable character who can enliven a
training session one day and be withdrawn and introverted the
next, but they also speak of a new broom that ruthlessly swept
the dressing room clean and completely changed the mentality of
the side.

Midfielder Xavi Hernandez said: "Chaos reigned before. It was a
case of 'If you're only one kilo overweight, or just one minute
late, what does it matter?'" Deco and Ronaldinho were both moved
on last summer and Guardiola openly admitted that Samuel Eto'o was
also surplus to requirements. When the bids failed to come in for
the Cameroon striker, Guardiola had to make use of someone he had
already declared he had no use for. Eto'o had been a loose cannon
for the previous two campaigns but this season he produced his
best figures at Barça, scoring 29 goals in La Liga and that
crucial first strike in Rome.

As one by one the players took the microphone to address the
supporters at the last home game of the season, it was Eto'o who
thanked Guardiola for his second chance. Thierry Henry was another
who remembered his coach. "I had offers," he said, "but Pep convinced
me to stay and I'm glad I did."

The previously injury-prone Lionel Messi has also been toughened
up under Guardiola's training regime and has gone injury-free
through the season. That forward line goes into the weekend's
final game of the season away to Deportivo la Coruna just one
short of a century of goals between them.

Guardiola has also given youth its chance. Holding midfielder
Sergi Busquets was playing in his youth team that won the third
division this time last season – on Wednesday in Rome he was
playing the Guardiola role in midfield still two months short
of his 21st birthday.

Then there is Xavi and Andres Iniesta. Both schoolboy fans of their
now-coach. Both tipped to succeed him on the pitch, although as it
turns out both have far more to offer going forward than their
predecessor.

"I would never have been good enough to get in this current side,"
Guardiola said in the run-up to the Champions League final. One
of his team-mates from the 1990's "Dream Team", Ronaldo Koeman,
admitted after Wednesday's victory: "The side we played in was
wonderful but this team is something else."

Throughout the course of the season Guardiola has underplayed
his role in Barça's success. But it is getting harder to damp
down the praise. Becoming only the fifth coach to win the treble
is one thing, beating two of the other four to achieve it (Sir
Alex Ferguson and Guus Hiddink) along the way is another.

Cruyff picked Guardiola as a 21-year-old to anchor his midfield
in the 1992 European Cup final at Wembley and he didn't let him
down. Seventeen years on in Rome on Wednesday the gamble had paid
off again.

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推 DemetrioTai:這裡則要向 Pep致意. 賽季前我懷疑他被rush, 現在我只
→ DemetrioTai:能由衷敬佩 Laporta的識人之明. "There is nothing
→ DemetrioTai:more risky than not taking any risks."一句話完美說
→ DemetrioTai:明了 Pep的膽識, 也實在刻畫出禮拜三晚上他和對手教頭
→ DemetrioTai:的分別.