[新聞] Move over Jose, there is a new Special One

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Move over Jose, there is a new Special One

By GRAHAM HUNTER
Expert on Spanish football

THE Roman night was hot and sultry.

Manchester United players lay drained, drenched in sweat and
despondent on the pitch, and a handsome young Iberian leader
of men broke into a gleeful jig of victory.

It could have been Jose “The Special One” Mourinho after any
of his most daring or defiant victories over Sir Alex Ferguson
with Porto or Chelsea — but it wasn’t.

This was the world being introduced to the impossibly precocious
Barcelona manager Josep “Pep” Guardiola.

He is a poet, fashion model, political thinker, father and now
the annoyingly youthful champion of Europe, thanks to Wednesday’s
outrageous dismantling of the Premier League winners.

Aged only 38, it is little surprise the soundtrack to Barcelona’s
clean sweep of trophies this season — La Liga, Copa del Rey and
now snatching back the Champions League from the vaults of Old
Trafford — has been Coldplay’s Viva La Vida.

Just as he is still young enough to be pencil-slim and to slip his
snake-hips into the coolest Italian fashion, the man who has put
Jurgen Klinsmann, Guus Hiddink and now Sir Alex Ferguson to the
sword this season has already shown the ability to slip into song
when a phone ringtone of Rehab interrupts his Press conference.

Obsessive

Except for the past 12 months the chorus has been, “Yes, yes, yes”
for the novice coach who had one season’s coaching experience before
being handed one of the most demanding jobs in world sport last May.

Guardiola, an obsessive by DNA, lives and breathes Chris Martin’s
music and insisted Viva La Vida become the anthem for his team this year.

They have since scored 157 goals and made even football-sceptics
fall in love with the sweeping, scintillating beauty of the Spanish
champs.

Xavi, Wednesday's man of the match and the stuff of nightmares for
Michael Carrick and Anderson in Rome, laughs: "We have loads of South
Americans in our dressing room and Pep wasn't up for the samba and
tango stuff they wanted to play so he introduced Coldplay, who he
adores.

“It keeps the majority of players happy and now it’s the anthem
of our victories, our training ground and the dressing room —
Coldplay have brought us luck”.

Football and music are inseparable for Guardiola who, before a held-up
Coldplay gig, was pawing the ground impatiently in the front row of
the massive Palau St Jordi arena in Barcelona last September.

Little known to him, Chris Martin and the lads, who were supposed to
be pumping out the sounds, had sneaked out to the next door Olympic
Stadium to watch England defeat Andorra 2-0 — a decision Pep would
have approved of if only they had given him the nod.

Because even if Guardiola is little known to the rest of Europe,
outside his adoring Catalonia — where he cut his teeth as a
14-year-old ball boy during Terry Venables’ triumphant La
Liga-winning first season and then stood proud at Wembley in
1992 when Barca won their first European Cup — it is vital to
understand that he is almost OCD about football.

Rafa Benitez? Fergie? Arsene Wenger? If you pinned Guardiola to a
challenge he would bet all his Italian suits and his CD collection
that he could name more Albanian second division right backs and the
last three groundsmen for Crewe Alexandra.

Xavi says: “Pep’s almost got a sickness for football.

“He never stops or draws breath. He just works, studies, researches
and then he’s on the players like a hungry hawk.”The young Pep
Guardiola also modelled Antonio Miro fashion at the Barcelona
spring fashion festival Passarella Gaudi.

But for female footie fans who swooned just like when Jaunty Jose
strode elegantly on to the English scene, the bad news is there is
already someone who suffers for Guardiola’s compulsive work ethic.

Indeed his partner Cristina is so long-suffering she had to allow
him to accept the first negotiations to become Barca coach last
May — a couple of hours after she had given birth to their third
daughter, Valentina.

A knock came at the hospital room door and Barca president Joan
Laporta stuck his head into the gap. “Nice work on the little one
but can we have our Pep back, please?” was the gist.

One remarkable year on, Valentina is starting to walk, the
Guardiola family gave her one heck of a first birthday party
and Daddy has three trophies.

As the world gets to know Guardiola, the conductor of the orchestra
as he was known in his playing pomp, it must seem he’s lived a
charmed life. But he has suffered too.

We like to have it both ways, the paying and adoring public. If
our footballers misbehave they are uncouth yobs. If they show any
interest in fashion, philosophy or art then half the fans think they
must be gay.

Nasty, unfounded urban myths dogged Guardiola towards the end of his
playing days with Barcelona, to the extent that the man who
discovered Leo Messi, agent Josep Maria Minguella, recently
published a book where he claims Guardiola was partly inspired
to seek pastures new because “people around the club and in the
media began to speculate about his private life and to claim he
was gay”.

When this proud Catalan is angry, the power and the heat is like
lava - and that explains his regular orderings from the bench by
a variety of referees this season.

But he kept his counsel and the vicious rumour-mongers were left
without the satisfaction of a response.

Then when Italian football won his signature, despite negotiations
with Sir Alex Ferguson about signing for United and a three-day
trial at Manchester City, he was falsely accused of using
performance-enhancing substances.

Nandrolone was the substance allegedly found in his system, months
after joining Brescia. From the moment he was given a four-month ban,
a ￡40,000 fine and a seven-month suspended jail sentence, he fought,
like a cornered Gurkha, to prove his case.

Mystique

Even without Joanna Lumley’s support, he won, and six years later
all charges were dropped and the findings overturned.

If you go against Pep Guardiola you get your facts right and you
get ready for war.

These days he doesn’t have so much time for Catalan cinema,
South American politics — even for his wife and kids.

When he had the merest of Christmas breaks this season he took
Cristina and the kids for a special break to compensate — Aston
Villa against Arsenal.

And therein lies the next part of the Guardiola mystique.

He and his assistant, Tito Vilanova, have already stated that the
chances of them choosing to remain at Barca for more than another
season or two are limited.

Vilanova explains: “The intensity of our work and the propensity
for burn-out at Barca indicate that’s the way to plan.”Guardiola
is a fan of Arsenal’s play, has long-time friends at the club, is
the idol of Cesc Fabregas and goes to see them on his free days at
Christmas. He is also hungry like Fergie, almost joined United as a
player and has just undressed them in the Champions League final.

Do the maths. Pep Guardiola is hot, hot, hot — and not just for
his chiseled looks and haute couture frame.

Coming to a top Premier League club near you soon, Pep Guardiola,
— intellectual, ex-model, leader of men, nemesis of United and the
new, improved Jose Mourinho.

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推 Catalan:and Daddy has three trophies.
推 DemetrioTai:球隊應該盡一切力量留住 Pep跟Vilanova, 這比簽誰都重
→ DemetrioTai:要, 多付他幾倍薪水都值得. 另外說到時尚還是Rijkaard
→ DemetrioTai:樂勝吧XD
推 Savagey:Rijkaard是雅痞Model，Pep是搖滾巨星 XD
推 morphogen:M *1,  XL*!共兩件 謝謝!
→ morphogen:推錯篇不好意思