A well-deserved rest
It will soon be two decades since Joan Laporta chose Pep Guardiola as first team coach. Besides showing a few more gray hairs, can you imagine what the course of our Barça would have been if José Mourinho had taken the reins of the bench? Laporta, with all his lights and shadows, chose with his heart. And he was absolutely right. No one can doubt his intuition: Hansi Flick is the contemporary example. Guardiola arrived at the bench after winning the Third Division league with Barça Atlètic. A title that he has always made a point of valuing in an extensive and successful record that, if it doesn't make him the best coach in history (for the one writing these lines, he is), it's close.
Not a few fans, when Guardiola was managing the reserve team with professionalism despite being in a lower category, would go to the different stadiums in Catalonia to see his Barça. From that team, Busquets and Pedro (then still Pedrito) eventually stood out, whom the coach from Santpedor did not hesitate to take to the elite. Busquets became a legend and Pedro played more than 300 games as a Barça player. Today we are used to seeing a team full of homegrown youngsters, but Guardiola did not hesitate to let go of some of the big names in the locker room and give opportunities to little-known boys. He believed, and his confidence was contagious.
It is difficult to write about that first season of Guardiola in the first team and not get emotional. Football is a matter of skin, of emotions, of feelings. And Guardiola launched them all radically. How happy we were. Catalans, so fearful at times, so prudent, we walked with puffed chests through Europe: he built a team that was the pride of his great master, Johan Cruyff, and that placed itself at the center of the football planet's radar. Iniesta's goal at Stamford Bridge. The 2-6 at the Santiago Bernabéu. That month of May 2009 will stay with us forever more. Again: how happy we were and we were thanks to a Catalan coach, from the club, who loved the club and identified with the country, with Catalonia.
But all stories have a beginning and an end. At Barça, his departure came too soon. Guardiola needs an environment in which to feel comfortable. Not that they flatter him, but that he feels they are rowing in the same direction. He didn't have that with Sandro Rosell. We were forced to celebrate his titles first at Bayern and, then, at City. In Manchester, Ferran Soriano and Txiki Begiristain built him an ideal ecosystem. The second left the ship, it was time to go home. Many of his trusted technicians were no longer in the staff.
After ten seasons, Guardiola says enough. He had accepted that this season could be the last, but he renewed for two (the second, optional) to avoid questions throughout the season. Enzo Maresca, who knows the club, has worked with Guardiola and managed the 'citizen's' reserve team, will take over. Almost twenty titles in ten years in England, with one Champions League included. Well-deserved rest, Pep.