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| Pep talk | |
| Suveen K Sinha / New Delhi May 31, 2009, 0:08 IST | |
Barcelona coach Pep Guardiola has shown that age is a mere number when it comes to football.
Last month, the British news media, often a cheerleading squad for Manchester United, accused FC Barcelona of being a side too ornate and too brittle. It did not matter that Barca had already won La Liga and the Copa del Rey. As Barca and United faced off last Wednesday in the final of the Champions League, the ultimate prize in world club football, many focused on the battle of the superstars: Barca’s Lionel Messi against United’s Cristiano Ronaldo.
Barca’s resounding 2-0 victory in Rome has moved the spotlight to its manager, Pep Guardiola. So much so that when Guardiola lectures at a coaching conference this summer, the audience will already have many converts to his mantra of Recovering Possession, instead of the age-old wisdom of pass-and-move. When Barcelona president Joan Laporta announced in May last year that Guardiola would succeed Frank Rijkaard as the first team manager, there were many sceptical voices. Barcelona had gone trophy-less the last three seasons. Guardiola was still seen as somewhat wet-behind-the-ears.
Pessimists wrote him off immediately as Barca kicked its La Liga campaign with a loss to Numancia. But Guardiola couldn’t care less. He is just 38, fresh out of his playing boots. (United is under the tutelage of Alex Ferguson, 67, who took charge at the English club before the Berlin Wall had fallen.) He went about his job chanting Creative Possession. And in Wednesday’s final, his team produced collective control and concentration that marry beauty with efficacy.
The transformation has been drastic. Of Barca’s starting XI in Rome, only one — Gerard Piqué — was not there last season when Barcelona finished empty-handed, 18 points behind Madrid.
With this, Guardiola has challenged the clichés in his first season itself. Experience is not age; it is about the knack of solving problems. Defending is not just about building a wall to block the opposition; it can be also about keeping the ball in your possession, away from the opponents. Barca does not build its moves from the back; it builds them from within the opposition’s half, relying on winning the ball, not dropping it off, and then using close control and passing.
Guardiola is unambiguous and focused. He has imposed discipline and rules — six players were fined the day after the Copa del Rey final for arriving one minute late to training.
Guardiola, himself, played for Barca with distinction, helping to end a 37-year ache to win the European Cup for the first time in 1992, at the hub of Johann Cruyff’s “dream team”. After winning Wednesday’s final, he joked that, with nothing left to win, he was ready to quit. If he carried out this mock threat, the legend will perhaps only grow stronger.
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