A Different League: He agreed to allow former athlete Perarnau to take a seat alongside him cataloguing the highs and lows
“This is what I want: for the first 10 minutes I want you to kill the
game and shatter Arsenal’s confidence,” he told his players in his
team-talk ahead of the Champions League last-16 first leg at the
Emirates in February.
The attempt at smothering Arsenal with the tiki-taka – that he admits in the book to hating – before starting what he calls “the real game” when the opposition begin to lose their early energy, failed miserably as Bayern squandered possession and only recovered from their terrible start when Mesut Özil missed an early penalty and Wojciech Szczesny was sent off.
It is one of many Guardiola team-talks that Perarnau collected as the Bayern coach’s shadow last season. During his one-year sabbatical the previous season, Guardiola had a conversation with his friend, the film director David Trueba, who suggested it had been a shame that his four-year reign at the Nou Camp had not been documented on film.
Guardiola – who may or may not have seen the Graham Taylor documentary An Impossible Job – told his friend that a camera in the dressing room would have been far too intrusive. But having mulled over Trueba’s suggestion he agreed to allow Catalan writer and former athlete Perarnau to do the next best thing and take a seat alongside him, carefully cataloguing the highs and lows of his first year in charge of Bayern.
Little in football fascinates like a headstrong coach taking charge of an uncompromising club and the strain showed on both sides at times last season. After Real Madrid beat Bayern 1-0 in the first leg of their Champions League semi-final, Franz Beckenbauer was not slow to remind everyone: “Possession is meaningless if you give chances away.”
When Bayern lost the second leg by four goals, the knives were well and truly out. But club chairman Karl-Heinz Rummenigge told Perarnau that faith in the coach is not about to waver despite admitting he had never seen Guardiola so defeated.
The story of that semi-final is one of the highlights of the book, with Perarnau privy to Guardiola breaking one of his golden rules and going into the dressing room – the players’ sanctuary from everyone, including their coach – straight after the game to tell them he got it spectacularly wrong.
Perarnau is also there on the night Manuel Pellegrini got his sums wrong in Munich and failed to push for a fourth goal that would have seen Manchester City top the group instead of Bayern. “Kill the game Thomas, get them to kill it off – they mustn’t score again,” Guardiola told midfielder Thomas Müller, despite the fact that it goes against his Barça instinct to always go for another goal.
Perarnau also tells how Guardiola tries to reignite Bayern’s season after they win the Bundesliga so early it causes them to relax. In a team meeting he explains that when he gets home and opens a bottle of wine to share with his wife over dinner he is still thinking about his players and the various ways he can help them. “I reflect on all the things I can do to support you,” he says. “But the one thing I cannot do is run for you.”
He shows them a short video that demonstrates how their tempo has dropped and adds: “It happens to everyone after a bit of success. But we have to believe that if we don’t run, we’re nothing.”
It is not the fly-on-the-wall documentary Trueba wanted, but Perarnau’s portrait of what happened when a manager who had won everything joined a club that had also just won everything, is the next best thing.
‘Pep Confidential: The Inside Story of Pep Guardiola’s first season at Bayern Munich’ is published in English by BackPage Press/Arena Sport on 16 October.
The attempt at smothering Arsenal with the tiki-taka – that he admits in the book to hating – before starting what he calls “the real game” when the opposition begin to lose their early energy, failed miserably as Bayern squandered possession and only recovered from their terrible start when Mesut Özil missed an early penalty and Wojciech Szczesny was sent off.
It is one of many Guardiola team-talks that Perarnau collected as the Bayern coach’s shadow last season. During his one-year sabbatical the previous season, Guardiola had a conversation with his friend, the film director David Trueba, who suggested it had been a shame that his four-year reign at the Nou Camp had not been documented on film.
Guardiola – who may or may not have seen the Graham Taylor documentary An Impossible Job – told his friend that a camera in the dressing room would have been far too intrusive. But having mulled over Trueba’s suggestion he agreed to allow Catalan writer and former athlete Perarnau to do the next best thing and take a seat alongside him, carefully cataloguing the highs and lows of his first year in charge of Bayern.
Little in football fascinates like a headstrong coach taking charge of an uncompromising club and the strain showed on both sides at times last season. After Real Madrid beat Bayern 1-0 in the first leg of their Champions League semi-final, Franz Beckenbauer was not slow to remind everyone: “Possession is meaningless if you give chances away.”
When Bayern lost the second leg by four goals, the knives were well and truly out. But club chairman Karl-Heinz Rummenigge told Perarnau that faith in the coach is not about to waver despite admitting he had never seen Guardiola so defeated.
The story of that semi-final is one of the highlights of the book, with Perarnau privy to Guardiola breaking one of his golden rules and going into the dressing room – the players’ sanctuary from everyone, including their coach – straight after the game to tell them he got it spectacularly wrong.
Perarnau is also there on the night Manuel Pellegrini got his sums wrong in Munich and failed to push for a fourth goal that would have seen Manchester City top the group instead of Bayern. “Kill the game Thomas, get them to kill it off – they mustn’t score again,” Guardiola told midfielder Thomas Müller, despite the fact that it goes against his Barça instinct to always go for another goal.
Perarnau also tells how Guardiola tries to reignite Bayern’s season after they win the Bundesliga so early it causes them to relax. In a team meeting he explains that when he gets home and opens a bottle of wine to share with his wife over dinner he is still thinking about his players and the various ways he can help them. “I reflect on all the things I can do to support you,” he says. “But the one thing I cannot do is run for you.”
He shows them a short video that demonstrates how their tempo has dropped and adds: “It happens to everyone after a bit of success. But we have to believe that if we don’t run, we’re nothing.”
It is not the fly-on-the-wall documentary Trueba wanted, but Perarnau’s portrait of what happened when a manager who had won everything joined a club that had also just won everything, is the next best thing.
‘Pep Confidential: The Inside Story of Pep Guardiola’s first season at Bayern Munich’ is published in English by BackPage Press/Arena Sport on 16 October.
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