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MARTI PERARNAU
THERE is a date Pep Guardiola remembers every year. It is not the birthday of a family member, nor the date he won a trophy, nor the day he made his debut as a player. He never forgets this date. It is May 22. Six years ago, his wife Cristina and daughters Maria and Valentina were attending a concert very close to where they lived at the time, on Deansgate, one of Manchester's main streets. As life would have it, the three left the Manchester Arena one minute before a terrorist detonated a bomb that killed 23 people and injured more than 100 others. For Pep it is an indelible memory that in the days that followed turned into a deep affection for the people of Manchester. I remember his emotion as he listened to the poet Tony Walsh read, in a cracking voice, the vibrant poem Choose Love at a vigil in Albert Square. The emotion of the resounding, 'This is the place...', the forcefulness of, 'Always remember. Never forget. Forever Manchester. Choose love'. It was on that day Pep began to feel truly Mancunian. Later he opened a restaurant, Tast Catala, with friends; he ordered flat caps from tailors Williams & Gill on the advice of Mike Summerbee; he walked up and down Deansgate on hundreds of nights on the arm of Cristina; he decided to cycle to training; he bought a spacious flat with a good view of the city; he enjoyed like a child every time a ray of sunshine lit up the club's training complex; and, in short, he put down roots in Manchester because he felt 'this is the place'. The most important thing for Pep is to feel loved. And this is exactly what he feels in Manchester. I am talking about the blue part of Manchester, but it is possible the red part of the city has respect for him. Pep feels that the people of Manchester love him and he tries to reciprocate this feeling.
His way of doing this is to study his opponents, to come up with innovative tactics, to encourage his players when they go through bad periods, and to always keep the club's flag flying high. From time to time he uncorks a bottle of champagne and smokes a Havana cigar because there is a party to celebrate another title. And that makes 13 Havana cigars smoked in seven years. He is happy in Manchester even though there are only 77 days of sunshine a year. In the absence of sunshine there are good golf courses, even if Pep has only a few hours free to play. It certainly won't be now that he hits the greens because these two finals have been taking up all his energy. He has learned to look no further than the next game, so only now will he think about Inter Milan in the final. His approach to a final has not changed. Pep is behaving the same today as he did in 2009 when he led Barcelona to the treble. Pep understands football like golf. Holes are played one at a time and not all 18 at once. And after a hole, whether you have made birdie or bogey, you must forget about it, erase it from your mind and focus on the next hole.
His recipe consists of studying in depth how the opponent plays and what weaknesses they have, training these details and fielding the 11 best suited to attack in the way he imagines leading up to the match. You might think it is very simple, far from the sophistication with which Guardiola is portrayed, but it is the reality. In the training session before the semi-final against Real Madrid, the word he used most often was 'simple'. He wanted every player to do things as simply as possible. Pep is very simple. He likes bread with tomato, fried eggs with beans, a glass of good wine. He likes to walk around Manchester, he greets whoever greets him, he enjoys talking about football and his great pleasure is playing a round of 18 until he is exhausted. One day he told me: 'We only think about winning trophies and titles, but they are just pieces of metal, and what really matters is the affection of the people.' In 2017, when he had not yet won any titles at City, he felt that people loved him and this made him think he could live in this city for many years. Today he has no doubt that 'this is the place'. Marti Perarnau is a Spanish sports writer who has written numerous books on his friend Pep Guardiola.
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