Pep Guardiola: Another Way of Winning: The Biography by Guillem Balagué Read Free Book Online Page A

three-storey edifice just off the main road, in an area dotted with new-build properties. As you head towards the centre of Santpedor, a few dilapidated factories
remind you of the village’s more recent industrial past and provide a stark contrast to the medieval archways. Santpedor is the kind of village where people greet one another in the streets,
whether they know each other or not. And those who do know each other stop for a chat about the same topics, as any other day. The broad roads start to merge into narrow labyrinths, centuries-old
streets winding their way towards Santpedor’s two main squares, the Plaça Gran and the Plaça de la Generalitat. The latter also used to be known as the Plaça de Berga,
but now it is more commonly referred to as ‘the square where Guardiola was born’.
    On any given morning in 1979, a skinny ten-year-old boy would come out of number 15 Plaça de la Generalitat and walk the fewsteps towards the centre of the square
with a football under his arm. Known to the locals as ‘Guardi’, the kid, with spindly legs like twigs, would call out for his friends, including a girl named Pilar, to join him. He
would kick the ball against the wall until enough of his mates had arrived for a kickabout.
    PlayStations didn’t exist back then and there were hardly enough cars on the roads to justify traffic lights or to pose any real danger to a bunch of kids engrossed in a game of street
football. Pep would play before going to school, on his way home from school. He’d take the ball everywhere to have a kickabout at breaktime, at lunchtime, in the cobbled streets, around the
fountains. He was even known to practise football during family dinners and his mother would tire of berating him, ‘Leave that ball alone for five minutes and get yourself over here!’
Like so many kids and so many mothers in towns and villages all over the world.
    Back then everything was much more relaxed; there was less ‘protocol’, less ‘bureaucracy’, as Guardiola puts it. You’d go down to the square with the football and
you’d play until it was too dark to see the ball: it was that simple. You didn’t need to go to a proper pitch or organise matches, nor set a time to play. There were no goalposts or
nets, and nor were there signs warning kids that they couldn’t play ballgames either.
    A metal garage door served as the goal and there were always arguments over who would be the keeper. Pilar never wanted to be the goalie; she had quite a kick and a good first touch – and
for more than a decade the women’s team in a neighbouring village would enjoy the benefits of her hours of practice with Pep and the gang.
    There were always disputes about who got to have Pep in their team. The tactics were clear: give him the ball so that he could control the game. All his friends were aware that he was better
than the rest, that he had something that the others didn’t have. In the end, to avoid arguments, it was decided that Pep would be the one to choose the two teams – so that they were of
more or less equal ability – and it also meant that from an early age, without hesitation, Pep assumed his role as a leader.
    And when, in one of those street football games that might last the whole of Saturday or Sunday, one of the kids damaged something in the square with a wild shot, a smile
from Pep would always get him and the rest of his friends out of trouble.
    Nowadays, cars can drive through the square and even park in the centre. It’s no longer a place where kids can play.
    When Pep returned to Barcelona to coach the reserve team, brief getaways to Santpedor and long walks in the surrounding countryside became a regular occurrence. Reflective to the point of
bordering on meditation, Pep also made numerous trips to his village when he was debating about making the jump from the reserves to the first team. Although it was hardly seen during the four
years that he was changing the football