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

world as coach of the best team on the planet, his presence is felt in various corners of the village. The football stadium bears his name; his photograph
adorns several bars; there is a plaque on a stone in the centre of the square dedicated to FC Barcelona by the local supporters club, which, by the way, has gained one hundred additional members in
the past four years. The popularity of grass-roots football has grown to such an extent that the handball teams have dwindled. The children from the village only want to play football. And they
will proudly tell you that they are from Pep Guardiola’s village: Santpedor.
    So, there’s a bit of Pep in Santpedor, but there’s also clearly a lot of Santpedor in Pep. The whispered conversations you hear around here are in Catalan, along with signs and
street names. The
senyera
– the Catalan flag – hangs from many balconies and graffiti on several abandoned buildings echo people’s sentiments for their nation and their
strong sense of Catalan identity. The vilage even had the honour of being named ‘Carrer de Barcelona’, a medieval Catalan distinction with all the privileges and taxes that came with
it. Santpedor was a ‘road to Barcelona’, the capital of Catalonia and Guardiola’s life-changing destination.
    Pep is a very proud Catalan. An educated and courteous individual, he takes after his parents, the Guardiolas and the Salas, who are likeany other parents in the village:
modest and respectable. They sowed the seed. Or was it sown originally by Santpedor?
    Pep’s friend David Trueba thinks both of them did: ‘Nobody has paid any attention to the fundamental fact that Guardiola is a bricklayer’s son. For Pep, his father,
Valentí, is an example of integrity and hard work. The family he has grown up with, in Santpedor, has instilled old values in him, values from a time in which parents didn’t have money
or property to hand down to their children, just dignity and principles. When it comes to analysing or judging Guardiola, you must bear in mind the fact that underneath the elegant suit, the
cashmere jumper and the tie, is the son of a bricklayer. Inside those expensive Italian shoes there is a heart in espadrilles.’
    When Pep thinks back to his childhood in the village, to his parents, to the long games in the square, he doesn’t recall a specific moment, but a feeling: happiness. Joy in its purest,
most simple form. And that sensation comes back to him whenever he returns to visit his parents, or his auntie Carmen or uncle José, or any of the relatives still living in Santpedor, and
sits with them in the village square: until a legion of admirers gatecrashes his privacy and the moment is lost.
    Back when he was a kid, and the sun had set on that village square, the young Pep would head home and set the ball in a corner of his bedroom, a modest space decorated by little more than a
poster featuring Michel Platini: the face of football when Guardiola was ten years old. Guardiola had never seen him play – in those days television did not show much international football
– but he had heard his dad and grandad talk about the ability of the Juventus player, his leadership and his aura. All that Pep knew about Platini were those wise words of his elders and that
poster of the elegant Frenchman – caressing the ball, head up, surveying the pitch and picking his next pass. The attraction was instant. Five years later, a young Camp Nou ball boy named Pep
Guardiola would earnestly try to get Platini’s autograph at the end of a match – but in failing he ended up learning a key lesson. That story will be told later.
    A good student in his days at the village convent school, Pep was known as a
tros de pa
– a bit of bread, as they say in Catalan,‘a well-behaved child’ – soaking
up knowledge, always willing tohelp in church. Just about the closest Guardi came to rebellion was disappearing early on the odd occasion his dad asked him to