Source:- The Guardian
Summer 2008,
Barcelona lose 1–0 in Soria against little Numancia on the opening day of the league season.
A tough debut for the revolutionary man, Pep Guardiola.
It manufactured even more harder for pep when the result isn’t much better in second league game against Racing Santander, a 1–1 draw at the Camp Nou.
Bottled up anger, trapped like a fluid in a sealed container.
Two weeks into Guardiola’s career in charge of Barcelona’sfirst team and they still haven’t won. Pressure builds, the criticism is intense. But Guardiola remains steadfast. Sergio Busquets and Pedro Rodríguez, then two virtually unknown players from Tercera División, Spain’s fourth tier, are in the team. There are doubts, of course. Concerns. “This Barcelona looks very, very good,” Cruyff writes in his weekly column for El Periódico de Catalunya. “I don’t knowwhat game the rest of you watched; the one I watched was unlike any I have seen at the Camp Nou in a long time.” Cruyff, the great ideologue of the Catalan club, its philosopher king, had seen Guardiola coach the B team and was impressed; now he stands against the tide, alone in defending him. [ Marcos López and Ramón Besa]
“The worst start to a season in many years. Just one goal scored, and that was a penalty. That’s an inescapable truth, numerically speaking,” he admits.
But in footballing terms, this must be read a different way. Guardiola himself agonised over those decisions too. He was holed up in his Camp Nou office, down in the basement where there was no natural light, going over the situation again and again, rewinding and replaying the videos, re-reading his notes, wondering what to change but convinced of one thing: his idea, Cruyff’s idea, had to be maintained. He would persevere, however hard it became. And support was about to come from an unexpected source. He was still going over it, endlessly, when he heard a knock at the door. “Come in.”
“Hello,míster.”A small figure poked his head around the door, and spoke calmly. “Don’t worry,míster. We’ll win it all. We’re on the right path. Carry on like this, OK? We’re playing brilliantly, we’re enjoying training. Please, don’t change anything,” said Andrés Iniesta. And Guardiola couldn't fokin believe it.
Oh.... ♥ Illusionista.
