In our second exclusive extract from the new book on Pep Guardiola’s Etihad reign, Marti Perarnau, the man closest to the best coach in the world, reveals how Lionel Messi flirted with his mentor and why the City boss turned down Cristiano Ronaldo.
Pep Guardiola is reeling after City are dumped out of the Champions League by Lyon. As he heads home for a much-needed holiday, he receives a message from his former protege who is fed up with life at Barcelona…
It all starts with a WhatsApp sent by Sergio Aguero to the City squad. ‘Something big might be happening. Leo’s just asked me how long Pep has left on his contract.’
Everyone back in Manchester is immediately buzzing but Pep, on a flight back from Lisbon, doesn’t see the message for several hours.
Pep reads the text: Leo’s asked when my contract expires. It’s not clear what’s behind Messi’s question. Perhaps Barca are hoping to lure Aguero away from City so the two friends can partner up? Pep decides not to waste any more time on it.
Fifteen hours later he’s back in the air. This time aboard the small private plane he uses for his trips to Barcelona. Coaches Juanma Lillo and Lorenzo Buenaventura are with him, en route to a well-earned break. As they touch down in Barcelona, Pep switches his phone back on. There’s a message. Just five words: ‘Hi Pep: how are you?’
It’s 4pm on August 17, 2020, and Pep’s head is throbbing. They’ve been unceremoniously knocked out of the Champions League by Lyon. The lowest point of an utterly miserable season. It’s hit him hard. His players are suffering too. There’s a sense of stunned disbelief in the squad and some players are still angry: even furious. Others are just down in the dumps.
Now, in Barcelona, Pep’s looking forward to two weeks of holiday before he returns to the grey skies of Manchester to start his fifth season with City.
Unbeknown to Pep, Messi is also struggling with a major headache of his own. For the past four days, he’s been brooding over the 8-2 mauling handed out to Barcelona by Bayern Munich. Shame. Humiliation. Their worst result in living memory. It’s all too painful and Messi has come to a decision. It’s time to take the initiative. He needs to move on.
Perhaps Pep has a place in his squad for his former protege.
In another part of Barcelona, Pep’s still feeling the effects of his sore head when his phone buzzes.
They meet the next day. Twelve o’clock at Pep’s place. It’s the second time they’ve met like this. The last time was in the summer of 2016 when Messi was facing a 21-month prison sentence for tax fraud and looking for a lifeline.
A move to City seemed like a possible option. His dad, Jorge, contacted City’s chief executive Ferran Soriano, who asked Pep to meet with the player. For the first time in years the two men met up in Barcelona, at Leo’s house on that occasion.
It was clear to Pep that Messi was serious about City potentially offering a practical solution to his problems but the coach didn’t detect a whole lot of enthusiasm for the move. Sure enough, within days, the player had begun to change his mind. Suddenly Manchester lost its appeal and the whole thing came to nothing.
Four years on, the situation’s very different. Messi’s frustration with Barcelona has mounted with each Champions League elimination over the last few years. He’s rapidly losing patience with his club. Which is why he’s here, sitting on Pep’s huge sofa, ready to talk. ‘Boss, I just want to go as far as I possibly can. I still want to do great things.’
The pair of them are still talking six-and-a-half hours later.
They’ve never had this kind of long, intense conversation before. Back at Barca, whenever they chatted it was always about the game, the tactics to be used or their next opponent.
But they’ve both changed a lot since then. The quiet, reserved kid, who only seemed to come fully alive with a ball at his feet, is now a grown man. With a beard!
This is an adult who knows what he wants and has carefully considered everything he’s about to say. A professional, with an exhaustive knowledge of football, who speaks with precision and intelligence. Pep’s heard how much Messi’s changed but now he’s witnessing it for himself. And today, it’s Leo who does most of the talking.
Messi has a very specific purpose. Sick and tired of the way he’s been treated, and of the dishonesty and betrayal he feels he’s had to put up with. He’s ready to leave.
Pep can relate. He himself feels he had to put up with similar treatment as a player, meted out by then club president Josep Lluis Nunez, who had also seemed to take against Johan Cruyff and do everything he could to push the great Dutch coach out of the club. Pep, as a new coach, had similar problems under president Sandro Rosell.
In Johan Cruyff, Pep Guardiola and Leo Messi, the club had three of their brightest and most brilliant sons, all of them skewered on the lance of mediocrity.
So no, Pep doesn’t need the details. He understands exactly what Messi’s saying.
‘You do know that it rains a lot in Manchester?’
Everyone understands what’s at stake. Pep makes it clear he’ll be willing to extend his contract if the move goes through. Jorge and Soriano will handle the negotiations. Messi still has a year left on his contract and has a release clause of €700million (£600m).
Nobody thinks that will present insurmountable problems and the club surely owe Messi, not least for his refusal to speak publicly about the disgraceful treatment he feels he’s endured.
Today, Pep discovers in Messi a man who is surprisingly well-informed about world football. It’s obvious that he has superb football vision and a precise grasp of the concepts, tactical variants and innovations they chat about.
They discuss Liverpool and Bayern, Antonio Conte and Thomas Tuchel, Kevin De Bruyne and Kalidou Koulibaly. Pep talks him through City’s squad, their new signings and the defenders he’s got his eye on. Leo has opinions on all of it.
It’s clear to Pep that Messi joining City will bring so much more than a reunion with his former star player. It would mean an immediate, gigantic shot of adrenaline for the team – still struggling and in a state of shock after their Champions League elimination. It’s all that Pep’s been able to talk about: ‘How on earth am I going to keep these players motivated now?’
And his technical staff feel exactly the same way. After the Lisbon debacle the team will need more than new signings, some tactical innovations and a few motivational speeches.
Lionel Messi could be the answer to all their problems, the missing link that turns everything around. It would be a great move for both the player and the coach.
At six o’clock on that Tuesday evening in August, the idea of getting to work together again appeals to them both.
‘We train hard in Manchester…’
‘Doesn’t bother me. I’m ready for hard work.’
‘And I still give long tactical talks. Maybe you’ll get bored…’
‘I’ll cope, I can cope with anything you throw at me.’
‘Leo, we’re both much older than we were. Maybe we won’t get on now.’
‘Pep, I just want the chance to do great things, to feel like I’m ready to smash it again.’
At 6.30pm they say goodbye with a warm hug. It’s not going to be easy but if they pull this off, there’s no knowing what they can achieve.
On September 3, a text from Bernardo Silva arrives: ‘Is it true about Messi?’
‘How would you feel about him coming?’
‘I’d run twice as much!’
The excitement’s mounting at the prospect of Messi joining City’s ranks.
It’s that sense of excited anticipation that the team’s been lacking. There’s a general sense of complacency. A combination of egos swollen by all their past successes plus the departure of Mikel Arteta to become Arsenal manager has led to a definite, if subtle, dip in standards.
At the end of their short break, Pep and Lillo use the flight back to Manchester to draw up hypothetical plans. When the opposition have possession both of them see Leo stationed near the centre circle, forcing their opponents to play on the outside, where City will be more aggressive in winning back the ball. When City have the ball, Messi will move up towards the box, bringing his team-mates with him.
For the time being, of course, it’s nothing more than an intellectual exercise. Everything has to fall into place before they can start to plan for real.
Sure enough, Messi doesn’t show up at Barcelona for the post-summer Covid testing. But, unfortunately, it’s also looking increasingly likely he won’t be making an appearance in Manchester any time soon.
Negotiations have tailed off. Then Jorge Messi reaches an agreement with Barcelona.
Eager to avoid getting into a protracted legal dispute with the club, Messi has decided to stay for one more year.
There will no reunion for Pep and Leo after all.
Cristiano was no colossus any more
November 6, 2021
It’s derby day and City win 2-0 at Manchester United. There is one moment that shows why Guardiola gave a resounding ‘No’ to signing Cristiano Ronaldo when the striker came calling months earlier, before he rocked up again at Old Trafford.
United are being taken to the cleaners in the so-called Theatre of Dreams. Derby day in Manchester finally has its lifeblood again – Old Trafford can let fans in once more, now that pandemic restrictions have been eased.
It’s precisely 20 months since the last derby was played in front of a crowd of seething, baying fans and the home side are playing calamitously. City fly out of the traps.
City’s grasp of positional play delights their coach with special mentions in dispatches to Bernardo Silva, who ghosts in and out of the false 9 position, and the ‘free electron’ Joao Cancelo. The latter, central to unlocking City’s magic right now, adds to the three assists he provided in Bruges the other night with two more against City’s city rivals.
Five in a week – hats off to Joao.
The lead takes six minutes to achieve. Cancelo’s cross, Eric Bailly’s uncoordinated own goal. Between the 28th and 34th minutes, David de Gea saves United’s blushes and what look like being four stick-on goals. This is a hurricane in sky blue.
Total domination, which might have ended in a record win but for the Spanish keeper – which explains his horrified expression, and the desolation of team-mates all around him, when Silva materialises behind United’s heavily populated defensive line to make it 2-0 just before the break.
Silva’s moment follows 86 seconds and 26 passes of City smarts. It starts when Cristiano Ronaldo is trying to counter-attack but wastes his pass.
This is no longer the majestic goalscoring colossus of years gone by. Far from that version, if truth be told.
He offered himself to City last summer but Pep wasn’t interested. There’s no question at all that Guardiola respects his immense ability to finish chances as well as his superb physical condition, but how could this type of player fit into the precision machine the Catalan has painstakingly and strategically built at City?
Thanks but no thanks, Cristiano. Not even after City’s attempt to sign Harry Kane and buy an outright centre forward ended in failure.
The Pep Revolution (Ebury Spotlight, £22) is out today. © Marti Perarnau 2024. To order a copy for £19.80 go to www.mailshop.co.uk/books or call 020 3176 2937.
