One of the songs played on the loudspeakers and portable speakers in the Manchester City dressing room was Everywhere, a hit from the English band Fleetwood Mac in the eighties, which the citizen supporters cover in their chants. Wherever he is, Pep Guardiola’s triumphs are celebrated hundreds of kilometers away, in Barcelona, ​​his home, where he was educated, where he made history as a player and coach. At the same time, the coach of Santpedor, in his great successes, usually always remembers FC Barcelona, ​​where his stage always had a deceptive unfinished flavor. He takes the club to his heart, cradle, keeps good friends there, starting with the box with president Laporta and continuing with the bench with Xavi. Barça also has a lot to do with its coaching staff and with City’s sports leadership, where it sends the Catalan club.
The last four finals of the Champions League have ended the same, 1-0. But to Guardiola the result and Saturday’s game reminded him of another 1-0, with which Barça lifted their first European Cup. The rival, like Inter, was also Italian. “Winning this competition is always difficult. I remember when Barça won it for the first time: we challenged Sampdoria and it was a very similar game to this one against Inter. we suffered There was an incredible player like Ronald Koeman who decided that game. It’s not easy to win”, he analyzed, with Blaugrana reminiscences.
The parallelism in Istanbul was served and sung because the Champions League resisted him since he left the Camp Nou, as if it were a wandering curse of Béla Guttmann. It had been 12 years since he crowned himself at Wembley in 2011 with a display of football in the final against Manchester United. Then he just turned 40 and seemed to have all the answers. Now he has more than 50 and his success lies in metabolizing other types of football and expanding his records. And they asked him to compare his sensations. “It’s been so long since I won the other Champions Leagues that I no longer remember what I felt. Barça was always special to me. Winning there has a different flavor”, he confessed his unconditional love for the Barça institution. “And here they have treated me like a son”, he discovered.
In that relationship of almost paternal protection that he has lived at the Etihad Stadium, his comfort and longevity in a project that is a priori alien but that in practice he has taken care to focus only on his work is also explained. No more wear and tear to think about the next opponent. “They support me unconditionally in the defeats of this tournament. In many clubs, if this happens, they fire you”, he said on Saturday about the trust he has received, not forgetting the investment of almost 1,000 million euros.
Guardiola has two more years of contract, until 2025. No one doubts that he will fulfill them in full and this will mean completing nine seasons at the club, nothing to do with the extra pressure that Can Barça experienced between 2008 and 2012. “There are four years and time wears everything out. I’m empty and I need to fill up”, he announced on April 28, 2012 to explain that he would not renew for Sandro Rosell’s Barcelona.
He won 14 titles (out of a possible 19) in his four seasons as coach of the Barça first team. And the Istanbul Champions League was also the fourteenth trophy (out of 32 he has opted for) that Manchester City has won under his tenure. Everything seems to indicate that there will be one more after becoming the first coach with two trebles.
“It’s been 14 years since we won the treble with Barça and 14 was Johan Cruyff’s number. Many beautiful things had to happen”, was another wink from Pep, this time with his teacher.
It does not seem that it has to be the last success of the Santpedor coach. Surely someone in his management team is already thinking about the European Super Cup against Sevilla in August, in Athens, or that in mid-December, knowing that the Premier League does not stop for Christmas, he will have to travel to Arabia Saudi Arabia to compete in the Club World Cup. Or even a little further.
“My president told me: ‘Next season the final is in London, at Wembley’,” he said revealing a conversation with Khaldoon al-Mubarak. “I will not tell you my answer. I’m not talking about that. Before that I need a rest”. But Wembley and Guardiola always go well together.
