Adrian Maladesky
08/26/2020 - 20:06
- Clarín.com
- sports
There are several things that unite Lionel Messi and Pep Guardiola, but one may be the key for them to get back together: the hunger for the Champions League. La Orejona has been disappointing them for years : Messi has not won it since 2015 and Guardiola since 2011. Both last caressed the cup with Barcelona.
It is precisely those colors, that shared history and the Manchester City wallet that give wind to this possible reunion, because where Pep is there is something like an extension of old dreams, with many familiar faces giving him life. Dreams that can be renewed to complete an authentic Barcelona City .
These two key protagonists of the last 20 years of world football coincided for four seasons in a so far unrepeatable Barsa, which won 14 titles (including two Champions League titles ) and remained in the memory of many as the best team in history .
Much has been said about the relationship between the two, especially at the end of the cycle. There was even speculation that mutual wear and tear was one of the reasons for Pep's decision.
The Catalan coach acknowledged more than once that he should have left before Barcelona: "The players get tired of you and you get tired of the players."
Guardiola and Messi, winners with Barsa AFP Photo
However, the journalist Luis Martin wrote at the time in the newspaper El País that in the days before the coach announced his departure in 2012, many players tried to convince him to stay, especially Messi, "despite the fact that the latest decisions Pep had set a distance with their best footballer ”, as Guillem Balagué recalls in his book“ Pep Guardiola, another way to win ”.
The end of a relationship that was born in 2008 with a decision by Pep (he was then 37 years old and few trusted him) that seduced Leo was not perfect: let him go to the Beijing Olympics against what the club wanted. Later, it is known, Messi touched the sky with Guardiola on the bench, surrounded like never before by Xavi, Iniesta, Dani Alves and the signatures continue. And the Rosario remembers it.
Time heals many things and Messi knows that on the heavenly side of Manchester he will find other familiar faces and several friends. The main one, that of Sergio Agüero, with whom they have been great friends since they shared a room and a team in the Under-20 World Cup in Holland in 2005: Leo with the 18 shirt and Kun with the 19. That part is better known and strengthened in the Major Selection.
Guardiola arrived in Manchester in July 2016, after three years at Bayern Munich, and explained it like this: “I'm at City because Txiki, Patsy and Soriano are there. It is evident that I have always wanted to meet my friends again ”.
Pep Guardiola with the 2019 Premier League trophy AP Photo
The Barcelona branch in Manchester was born. Txiki is Aitor Begiristain , a former left winger of the Dream Team led by Johan Cruyff, and who later became Barsa's sports director between 2003 and 2010.
He was the one who trusted Pep for the Barcelona first team to replace Frank Rijkaard and who later took him to City, where he has held the same position since 2012. Joan Patsy was one of Cruyff's best friends and is Txiki's right-hand man.
Ferran Soriano was economic vice-president and general director of Barcelona when Joan Laporta was number one, and he has been executive director of City since 2012. Soriano took Begiristain to Manchester and Begiristain to Guardiola. Now the whole connection Barcelona wants to add Messi to finish building Barcelona City .
There are more familiar faces, and they assure that they are very lovable too, in the city where it rains almost every day. Lorenzo Buenaventura is Guardiola's usual physical trainer - he was in that Barsa - and we know how much a teacher weighs in putting together a group.
Pep Guardiola and PF Lorenzo Buenaventura, at Bayern Munich and at City.Photo DPA
Manel Estiarte , called the Messi of water ( crack of the waterpolo, participated in six Olympic Games and three was the top scorer), it is the most trusted man of Pep. In the City, he deals with the external communication of the club, the management of the media and fundamentally the link between the campus and the leadership. According to Guardiola, the wardrobe is his specialty. According to those who know them, to get to Pep you have to go through Manel.
Rodolfo Borrell will also be there , little known to the general public, but not for Messi. Borrell is Pep's field assistant (now with Juan Manuel Lillo ) and worked at the Masía between 1995 and 2008, contributing to the training of players such as Césc Fábregas, Gerard Piqué and Leo .
There is also football, of course: the hand of Guardiola, a team that always thinks about attacking, Agüero, Sterling, the Premier League, the obsession with the Champions ...
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