In his first week as the Barcelona manager, Johan Cruyff went to watch the Barca Atlétic team play at the Mini Estadi. Standing in the shadows, Cruyff noticed a particular player who was ingeniously reading the game. So impressed was the Dutchman, he walked into the dugout at half-time and caught hold of Rexach, the Barca Atlétic manager.
"Who is that boy in the right midfield?"
"Josep Guardiola – good lad."
"Hmm… move him to the pivot in the next half."
With those words, the great Johan Cruyff walked away, laying the foundation for his greatest disciple. Pep Guardiola exceeded Cruyff's expectations. Within a half, he was able to adjust to and thrive in one of the most difficult roles on the pitch. Cruyff did not hesitate and immediately took Pep with him to the first team. Thus, the pivot, the heartbeat, of the Dream Team was discovered.
In the 1991-92 season, 20-year-old Pep Guardiola became an uncontested starter for Cruyff's Barcelona. In just his second season, Guardiola played a crucial role in the Blaugrana Dream Team winning LaLiga and their first-ever European Cup. The team then went on to win three consecutive leagues.
Guardiola was to Cruyff what Cruyff was to Rinus Michels. Pep was the coach on the field. He commanded his teammates and shouted various adjustments, a responsibility Cruyff himself gave him. Throughout his career, Pep Guardiola remained a player-coach for his teams.
In 2001, Guardiola decided to leave his childhood club because he felt he could no longer play according to the changing requirements of football. Over 12 seasons for the first team, Pep Guardiola won 16 trophies and captained Barca for 4 years. From the technical culture of Spain, Pep went to the defensive and tactical Italian league. This was followed by short stints in Qatar and Mexico.
In 2006, Pep Guardiola hung up his boots and finished a decorated and storied career as a footballer. He wrote his name down as one of the greatest players to grace the central defensive midfield position. His style inspired all three that made up the greatest midfield: Andres Iniesta, Xavi Hernandez, and Sergio Busquets. It was difficult to believe, but his legacy as a footballer was an ember compared to the fire that would be his legacy as a manager.
In 2007, Guardiola returned home. President Laporta appointed the inexperienced Pep as Barca B's manager. Was this a surprising decision? No one who had watched Guardiola play would say so. They knew that he had been managing and coaching since he first stepped on the pitch as a 20-year-old. His teammates, his managers, and his opponents were all sure that he would become a good manager. Yet, none but his mentor Johan Cruyff quite understood the heights Pep Guardiola would reach.
Johan Cruyff saw in Pep Guardiola, not only a revolutionary understanding of football nearly rivalling his own, but an obsession with the game that exceeded his. His obsession led him as far as a ranch in Argentina, where he met Marco Bielsa to discuss Bielsa's footballing philosophy. They spent a whole 11 hours talking about football! The influence of this was later seen in the pressing and out-of-possession play of Guardiola's teams.
Only a year after he became Barca B's manager, Pep Guardiola was promoted to manage Barca's struggling first team. In a courageous first act, Guardiola sold marquee players in Ronaldinho and Deco. Immediately, in a striking parallel to Cruyff promoting Pep, he called up Sergio Busquets to the first team.
Then, with a team laden with young players from La Masia, Pep Guardiola set out to revolutionise football and build the greatest team of all time.
Pep identified with the Barca identity and Cruyff's philosophy more than any other. His Barcelona was predicated on positional discipline overlaid with individual creativity. They defended with the ball and always attacked with fervour. If, on rare occasions, they did lose the ball, the players would press as a collective to recover it immediately.
Pep, the embodiment of his Barcelona, cared deeply about how his team played, not whether they won or not. Thus, the world bore witness to some of the most beautiful football it had ever seen. They bore witness to a sincere and proud ode to the game.
In his first season with the first team, and only his second as a manager, FC Barcelona became the first team to win a sextuple. They not just won everything, but they dominated everyone. The El Clasico scores in LaLiga were a 2-0 win at Camp Nou and a 6-2 humiliation of Madrid at the Santiago Bernabeu.
Next season, FC Barcelona won LaLiga again, with a record 99 points. They then made it three in a row when they won the League and the Champions League in 2011. Pep Guardiola led Barcelona through its most decorated period. Yet, his achievements did not end there.
Not only did Pep establish himself as one of the greatest minds in football, but he was also recognised as a top developer of players. He made Pedro, Dani Alves, and Gerard Piqué into the footballers they became. Sergio Busquets, who played in Pep's position, would go on to become the greatest CDM of all time under his mentorship.
Finally, there is one player who will forever remain Pep Guardiola's greatest achievement as a mentor, the Greatest of All Time, Lionel Andrés Messi. Pep was the one to push Leo closer to the goal, before which he played as a traditional winger. In an El Clasico of all matches, Pep Guardiola played Lionel Messi in a position that was never seen before, the 'False 9'. Messi dominated that match for Barca to win 6-2.
In 2012, Pep Guardiola decided to step away from the pressure of managing FC Barcelona. He went to Bayern Munich and revolutionised not only the team, but the Bundesliga as a whole. With the same philosophy and reinvented tactics, he won three consecutive Bundesliga titles with Bayern. In his time, he developed icons such as Thiago Alcantara, Robert Lewandowski, and Thomas Müller.
Yet, one returns to the team of FC Barcelona 2009-2011 whenever talk of Pep arises. For no team has achieved greater heights in football. That Barca set a benchmark that other teams could only aspire to. They achieved glory celebrated by the game of football itself. And all the while, Pep Guardiola was there to watch on from the touchline. Just as he had watched on from the same touchline 25 years before. Then as a ballboy, now as the manager of the club of his heart.