April 26, 2011 Pep Guardiola sat in the press room Santiago Bernabeu “to mess it up”. David Trueba knew it, his friend whom he invited to the Barcelona concentration, and part of the press that followed the Catalans knew it. “Today dinner is late. We don’t see Pep at the press conference”. The one from Santpedor, tired of challenging messages from Mourinho he entered the melee of the Portuguese: “Mourinho is the boss, the fucking master, the best in the world in the press room. This Champions has already won it. We will try to do it on the field tomorrow from 20:45”. They were days of tension, fingers in the eye and you trap journalists in Madrid. Few remember it, but that game ended (0-2), after Messi’s late goals, which added to the draw at the Camp Nou (1-1) put Barça in a final that clearly beat Manchester United (3-1). .
Mourinho burned down the Bernabéu
Mourinho left behind in Real Madrid. Despite not making it past the semifinals in the Champions League, which he sold as an achievement, his messianic ego divided Real Madrid between those who were in favor of him and those who were “against Madrid”. Mourinho set himself up as a white Messiah and made even less of all the madridistas who did not agree with his rude and defiant tone.
Today Guardiola arrives at the Bernabéu to face Real Madrid of Ancelotti, the antithesis of Mourinho. A coach who has won two Champions Leagues with Real Madrid without giving any importance to himself and who has just completed the full title with the whites in 475 days. An elegant, polite and respectful coach who has rehabilitated the image of the whites as a club with his ‘savoir faire’ on and off the pitch. And above all, someone who manages the dressing room and the games professionally and naturally, which allows him to get the best out of the footballers year after year, game after game.
El ‘know how’ of Ancelotti
Ancelotti makes the difficult easy. He pours water on the fire instead of gasoline and quells controversy with his infallible Italian backsliding. These days he has dispatched with bullfighting the doubts that filtered from the upper echelons of the club about his future. Carletto is close in treatment and direct in the message. “This team has to do only one thing: play soccer. We do this well. Everything else can only distract us.” He warned after the Cup final. “Play football.” That which looks like a boutade It is the ultimate goal of everything the Italian does and thinks, who, faithful to the Madrid anthem, has mixed “veterans and novices” in his team. Thus, the “untouchables”, who will renew another year (Benzema, Kroos and Modric), wisely protect the growth of the Vinicius, Rodrygo, Camavinga, Valverde or Militao with unbeatable results.
But this time City arrives shaken by the effect of the tsunami Haaland, whose signing, as Guardiola himself has admitted, “has changed the way we play.” The Norwegian has expanded the resource booklet and has stopped prioritizing possession. He now prefers to optimize resources to reach the only possible result: win the Champions League. A competition in which Madrid plays in their living room and in which the Abu Dhabi petrodollars intend to become an alternative to the whites.
Guardiola, who is close to winning his fifth Premier in six years, appeared at the Bernabéu before enormous expectations. More than twenty television channels and over a hundred journalists from all over the world: from Brazil to Italy, from Japan to Germany. Pep went to the press room trying not to charge Madrid with reasons, without giving away a headline that Ancelotti could use to activate his people. But he frowned when He was asked if he wanted “rematch”, as Rodri stated minutes before, after what happened last season. The coach categorically denied it and warned that “we are not looking for revenge. It’s a different tie.”
“We will play for Haaland”
Pep praised Madrid, as expected, calling it “the best team of the last decade, by far.” And he tried to justify City’s change in style this season, more pragmatic and vertical, with the presence of Haaland and relying on the level of rivals. “I like how my team plays. But sometimes the others are better and you can’t impose your game plan. The others are not lame. Over time you learn to suffer. haaland? Since we are not going to take advantage of Haaland, we will play for him”.
And he concluded in Catalan by recalling his steps through this Santiago Bernabéu, “where I have come many times as a player and as a coach. I have won and I have lost. I have good and bad memories. And tomorrow I will write another one. He has returned to the Bernabéu Guardiola, the “fucking master” of the Premier. But in front of him he will have the “fucking master” of the Champions League.
2023-05-08 18:40:30
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