It was a dream run that led to many aficionados arguing that this was the greatest team of all time. But on Friday, it ended with a speed that left the world gasping.
Guardiola, like so many hip, urban 40-somethings the world over are doing, stepped out of the way before burnout consumed him.
Despite creating one of the most beautiful ideas in world sport in recent memory, he himself called time on the all-conquering cycle, showing that there's often a high price to pay for beauty.
"It's been football, football, football but in life there are other things," the young visionary said, announcing his decision on Friday not to continue as the team's senior coach.
And as clubs around the world - Chelsea and Manchester City no doubt among them - scrambled for the phone to sound off his agent, Guardiola made his intentions clear.
"At some point I will return to management but right now I have no interest in another job," he said as most of his team - captain Carles Puyol, Xavi Hernandez, Victor Valdez, Andres Iniesta - sat among the rest in a packed press conference that was beamed live across the world.
"Talking to you and players for four years is very demanding," he said, clearly indicating his fatigue and exhaustion.
Many in the football world will debate the timing of Guardioala's decision. By their high standards, Barca have underperformed this season.
His presence could have helped lift the team's morale. But making clear that the famed philosophy of attacking football that prospered under Guardiola will not be discarded, the club was quick to anoint Tito Vilanova, his faithful No. 2, as coach for the coming season.
At Barca, it is clear that the model is bigger than the name.
Constant search of beauty took its toll
Earlier this week, as Barcelona trudged back in at the halftime break during the Champions League semifinal second leg, stunned by a shock Ramires goal, an audacious chip on the run, the world really wanted to see how rejuvenated they would be when they returned.
And crucially then, in the quarter of an hour that Pep Guardiola had, try to figure out what the Barca coach would have told his team.
By Barcelona's lofty standards, it was a season gone awry. Now, this was the final half where a season could be salvaged. The team that emerged continued to play the game like they had always done under their young, gone-bald manager. Nothing had changed - high possession was retained, an arrogant high line of defence maintained and the intricate, maze of passing continued. Yet nothing seemed the same. For those used to watching this team closely, it was immediately clear something was amiss.
Sometimes the most interesting part of observing Guardiola's model, ever since he replaced the equally-fatigued Frank Rijkaard in May 2008, was to assess how he kept his all-conquering team hungry with each passing season. Doesn't it exhaust you, doesn't it drain you?
Is it possible that you can get bored of it? As the team discarded all previous tenets of football, all forms of rigidity to create something entirely new and wondrous, it never seemed an issue.
But creating beauty takes an extreme toll. Guardiola's is an obsessive personality. On Friday, he spoke of the loss of feeling and drive.
"I need to recover the feeling that I had when I first started. I just don't feel the same," he said.
Losing weight, losing hair since he first took the Barcelona sidelines, shouting instructions, making those trademark wild, puppet string gestures which only his team understood and which befuddled the opposition even further, Guardiola - football's great young thinker - also showed on Friday that there's more to him than just his fantastic genius of football.
No comments:
Post a Comment