Biography of PEP Guardiola | Coach and player.

(Josep Guardiola i Sala;) Santpedor, Barcelona, 1971) Spanish football coach and player. Linked always to the discipline of FC Barcelona, was a leading figure in the so-called Dream Team that, under the leadership of Johan Cruyff, won four consecutive leagues and a European Cup in the early 1990s as a player. His career as trainer (2008-2012) will be remembered as the best in the history of the club: without hardly signings, laying hold of the quarry and with a philosophy based on possession of the ball and the game to the first touch on the line of Cruyff, he raised a demoralized boat and turned it into a team as colorful as overwhelming, capable both of Marvel in the beauty of their game and become , in four years, with fourteen of the eighteen tournaments he played.

PEP Guardiola

Son of Valenti Guardiola, bricklayer, and Dolors Sala, housewife, the small Josep received his first football training in the children's categories of the Gimnastic Manresa. In 1984 he entered the farmhouse; After going through all the lower categories of Football Club Barcelona, debuted with the first team in the 1990-1991 season, under the orders of a coach, Johan Cruyff, who in the following years was going to revolutionize club. With his technique and his vision of the game, the midfielder became one of parts key of that Dream Team , in the hand of the Koeman, Stoichkov, Romario, Laudrup, Bakero or Zubizarreta, in a display of football to the first touch, quick and effective, dazzled in the first half of the 1990s and gave Barça four consecutive leagues between 1991 and 1994 and the first European Cup the team rose on May 20, 1992, at mythical Wembley Stadium.

That same year, at the international level, Guardiola won gold in the Olympic Games in Barcelona with Spanish team Medal, which also participate in the 1994 World Cup and in Euro 2000. PEP continued at Barca until 2001, under the baton of Bobby Robson and Louis Van Gaal, thickened a few years in which his record with some remarkable results, especially in the season 1996-1997, with the Cup Winners Cup, and in the next two, with two consecutive League Championships, even though at this time it was several months away from the pitch due to a serious injury. They were in total 472 matches with FC Barcelona shirt.

In 2001, already completed the thirty years, Guardiola decided to give a twist to his career, and went to Italy, where played with the Brescia (the 2001-2002 season and part of the next) and passed briefly through the AS Roma (2002-2003). Weren't you good things in that country, because he was accused of doping by nandrolone (November 2001) when fought in the ranks of the box lombardo and sentenced at first instance to seven months in prison and 2,000 euros fine. When the judgment, met in May 2005, Guardiola played in the A-Qatar Ahili. Aware that his entire career was coming down, the footballer lived in those years a real ordeal and focused all its efforts to prove his innocence, always proclaimed. Finally, in November 2007, the Brescia Court of Appeal gave the reason and was acquitted. They had been a few difficult years for an athlete who had finished his career as player in the Dorados de Sinaloa of Mexico (2005-2006) and, knowing of his acquittal, worked in the technical picture of the lower divisions of FC Barcelona.

PEP Guardiola in his period as coach

PEP Guardiola trained the children of Barça B when, at the end of the season 2007-2008, the President of the club, Joan Laporta, with the Dutch coach Frank Rijkaard exhausted project, called him to take charge of the first team. It was a surprising signing, given the inexperience of the former player as coach. The bet of Laporta did running rivers of ink; Despite the fact that as a footballer and as a former captain of the Barça Guardiola occupied a place in the history of the club, many were the Catalans and the media that skeptics were shown to this new stage of your life. And more when in the first two games of the 2008-2009 League team garnered only one point of the possible six (lost with the Numancia drew with Racing de Santander).

And then there was what seemed impossible. FC Barcelona machinery began operating and soon dazzled and strangers. The good results of the League campaign, we had to add a spectacular game that wouldn't let anyone indifferent. Soon the international press echoed that team which functioned as a gear: precision at the touch, pass book goals and master. Xavi Hernández, Andrés Iniesta, Carles Puyol, Leo Messi and all and every one of the players never gave a lost party, reflecting the energetic leadership of the technician and his sense of motivation. Emerging from the quarry, that brand-new trainer bet without reservations, was elevated to the top.

The unanimity on the talent of the new boat was increasingly evident and 2009 was, without a doubt, the most glorious year of the more than one hundred years of history of the named. And is that in 2009 FC Barcelona won, consecutively, the six titles that aspired: the Copa del Rey, the Spanish League and the Champions League, victories that gave right to dispute Spain Super Cup, the Supercup of Europe and the Club World (formerly Intercontinental Cup), which also ended in the showcases of the club. And his coach became the only one in history to get the six official titles in the same year.

The awards were swift. The International Federation of history and statistics of football (IFFHS) appointed him as the best coach in the world in 2009; the press spared no praise on coach revelation and the Catalans would appreciate you forever your sweetest year. Guardiola was elected Catalan of the year and received public tributes, among them who dedicated to him his hometown; the technician generated more literature than the film stars (Word of Pep Guardiola's leadership, listening to Guardiola.) Football and vital thinking of 150 phrases Barca coach...) and more collective euphoria than anyone else. It became a real guru of the named. Such was his power, so loved was, that, before the end of the era Laporta, whose mandate was to expire in June 2010, was forced to publicly give his word that he would continue training the first team with the President that happens. On 13 June unfolded doubt: Guardiola would begin the 2010-2011 season with President Sandro Rosell.

While, in the 2009-2010 season, his players had won their second League consecutive, with 99 points, a new record in his record and the history of the National Championship, prevailed by three points to a rival, the Real Madrid's Cristiano Ronaldo, which, despite constant efforts, nothing could do to stop the Catalan machine. They closed the campaign prevailed in the Spanish Supercup. The next, 2010-2011, the team nearly repeated the feat of two years earlier: conquered back the Spanish League and the Champions League, which led him to compete and win again in Spain Super Cup, European Super Cup and the Club world. In his final season as coach, 2011-2012, the team could only be with the Copa del Rey. Despite its excellent performance, Barça stumbled in the League with Madrid in top form; and, like the whites, they fell in the semifinals of Champions.

Guardiola always wanted to sign annual contracts to avoid being tied if things are spiraling. In his final season began to circulate doubts about its continuity, fueled by the fact that, in a well advanced stage of competitions, had not renewed yet his contract; also recalled that speaking to an Italian newspaper it had claimed to prefer "short steps" in front of a computer. Shortly before the end of the season, Pep Guardiola announced his departure, causing consternation among the playing with Barca, who had wanted to keep it for years and years. The technician claimed as reasons their fatigue and the "have been cast"; he needed recovery time, and did not rule out return someday to the club, according to the desire of the Catalans and their President, who said that it would always have the doors open.

Extracted from the website: Biografías y Vidas