How Pep Guardiola Became A Football Genius
It Was What It Was : The Football History Podcast
The Overlap
4.9 • 667 Ratings
🗓️ 13 August 2024
⏱️ 59 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Welcome to the latest episode of The Overlap’s football history podcast, It Was What It Was.
In this week’s episode, journalists Jonathan Wilson and Rob Draper take an in-depth look at Pep Guardiola's journey to becoming a football legend.
Focusing on the early stages of his coaching career and the political landscape at Barcelona, Jonathan and Rob explain how the Catalonian club turned to Pep during a turbulent period. Under his leadership, Barcelona experienced its most successful era in history.
As we anticipate the 2024/25 Premier League campaign, where Pep aims for an unprecedented fifth consecutive league title at Manchester City, join us to discover how he evolved into the tactical mastermind celebrated as one of the greatest football managers of all time.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I did have doubts a little bit in the beginning. |
| 0:09.3 | I remember the first three games. |
| 0:11.5 | I won, drew and lost. |
| 0:14.4 | We played on artificial pitches in the fourth division, |
| 0:17.0 | and they were so small. |
| 0:18.3 | I said, we have to change, because the pitch is so small. But then I arrived |
| 0:23.7 | on Wednesday training and said, no, I'm not going to change. I'm Jonathan Wilson. I'm with Rob Draper. |
| 0:30.8 | And that was Pep Guardiola, describing the moment in September 2007 when he doubted his philosophy. |
| 0:55.3 | Now, given what he would go on to achieve, he influenced that style would have at all levels of the game. It feels extraordinary now that there was ever a crisis of faith. And that's why today on it was what it was, we'd be looking at the season Pep Gagliola spent in charge of Basel's B team, his formation as a manager, and the process by which with almost no experience, |
| 1:01.3 | he came to the charge of the senior side. Why don't we go back to Guadiola's playing days? |
| 1:06.7 | Because he becomes the sort of embodiment of that Crichtfe philosophy. So why don't you give us a bit of background on how that happened? Yeah, I don't think other than Yohan Kroy, if I don't think now |
| 1:11.7 | there's any figure more associated with Barcelona or more important in Barcelona's history than |
| 1:16.3 | Pep Guardiola. He's born in Sanpador, which is about an hour or so outside of Barcelona, |
| 1:23.8 | a very rural in the mountains, something will be significant later in Petalife, |
| 1:28.5 | really a hotbed of Catalan nationalism. That's where he tend to get the Bay Catalanista |
| 1:32.9 | Catalans up there in rural Catalonia. And it's quite an idyllic upbringing. I think they're |
| 1:39.8 | fairly poor family. His dad's a builder. He's got three siblings. He lives with his mom and |
| 1:47.0 | dad. And it's a lovely little village. I've driven through it. It's got a nice square where you can |
| 1:51.0 | play football and you can imagine little pet playing with his friends there. And obviously, |
| 1:56.8 | if you live there, you're a Barcelona fan, really. It's kind of imbred in you. |
| 2:02.2 | Español is not really a team for loyal Catalan, rural Catalans. And he supports Barcelona. |
| 2:10.0 | He goes to his first game in 1981 and take him with his uncle and it's all very exciting. |
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