End Of An Era?

This week an exhausted looking Pep Guardiola revealed to a packed press conference of the most well-known secret in football, that he would step down at the end of the season as the head coach of Barcelona. He went on to explain his reasons and how been at arguably the worlds’ biggest club has taken its toll.

“Four years on the Barcelona bench is an eternity,” Guardiola explained. “I want you to understand this is not a simple decision for me. “At beginning of December I announced to the chairman that I was seeing the end of my era at Barcelona.

“I had to announce this today because I didn’t want to continue with the confusion. The reason is simple, four years is very tiring.

“I’m drained and I need to fill up. The demand has been very high and a manager must be strong. The new coach will give things I’m not able to anymore.”

This announcement came at the end of a week of disappointment rarely seen at Camp Nou. After seemingly surrendering the league to fierce rivals Jose Mourinho and Real Madrid with a 2-1 loss, they suffered even more heartbreak when despite controlling the 2nd leg against a 10 man Chelsea, they were held 2-2, despite leading 2-0 and having 72% possession. They went out 2-3 on aggregate and this apparently was the straw that broke the camels back.

Guardiola looked like a man who had the troubles of the world on his shoulders, and that the only way to lift them would be to take a step back and in his own words, “fill up”.  And it is during his sabbatical that Barcelona and their new coach Tito Vilanova are left to carry on a quite staggering legacy.

Peps’ Major Honours

• La Liga (3) – 2008/2009, 2009/2010, 2010/2011
• Copa Del Rey (1) – 2008/2009
• Supercopa de Espana (3) – 2009, 2010, 2011
• UEFA Champions League (2) – 2008/2009, 2010/2011
• UEFA Super Cup (2) – 2009, 2011
• FIFA World Club Cup (2) – 2009-2011

Pep Guardiola, as Barcelona head coach, won a major trophy every 18 games. Yep, you may have to read that again. A major trophy every 18 games. He created a squad of world-class players that played with one mentality, keep possession. Your opponents can’t score if they don’t have the ball but what if they do? Easy, Pep told his players they had 6 seconds to get the ball back and more often than not, because of high defensive pressure all over the pitch, they would.

Tiki-taka is the scientific word for Barcelona’s play, a game of short passing and movement with the view of moving the ball through various channels and maintaining possession. It was with this style of play that players emerged to change the face of not just Spanish football, but world football completely.

Mercurial passers, Xavi and Iniesta, defensive generals, Puyol and Pique and probably the most important surely has to be, Lionel Messi. Under Guardiola, Messi has been lauded from here to kingdom come and has become quite possibly is the greatest player of all time.
Messi has thanked Guardiola ”for how much he has done for my personal and professional career,” and it was with this that Messi did not attend the press conference revealing that he preferred “not to show” his emotion.

Only time will tell if Barcelona can continue the legacy without their leader but also how Guardiola will feel after 12 months off. I suppose we should all just sit back and relax.