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by PAM
First, both FC Barcelona - the current Cup holder - and Real Madrid CF were ousted by Chelsea FC and FC Bayern Munich in their respective 'say-what??' Champions League semi-finals... at home. And then, three days after Barça's deprivation of a chance for a back-to-back European win, the most illustrious Spanish football knight currently in-charge of the formidable Barça helm called it "quits"! Pep Guardiola will step down as Barça's manager at the end of the season. Yep, after four exciting seasons and staggering 13 trophies, which included a treble on his first year of tenure as Barça's head coach, the 41-year old, regarded by many as among the most successful football managers in Europe to date, who turned Barça into a phenomenal football force that it is today, announced his decision to not renew his contract with FC Barcelona. Pep will turn the Barça helm over to his assistant, Tito Vilanova, at the end of the season. Surprising? Uhm... not really. Sad? Absolutely!
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Short circuit on the pitch....
Barça was disappointingly held by a 10-man über defensive Chelsea crew in their Catalan fortress, Camp Nou, in a 2-2 draw that robbed them of the chance to defend
El Clasico of penalty misses. And the
winner is... bad luck!their title via 3-2 defeat, on aggregate. Two sublime goals from the Catalan powerhouse brought the score to 2-0 in the first-half of the match, which was enough to turn the tide from their 0-1 loss in Stamford Bridge in the first leg of the tie, to a winning 2-1 lead. However, on stoppage time in the first-half, Ramires got away from the scattered Barça defense and beat Victor Valdes to a successful assault of the Barça goal, bringing the score to 2-2 on aggregate, with the Blues leading via away goal rule. That shook Barça's confidence. Fernando Torres cemented the Blues lead through a lucky break, and beating Valdes in their one-on-one duel in front of the Blaugrana goal, with less than a minute to play on stoppage time. While Barça dominated possession and attempts on goal, luck was not on their side, with Peter Ĉech shooing it away most of the time. Lionel Messi buried his face in his jersey in his utter disbelief and disappointment as the final whistle was blown after missing a penalty kick that would have been Barça's ticket to Munich before even Torres came on.
Real Madrid, on the other hand, managed to match the Bavarians, stride por stride, gained grounds via Cristiano Ronaldo's brace of great goals in Estadio Santiago Bernabéu to bring their 2-1 deficit in Munich to 2-3. Crissy et al. ran
The Bavarians... uh, nah, they didn't?like they were Munich-bound and José Mourinho shouted instructions from the touchline like a manager with one hand on the Cup... until Pepe brought down Mario Gómez in the area, and the German squad was awarded a penalty, which Arjen Robben connected. That brought the score to an all-even 3-3 on aggregate with one away goal each, forcing a 30-minute extension time... and, later, a penalty shoot-out! Man! While the brilliant Iker Casillas made a lot of incredible saves during the match, he choked in the "lottery", allowing the first two goals from David Alaba and Gómez to come through! On the other hand, one of the 2010 World Cup wonder German young guns, Manuel Neuer, made himself his team's hero by stopping the King of Penalty, Crissy, and later, Kaka in
Uhm... yeah, they did!their respective attempts! Awesome!!! Crissy's face then was a picture of... uhm, well, Oscar-worthy pain? :) While Toni Kroos failed via a sublime save from San Iker, Xabi Alonso kept it simple... and safe - he scored for Real Madrid! 2-1 - for Munich, whew! Munich's captain, Philipp Lahm missed, too... and all of a sudden, there's hope for Madrid... until the nerve-wracked Sergio Ramos messed it up with a fly ball that sent over cheers to Munich! And then, the moment of truth: Bastian Schweinsteiger kept it together, held a poker face, and fooled Casillas, who hurled his weight on the opposite side where Basti sent the ball to bring Bayern Munich a mere inch away from claiming their 5th European Cup. As usual, the Bavarians peeled off their shirts on the pitch to celebrate their success. Cheers! :)
And so, summing up this last week's European saga... Spanish brilliance sparked bright and beautiful in small fireworks on the pitch... and then all the lights went out, pfffft: short-circuit! Oh, well....
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Oh, Pep!
It isn't like we weren't expecting this. Obviously, all the pressure of being one of the most successful European football managers of all time, certainly the most successful FC Barcelona manager, at a very young age of 41, has weighed down heavily on Pep Guardiola. His explanation for stepping down says it all: "The reason is simple: four years is enough. I'm drained and I need to fill up."
If you think about his age, his young family (who obviously see very little of him, given his herculean task as the manager of the arguably greatest football
Pep Guradiola, one of the best
and most accomplished managers
of all time. Class act!squad of all time), his physical and mental health given the demands of his job and his level of competitiveness, the stratospheric expectations from him and his men given their unprecendented success, I don't think there is a man, no matter how brilliant and talented, that can stay in the level where he put himself on without collapsing from sheer physical exhaustion and breaking down mentally from all the relentless pressure at some point. Indeed, four years is a long time to stay at such a high level.
Do I think that Pep "threw in the towel" as many (mostly in Madrid) suggest, given that the announcement of his decision not to renew contract with Barcelona came after failing to defend the La Liga title against Real Madrid via a 2-1 loss in El Clásico and the UEFA Champions League ouster in the semi-final round? No, not at all. As he explained, he has made his intentions known to his Club since October last year. And with big and crucial matches coming up, he chose to wait until they're all over to make his decision public rather than announcing it on February, like in the previous years.
Pep is right, four years is enough. And he is right when he said that after
Visionary trainor and game architect.sometime, it's either you get tired of the players or the players get tired of you. And while Barça remains to be an incredibly massive force in the football world and the relationship between him and his players is still amicable, it is the best time to step down... to turn over the helm to someone else with enough energy to match the demands of the job, all while the Club is "good and healthy", too. I imagine that, as a manager, the last thing you would like to do is to turn over a wreck of a team to the next caretaker. Hopefully, this will freshen up things within Barça as they rise again from nagging injuries and strayed focus among some "celebrity" players who basked a little bit too much in their team's success, and prepare to bounce back next season, re-claim La Liga and the UEFA Champions League titles.
Are we going to miss Pep? DEFINITELY! There is no doubt about that! How is
Making brilliant players world-class phenomena! it possible to not miss the brilliant tactician who gave the football world the most beautiful way of playing football - graceful in its inherited tiki-taka rythmn, fierce and fast in its steady attacks, exciting in its brilliant free-flowing spontaneity, joyful in its cohesive teamwork-based movements - through the incredible Barça, his Barça? How can one withstand watching football and not have that visionary manager who turned the pure potential talent that was the youthful Lionel Messi into the mercurial magician that he is today, hailed three years in a row now as the BEST PLAYER in the World? How is it possible to not miss the wonderful manager who re-molded and re-packaged Xavi Hernandez as one of the VERY BEST midfielders to play this beautiful game - ever! How can you not miss the manager who made Andrés Iniesta believe
Making winning look easy, joyful and beautiful. that he can be this sheer awesomeness that could captivate fans of the beautiful game, regardless of Club affiliation and loyalty, as the biggest superstar of the 2010 World Cup? How could one not miss the manager who gave Carles Puyol the second wind in his career, even when the man was short on depth of talent, by merely capitalizing on El Capitan's burning passion for the game alone, and extracting incredible brilliance in the process? How is it possible to not miss the manager who found brilliance in seemingly ordinary players like Sergio Busquets and Pedro Rodriguez, and turned them to world-class, World Cup-winning talents? Why wouldn't one miss manager who has eye for talents even before they bloom as he illustrated in his trust for youngsters like Thiago Alcantara, Christian Tello and Isaac Cuenca? And, how could you not miss that youthfully dashing and good-looking manager (there, I said it
Passionate, animated... just brilliant.already!) whose cool stance and composure amidst joyful or adverse situations had given a whole new meaning to football's definition as the "beautiful game"? NO, IT'S NOT POSSIBLE. Pep will be thoroughly missed!
While it's incredibly saddening to see him go, we can't help but feel gratitude for those four years of wonderful, wonderful football that he created! It's hard to imagine how the football world would be like after he leaves Barça... but life goes on, and Pep deserves some peace and quiet with his loved ones, and the time to recuperate from the incredibly gut-draining, energy-zapping, soul-gnawing, heart-tearing gloriously brilliant football that he himself created... and that the whole world enjoyed immensely! And now that he has given his confidence in Tito Vilanova's capacity to lead Barça in reaching new heights of greatness next season, because "in Pep we trust", then we feel confident in Vilanova, too, moving forward... except, there will be no more of those animated "Pep moves" on the touchlines after the 1st of July.
Therefore, as we say, "from the bottom of our hearts, THANK YOU, PEP," we also wish him all the very best! Godspeed, "el puto amo"!
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Photo credits: All photos were grabbed from the Zimbio website - thanks!
