Take the Ball, Pass the Ball

This week´s article is about the documentary film that takes a look at the success of FC Barcelona during the 4 years of Pep Guardiola´s management. This is done through the eyes of the people involved with the club during that period, that range from Laporta (the President at the time), to players such as Eto´o, Henry, Dani Alves, Piqué, Messi and Abidal.

The name of the documentary comes from a press conference that can be seen in the trailer, where Guardiola is constantly repeating the motto that he wants for his teams, “Take the ball, pass the ball. Take the ball, pass the ball”.

If I had to say, the most interesting moment of the documentary is when Xavi Hernández (currently playing for Al-Sadd in Qatar – February 2019), picks the glasses of water that are in front of him and uses them to explain the tactics that were used. It´s clear that he will follow a managers career and at Barcelona, for sure.

One thing that I thought was missing throughout the documentary was the presence of Pep Guardiola to speak for himself and explain his thinking process during big moments such as the 2009 Champions League Final that its widely mentioned and talked about during the documentary, including Michael Carrick´s point of view has an opponent.

I have already read some books and watched documentaries about this period of Barcelona and the most interesting thing for me is the decision-making process of appointing Pep Guardiola as the head manager in 2008. In his book, “Goal: The ball doesn’t go in by chance”, Ferran Soriano (Barcelona Vice-President at the time, and the City Group CEO nowadays) states that the replacement of Frank Rijkaard as the manager of Barcelona was, in the end, between José Mourinho and Pep Guardiola. One had won a Champions League and the UEFA Cup with Porto and 2 Premier Leagues with Chelsea; the other was going through his first experience as a manager in Barcelona B, and the only thing he had won was the Spanish 3^rd tier. “Somehow” Guardiola was appointed, and that shows the impact of the Culé culture in the decision-making process.

Another thing that I really like regarding Pep Guardiola is the importance of Manuel Estiarte, a former Spanish water polo player, in Pep´s team. Estiarte is, if my memory serves me right, widely spoken about in “All or Nothing: Manchester City” and what’s surprising in this story is that Estiarte´s first experience in football was when Guardiola invited him to join the Barcelona Staff, after being promoted back in 2008, and, until today, he never left Guardiola´s side. The fact that a guy that had nothing to do with football, but had all to do with sports, is so important to Guardiola means a lot. Sometimes, more than our knowledge about a specific industry, what really matters is the mentality and personality. While searching a little bit about this I found this really interesting article about him, read it here if you are interested in the topic.

I´m planning on bringing to the blog reviews on both the book and the series I mentioned in the two previous paragraphs somewhere in the near future.

Finally, if you are interested in getting to know Guardiola through exclusive interviews of his players and co-workers, this is the documentary for you!

See you next week!!