GUARDIOLA’S HAIRDRYER TREATMENT
It is the night of November 3, 2021, and 50,000
happy Manchester City supporters are filing out
of the Etihad Stadium after watching their team
hammer Club Bruges 4-1. The home team had
71 per cent possession, João Cancelo set up three
goals and City would have ended the night with
a clean sheet had it not been for a terribly
unlucky own goal by John Stones.
The win meant that City leapfrogged Paris
Saint-Germain to reclaim top spot in their
Champions League group. All in all, it was a
successful night, but one person was not happy.
A few minutes after the final whistle, Pep
Guardiola marched into the home dressing
room and turned the air blue.
In his eyes, City’s performance was not up to
scratch. The lack of pressing in the final third
was one of his many complaints.
“I don’t want to see that,” Guardiola shouted.
“I’ve had enough of this.”
It served as a reminder to those present that
Guardiola would be just as demanding this
season as he had been in his previous five years
at City.
RONALDO OPTS FOR UNITED
Rewind three months and Guardiola was in a
much better mood.
When the City manager returned to England
in the second week of July, he cut a relaxed
figure after taking an extended break that
included a lot of family time, sun and golf.
Guardiola chatted with his colleagues in the
corridors of the training ground, the City
Football Academy (CFA), about a variety of
topics, from football to golf to television.
At the time he was heavily engrossed in
Killing Eve, the award-winning series about an
international female assassin, and Normal
People, the romantic drama about two Irish
teenagers.
There was little talk about the Champions
League final defeat by Chelsea six weeks earlier.
That was out of everyone’s system.
In another boost for Guardiola, one of his top
targets, the midfielder Jack Grealish, had joined
from Aston Villa after City triggered his
£100 million release clause.
However, as the season approached,
Guardiola’s problems began to mount. Kevin De
Bruyne and Phil Foden returned from Euro
2020 with injuries, Bernardo Silva told the club
that he wanted to leave and City had failed to
sign Harry Kane, the only striker on Guardiola’s
wish list, because Tottenham Hotspur said he
was not for sale.
During a week-long visit to Manchester at the
end of August, the super agent Jorge Mendes
put another name on the table — Cristiano
Ronaldo.
It was a surprise proposition. Ronaldo is
regarded as a legend by Manchester United
fans, but the word from Mendes was that the
Portugal forward was serious about coming
to City.
At that point, there a feeling among senior
staff that Ronaldo would join — after all,
Guardiola longed for a proven goalscorer — but
some of those around him had concerns.
There were fears, for example, that if Ronaldo
signed, he would command a huge wage of
more than £400,000 a week, becoming the top
earner and potentially destabilising the
dressing-room harmony. Plus, Ronaldo was 36.
Would he be fit enough to keep up with his
team-mates?
As City pondered whether to sign Ronaldo,
Manchester United swooped and took the
decision out of their hands.
In the final days of the transfer window,
another potential transfer came and went.
Raheem Sterling was given the chance to join
Barcelona, but he rejected their offer.SILVA’S SERVICEWhen City’s Premier League season began
on August 15, Silva’s head was elsewhere,
which was why Guardiola did not bring
the Portugal playmaker off the bench in
the 1-0 away defeat by Tottenham. Silva,
27, wanted a move to Spain to be closer
to his family, but City received no
suitable offers.
Staff say that when the transfer
window closed, it was like a switch
had been flicked in Silva’s head. The
disappointment of failing to secure a
transfer was instantly replaced by a
burning desire to help the team win
silverware.
Eleven days after the transfer
window closed, Silva scored in the
1-0 win over Leicester City — a
victory that Guardiola and his staff
view as one of the most important
of the season. Those around
Guardiola think that Silva has been
the best midfielder in the world over
the course of the campaign.
His return of eight league goals
and four assists does not rank as
highly as some of his colleagues,
but Silva brings so much to the team
that cannot be reflected in statistics.
If Silva had sulked, and not returned
to his best, there is a good chance
City would not have retained the title.
One of Silva’s finest performances
came in the 1-0 win over Chelsea at
Stamford Bridge in September.De Bruyne’s Covid bonus,
Coldplay and the set-piece
guru: how City won title
4 1GG Monday May 23 2022 | the times
thegame
Early in the game — and without any
instruction from the bench — Silva realised it
would best suit the team if he dropped deep and
formed a double pivot alongside Rodri to stop
Chelsea dominating the midfield. Guardiola was
impressed, and so were his coaches.
“You need to get a DVD of this game and one
day when you have kids, you have to show it to
them so they can see how good their dad was,”
one coach told Silva.THE VICENS EFFECTCarlos Vicens is not a household name, but he
has been key to City’s title triumph. Last
summer, after Vicens had led the under-18s
to the league title, Guardiola promoted the
then 38-year-old Mallorcan to the role of first-
team coach.
Vicens, who has developed a Mancunian
accent in his five years at City, was given
responsibility for set pieces. It was an area in
which he had no previous experience, but
Guardiola trusted him.
To prepare for the role, Vicens spent many
hours speaking to set-piece specialists in Spain
and reading coaching manuals, some of which
were 40 years old.
His hard work has paid off. City have scored
more goals from set pieces than any other
Premier League team and have conceded only
once from a free kick.
That explains why Heracles Almelo, the
Dutch top-flight club, have poached Vicens, who
will become their head coach next season.
His best attribute is that he can
communicate his instructions in short, sharp
bursts, fully aware that some footballers do not
have long attention spans, so he gets his
message across in no more than two minutes.
Vicens is not the only important man
behind Guardiola. Carles Planchart, the
diligent analyst, has been key to improving
City’s set-piece statistics and their overall
performance.
Lorenzo Buenaventura, the fitness coach,
has made an incredible effort to keep the
players fit during a demanding season while
Rodolfo Borrell, the coach, is another key
member of the staff who stepped up when
Guardiola and his
assistant, Juanma Lillo,
contracted Covid in
January.DE BRUYNE’S BREAKOn the day before City clinched the title, De
Bruyne was named the Premier League
player of the year for the second time.
If you had asked De Bruyne whether he
thought he would be able to win such an
accolade after City’s 2-2 draw at Anfield in
October, he would have probably said no.
Despite scoring against Liverpool, De
Bruyne was off the pace. He told his
team-mates that he had no idea how
he managed to play 90 minutes.
De Bruyne has endured a difficult
time with injuries over the past year.
He fractured his nose and an eye socket
after a nasty collision with Antonio
Rüdiger in the Champions League final
and damaged ligaments in his left ankle in
Belgium’s Euro 2020 win over Portugal.
The injury was so bad that Dr Ramon
Cugat, the renowned Spanish surgeon,
told City in September that De Bruyne
would need surgery that would rule
him out for several months if his
ankle continued to swell after games.
De Bruyne was far from his best inthe first three months of the season. The pain
was severe and he was not match fit. After one
game he said that it felt as though his lungs
were burning.
The turning point came in November when
De Bruyne caught Covid after going to a friend’s
house in Belgium while on international duty.
De Bruyne had only mild symptoms and the
break allowed him to build up his fitness.
On December 29, he recorded his first
Premier League assist of the season in the 1-0
win over Brentford. Since then, De Bruyne has
not looked back. He has scored more Premier
League goals (15) than in any other season and
has eight assists.
De Bruyne also suffered a blow to his pride
in July when he was effectively demoted.
Every summer, the City squad vote for their
captain. De Bruyne came second in 2020,
which meant he was the vice-captain to
Fernandinho, but last summer the Belgian
finished fourth behind Fernandinho, Ilkay
Gundogan and Rúben Dias.
De Bruyne was not pleased, but he will still be
among the frontrunners to take the captain’s
armband next season after Fernandinho leaves.FERNANDINHO’S LAST HURRAHWhoever becomes captain has big shoes to fill.
The 37-year-old Fernandinho has been a superb
leader, a “uniting force” since he assumed the
role two years ago, according to those close to
the dressing room.From a faltering start to
a strong finish, Paul Hirst
and Pol Ballús dig deep to
unearth the hidden factors
that were key to success
Vicens, the first-team coach, has
improved City’s set-piece prowessFernandinho, left, is a crucial link between the
players and Guardiola’s assistant Lillo, right