Pep The Absent-Minded Professor
Barefoot walks and the 'Law of 32'
If you want to understand the culture of the club under our current manager, then Pep’s City by Pol Ballus and Lu Martin is an essential read.
The pair were given a surprising amount of access during the 2018-19 season, with players and key members of staff happy to talk freely with them.
As a result, one thing becomes abundantly clear: Pep is every inch the absent-minded professor. According to Ballus and Martin:
‘Guardiola has a reputation from his Barcelona days of being a hapless driver, and this (a black Mercedes) is the fourth car he has owned since coming to Manchester. His wing mirrors don’t survive for long, and he’s also managed to fill a diesel Range Rover with petrol and mangle a silver Bentley.’
On matchday Pep goes all the way up to eleven. “He’s totally absorbed in his own thoughts,” says Marc Boixasa. “It’s like he’s in a world of his own.”
Sergio Aguero used to find Pep’s matchday behaviour hilarious.
“I piss myself laughing when I see him pacing up and down the corridors like that, usually barefoot and talking away to himself. It’s like he has no idea where he is. He’ll come out of his office, walk straight past Txiki without a word, come into the canteen and walk about, still saying nothing. He’ll stop and stare at us all and then off he goes again, back to his office.’
The walls of his office are—and why does this not even surprise me?—‘kept white so that ideas can be scribbled on them’.
Now I see Pep as a cross between Back To The Future’s “Doc” Brown and Professor Pat Pending from Wacky Races.
In fact, being a City fan does feel like that final scene from Back To The Future. I’m still half-expecting to be walking down the street one day when a DeLorean screeches past at 88mph. I’ll pop in the newsagents, and the back page of the Manchester Evening News will read: ‘Moyes: ‘I’ll Stop The Rot At City’.
Marti Perarnau’s Pep Confidential, provides further insight into Pep’s mindset.
The book reveals the ‘often-fruitless attempts’ by Manuel Estiarte, his right-hand man at Barca and Bayern, ‘to persuade Pep to disconnect from football’.
‘From time to time Estiarte will use all the resources at his disposal to curb the coach's obsessive behaviour. Experience, however, has taught him that Pep cannot be distracted for much longer than 30 minutes at a time.’
Estiarte calls it 'the law of 32 minutes'.
'You invite him for a meal at a restaurant, hoping that he'll forget about football, but 32 minutes later you can see his mind is already wandering,' Estiarte explains. 'He starts staring at the ceiling and, although he's nodding as if he's listening to you, he's not looking at you.’
At Bayern, Estiarte would insist on Pep leaving the training ground from time to time to spend time at home.
‘On these occasions Pep does indeed go home. He plays with his kids and then, at about the half-hour mark, goes off to a little alcove at the far end of the hall and returns to his analysis. His 32 minutes are up and, for the fourth time that day, he sets about exploring all the options from every angle.’
I reckon Pep has already invented football’s flux capacitor. Now it’s just about getting it installed.
On Saturday I’ll be posting a piece called The Day City Stood Up To The Nazis.
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