A Thousand Suns
by stickmarionette
At times Barcelona's football reached heights that adjectives cannot really scale. Everyone in Spain who was remotely interested in football found themselves glued to the television every time Barca were on - which was almost every week. The delights seemed endless - the subtlety of the almost telepathic communication between Laudrup and Beguiristain, Goikoetxea's runs on the right flank, Koeman's shooting, Guardiola's razor-sharp passing, Stoichkov's aggressive and bony grace. - Phil Ball, Morbo
Wembley, 1992
"Thirty-three," Pep said, half-laughing and breathless. He smelled faintly like the expensive cava Chapi and Miguel Angel were randomly attacking people with, and he leaned into Andoni bonelessly, completely unlike his usual restless, almost twitchy self.
There was nothing of that haziness in his eyes, though.
"It's thirty-three. I counted."
It took Andoni another moment to realize what he was talking about. Never mind that conversation, much of yesterday was a blur to him - and, he suspected, most of his team mates - everything else overwhelmed by the memory of what they'd just gone through. Ninety minutes, extra time, and Barca's first European Cup. As Cruyff said before the celebrations really began, they made history tonight.
And yet.
In later years, looking back, Andoni sometimes thinks they won just so they could count the steps.
* * *
1984
* * *
The first time Pep saw Andoni Zubizarreta, it was from his perch behind the goalmouth, watching and waiting with a ball in his hand and several more at his feet, ready to spring up and lob one onto the field as soon as he was called for.
Athletic Bilbao were a team of giants, or so the skinny boy of those days thought. At their best, their footsteps could shake the foundations of great stadiums. The broad back of their young goalkeeper would fill Pep's vision, like a physical manifestation of the calm Zubizarreta projected. He imagined the trepidation quickening the hearts of strikers who came face to face with the man, with their instinctive knowledge that what lay beneath the calm was an absolute certainty in his ability to protect his territory; that they could only pull out all their tricks and hope that the gods of football smiled on them for that single moment.
Back then, Pep didn't know whether he would one day be able to do more than imagine going for goal against the best keeper in Spain. He was just a kid, slowly growing up in La Masia amidst books and training and games, too small and slight for the physical side of the game, not fast or skilled enough to be a great attacker. Everything was still uncertain.
* * *
1990
* * *
"Cruyff didn't invent me. He took a bet on me and believed in me and pointed a finger, saying, "It's you I want,"..." - Pep Guardiola, in Jimmy Burns' Barca: A People's Passion
* * *
"You're slower than my grandmother."
Cruyff had lost some of that once piercing brightness in the years after retirement, the blinding flash of it reduced to something that made it a bit easier to look at him straight on.
When he spoke, though, Pep could still see why people let him bend the normal rules of human interaction the way they did. There was something very compelling about his obvious unshakable confidence and the depth of his convictions, and it made a person want to measure up to his expectations.
Chapi swore up and down that Cruyff had really, really turned up at the Barca B game just to watch Pep play, but that counted for nothing if he couldn't cut it in the first team, even in a friendly game.
Cruyff had picked him for a reason. He knew what he could do and what he couldn't. And he could fit into Cruyff's vision of the game. It was as simple as that.
"It's the speed of the ball that counts, isn't it?"
He said it softly, with a smile. Still, the words were like a grenade lobbed into the middle of the dressing room. Everyone fell silent.
Cruyff only allowed surprise to flash through his eyes for the briefest moment. Then the stern look returned, though Pep thought he spotted an amused gleam in his eyes as he clapped Pep on the shoulder.
"Think faster, then. I've seen you do it."
* * *
"Congratulations. You just became a person to Cruyff," Zubi said as soon as Pep came up to him, amusement clear in his tone.
"That..." Pep took a deep, shuddering breath. "That was terrifying."
He didn't regret saying it for a single moment. It was still really scary. He could have - well, he could have blown it all with a single lapse of judgement. On the other hand, he would probably have regretted not saying it, and he'd rather not deal with regrets.
Zubi laughed, then, and casually reached out a broad hand to ruffle his hair. "You did well."
In later years, he would realize that Zubi did not laugh often, that the memories of that particular conversation were to be treasured for more than one reason.
* * *
He and Cruyff were both right. It was the speed and accuracy of the ball that counted when it came to what he could do on a pitch, and he could and did improve at it. When he finally got the official call-up, though, it wasn't because he had measured up to and beaten Cruyff's standards. No, they simply needed a player in his position. They needed something that could change the status quo.
Before the game, the reporters asked him about the state of the team, the problems in attack and defence, as if a nineteen year old fresh from the B team had all the answers.
He didn't, and said so: "I'm not a saviour."
All he did was connect the lines. That was all.
After the first few games, the questions changed. How do you handle yourself in a dressing room full of big players? What do you do as a playmaker when all these superstars are asking for the ball?
That was the way the media worked, and it frustrated Pep at first. They always overcomplicate simple things. Simple things like knowing how a play should develop, where a ball could be most useful. It's not a matter of names. Or at least, under Cruyff it wouldn't be.
* * *
1991
* * *
In all their pages and pages of copy produced every single day on the team, pretty much no one managed to capture what it was really like in the dressing room. Maybe it was inevitable - though he didn't know it at the time, having experienced nothing other than that cauldron of quickly shifting moods and clashing sparks - after all, they were far from a typical group.
Sometimes, it was all he could do to take everything in.
Chapi had taken it upon himself to look after him in the beginning, but he was not much more experienced than Pep, and - in theory, anyway - just as out of his depth amongst the internationals. There was Guille, who would rest his hand on the back of Pep's neck, fingers sometimes burrowing into the curls above, and smile whenever Pep turned uncertain, worried eyes on him, but even he would fall silent sometimes when other voices were insistent. Then there was Zubi, who didn't say much at all, but who always had everyone turning towards him, perfectly silent, whenever he did, and who made a point of turning his attention to Pep whenever he got quiet.
"Always watching and listening, Pep. What are you looking for?"
Jose Mari or Guille would have said it teasingly. Zubi was dead serious.
"That's a hard question to answer."
There was a sort of magnificent stillness about Zubi, all the more obvious at a place like Barca with its constant storms. Pep both admired and envied it, like much else about Zubi - his easy grace amidst any company, his obvious fundamental decency. Whenever he felt unsteady, which was often in the early days, he would look to Zubi.
"I guess I'm trying to learn."
And he was learning all the time about the individual components that made up the team of Cruyff's imagination - the way Michael would fool an opponent just by shifting his balance, the abrupt brutality with which Hristo went through a defence, the power contained in Ronald's freekicks even as they drew perfect arcs through the air, and how he only had to glance at Zubi in front of goal to feel utterly secure.
* * *
That year was the beginning of it all. It was his first time on the city hall balcony, holding up the trophy that bore witness to what they had done. The long reign of La Quinta del Buitre had finally ended, and they had been the ones to apply the final blow.
So Pep faced the jubilant crowd down below with their flags and banners, wrapped in a giant senyera of his own - knowing what the league title meant to them, knowing what the flag around his shoulders meant - and led the chant.
Visca el Barca! Visca Catalunya!
* * *
1992
* * *
Cruyff always had some grand design no one else understood in mind, or so it seemed. This was the year when the team themselves began to sense it coming together to form a greater whole, even through they didn't yet know the shape of the final product.
Sometimes Pep could see the moment when a component clicked into place. It happened more and more often as time went on and Cruyff began to tell him how he wanted the team to play, trusting that he'd know what to do.
The strange thing was that increasingly he did.
* * *
"We are in Wembley. The pitch is perfect, the stadium is full. We are going to play in the final of the European Cup. So go out and enjoy it." - Cruyff's team talk before Barca's European Cup final against Sampdoria.
* * *
The day before the game, they trained at Wembley. Pep was hopelessly distracted for most of the session. Not by anything like nerves, but because he couldn't stop looking around. The Camp Nou had its stories to tell, but he had heard most of them many times over by then; Wembley's ghosts were almost palpable.
"Do you want to go have a look around?" Zubi asked him after training, smiling at Pep as he ducked his head in embarrassment.
"I...yeah. Sorry, was I that distracted?"
"Don't worry, I don't think anyone else could tell," Zubi murmured, quiet and amused, before turning away. "Julio, you coming?"
* * *
"Twenty-five."
"No, I think more like thirty."
"No way!"
"What are you two arguing about?" Zubi cut in, exasperated. They were high up on one of the stands behind a goal looking down the rows upon rows of empty seats at the pitch below - admittedly not the best time to get into a heated discussion about minutia.
"We're trying to guess how many steps there are leading up to the main stand. You know, there. Where they hand out the trophy," Julio said, gesturing wildly for Zubi's benefit.
His voice went a little funny at the end, but both Pep and Zubi pretended not to notice.
Zubi looked thoughtful. "We could find out tomorrow," he finally said, carefully, softly, as if trying not to tempt fate. "If we win."
* * *
They won for Barca, for the culmination of Cruyff's vision, for the settlement of a bitter debt incurred in Berne and in Seville -
- and, or so Julio would jokingly claim afterwards, so they could count the steps.
* * *
Pep made a mess of doing his tie up twice before Zubi intervened to do it for him. He did actually know how, but there was no way his hands were going to work properly then, with the roar of the crowd outside filtering through the walls, and everything else that had happened since Wembley.
"There," Zubi said, stepping back to admire his handiwork with a satisfied nod. "Now, what's the matter?"
At first Pep didn't think he would find the words. When they did come, they tumbled over one other in a jumbled, breathless rush. "I've seen it happen before, but I think this is the first time I've really understood it...There's so much surrounding Barca. You get caught up in it, and then it burns you up."
He looked into Zubi's troubled eyes and saw that he understood.
"What are you planning?"
Pep exhaled loudly. "Just wait. You'll see."
* * *
Later that day, the team returned to be greeted by over a million supporters in the streets of Barcelona...Later, as had become the custom since the coming of democracy, they took their latest trophy to the Placa Sant Jaume, showing it separately from the balconies of both the Generalitat and the City Hall...
It was left to Guardiola...to touch the real emotional nerve of the gathering. He paraphrased the historic words of the Catalan President Josep Tarradellas on his return from exile after Franco's death - 'Citizens of Catalunya, I am here!' declaring, 'Ciutadans de Catalunya, ya la tenim aqui!' - 'Citizens of Catalunya, you have it here!' - Jimmy Burns, Barca: A People's Passion
* * *
They were called the Dream Team, and it wasn't because of some idle boast about being the be-all and end-all of football. The real meaning was smaller: only that they represented an answer to the desires of cules - for an almost dogmatic commitment to a certain style of play, and for that night in Wembley, finally fulfilling a dream that had only been repeatedly shattered until then.
* * *
1993
* * *
The boy king, Michael called him once. He was teasing, in that gentle, mischievous way he had that made people not mind.
Pep was still one of the younger players, even if others like Sergi had come along. As always, he didn't let it stop him from speaking when he felt it was necessary. Cruyff likened him to those trouble-makers at Ajax, always wanting to know why they had to do something. It was true enough. It wasn't in his nature to say nothing, whether it was something Cruyff or the board of directors had done.
Despite what he said, Cruyff didn't usually mind giving explanations when they were asked for. There were occasions, though, when Pep pushed too hard and his temper took over.
It was one of those times when Cruyff told him. Perhaps by accident. Perhaps by design.
Cruyff had been so angry that he grabbed Pep's shoulders and looked like he wanted to shake him to go along with the inevitable shouting. But he didn't. He chose to shock Pep to the core with a few quietly-spoken words instead.
"You need to learn the limits. Why? Someday you'll be captain. What do you think about that?"
Pep went utterly still. "I - "
Cruyff snorted and let go of him. "Give it some thought. You've got time."
* * *
Cruyff was never still. His natural place was at the eye of the hurricane, responding to the harshness of the environment, whether it was at Ajax or at Barca, with constant evolution. So the team changed, bit by bit, every year, even as they kept winning, even as the reality of what they were finally came close to matching the team cules held in their hearts.
Increasingly, Pep came to fear that change. There were no certainties, no untouchables where Cruyff was concerned. Only the dogma of his understanding of the game.
Sometimes, he would look at Julio's slumping shoulders, and the lines etched prematurely into Zubi's forehead, and he would be afraid.
* * *
1994
* * *
They were fantastic to watch, but a dream team? None of the squad could defend - a footballing attribute which Cruyff seemed to view as an inferior preoccupation of managers who feared the opposition. - Phil Ball, Morbo
* * *
They had won the league for the fourth time. Their success was unprecedented in the history of Barca. If anything, the team was stronger than before.
When the final whistle went in Athens, Pep understood with startling clarity that none of it would matter now. Not after losing like they had. Not when Michael couldn't look at Cruyff, and Cruyff couldn't look at Zubi.
It was over.
* * *
At least Andoni could say it wasn't entirely unexpected. Sooner or later, he knew it would have been his turn to go, whether it came by the hand of Nunez or Cruyff. He only wished it hadn't been triggered by something as traumatic as Athens.
They've already started calling it the place where the Dream Team died.
"Strange how in times like these everything becomes clearer," Pep said, his voice laced with bitter irony. He had no resentment for Cruyff in particular, having always had a balanced view of the man from his first days in the senior team, but it's times like these that lay bare the complexities of what Cruyff called the 'environment', and it was clear that Pep didn't like some of what he had seen.
"I forgot - this is the first time you've seen this happen. What will you do, now that you know?"
He's never seen Pep this still, as if that calm centre of his had been stretched to almost breaking point over his skin like a protective layer.
"I won't change."
Zubi had to smile at that. Of course. "Go on being impossible, then."
Pep smiled back with eyes like still water.
"As long as I live."
Notes:
1. Andoni Zubizarreta had his university studies interrupted by a top-flight career. Years later, Pep Guardiola had the same thing happen to him. Both are multilingual intellectual types when it comes to football.
2. Names: Chapi = Albert Ferrer, Miguel Angel = Miguel Angel Nadal (uncle of Rafa), Jose Mari = Jose Mari Bakero, Guille = Guillermo Amor, Michael = Michael Laudrup, Hristo = Hristo Stoichkov, Ronald = Ronald Koeman, Julio = Julio Salinas, Sergi = Sergi Barjuan, Nunez = Josep Lluis Nunez, Barcelona president at the time.
3. The story about counting steps is apparently true, although I've picked my favourite details out of about 3 different versions of the story and melded them together.
4. Zubi won the Spanish title with Athletic Bilbao before moving to Barca. Pep Guardiola was a ballboy at the Camp Nou during the mid-80s.
5. La Masia is Barca's youth academy. Guardiola lived there from the age of 12 until he got into the first team.
6. The quote about Cruyff's grandmother is also true, at least if you listen to certain journalists.
7. Guardiola made his Barca debut in 1990 in a league game against Cadiz. During this time, Barca were short a midfielder due to Milla departing to Real, Amor being suspended and Koeman injured.
8. La Quinta del Buitre were the legendary Real team of the late 80s who won La Liga 5 times in a row. Their dominance was broken by Cruyff's Barca.
9. The debt referred to in Berne and Seville are the two European Cup finals Barca lost, the former to Benfica and the later to Steaua.
10. Cruyff telling Pep that he's going to be captain is also allegedly true according to at least one source.
11. Barca lost the 1994 European Cup final spectacularly to Fabio Capello's Milan, 4-0. It pretty much ended the Dream Team - Zubi was shipped off, Laudrup went to Real, and Cruyff's feuds with Barca's board of directors became increasingly unmanageable.
Named after a song by Tom McRae. Feedback is adored.
At times Barcelona's football reached heights that adjectives cannot really scale. Everyone in Spain who was remotely interested in football found themselves glued to the television every time Barca were on - which was almost every week. The delights seemed endless - the subtlety of the almost telepathic communication between Laudrup and Beguiristain, Goikoetxea's runs on the right flank, Koeman's shooting, Guardiola's razor-sharp passing, Stoichkov's aggressive and bony grace. - Phil Ball, Morbo
Wembley, 1992
"Thirty-three," Pep said, half-laughing and breathless. He smelled faintly like the expensive cava Chapi and Miguel Angel were randomly attacking people with, and he leaned into Andoni bonelessly, completely unlike his usual restless, almost twitchy self.
There was nothing of that haziness in his eyes, though.
"It's thirty-three. I counted."
It took Andoni another moment to realize what he was talking about. Never mind that conversation, much of yesterday was a blur to him - and, he suspected, most of his team mates - everything else overwhelmed by the memory of what they'd just gone through. Ninety minutes, extra time, and Barca's first European Cup. As Cruyff said before the celebrations really began, they made history tonight.
And yet.
In later years, looking back, Andoni sometimes thinks they won just so they could count the steps.
* * *
1984
* * *
The first time Pep saw Andoni Zubizarreta, it was from his perch behind the goalmouth, watching and waiting with a ball in his hand and several more at his feet, ready to spring up and lob one onto the field as soon as he was called for.
Athletic Bilbao were a team of giants, or so the skinny boy of those days thought. At their best, their footsteps could shake the foundations of great stadiums. The broad back of their young goalkeeper would fill Pep's vision, like a physical manifestation of the calm Zubizarreta projected. He imagined the trepidation quickening the hearts of strikers who came face to face with the man, with their instinctive knowledge that what lay beneath the calm was an absolute certainty in his ability to protect his territory; that they could only pull out all their tricks and hope that the gods of football smiled on them for that single moment.
Back then, Pep didn't know whether he would one day be able to do more than imagine going for goal against the best keeper in Spain. He was just a kid, slowly growing up in La Masia amidst books and training and games, too small and slight for the physical side of the game, not fast or skilled enough to be a great attacker. Everything was still uncertain.
* * *
1990
* * *
"Cruyff didn't invent me. He took a bet on me and believed in me and pointed a finger, saying, "It's you I want,"..." - Pep Guardiola, in Jimmy Burns' Barca: A People's Passion
* * *
"You're slower than my grandmother."
Cruyff had lost some of that once piercing brightness in the years after retirement, the blinding flash of it reduced to something that made it a bit easier to look at him straight on.
When he spoke, though, Pep could still see why people let him bend the normal rules of human interaction the way they did. There was something very compelling about his obvious unshakable confidence and the depth of his convictions, and it made a person want to measure up to his expectations.
Chapi swore up and down that Cruyff had really, really turned up at the Barca B game just to watch Pep play, but that counted for nothing if he couldn't cut it in the first team, even in a friendly game.
Cruyff had picked him for a reason. He knew what he could do and what he couldn't. And he could fit into Cruyff's vision of the game. It was as simple as that.
"It's the speed of the ball that counts, isn't it?"
He said it softly, with a smile. Still, the words were like a grenade lobbed into the middle of the dressing room. Everyone fell silent.
Cruyff only allowed surprise to flash through his eyes for the briefest moment. Then the stern look returned, though Pep thought he spotted an amused gleam in his eyes as he clapped Pep on the shoulder.
"Think faster, then. I've seen you do it."
* * *
"Congratulations. You just became a person to Cruyff," Zubi said as soon as Pep came up to him, amusement clear in his tone.
"That..." Pep took a deep, shuddering breath. "That was terrifying."
He didn't regret saying it for a single moment. It was still really scary. He could have - well, he could have blown it all with a single lapse of judgement. On the other hand, he would probably have regretted not saying it, and he'd rather not deal with regrets.
Zubi laughed, then, and casually reached out a broad hand to ruffle his hair. "You did well."
In later years, he would realize that Zubi did not laugh often, that the memories of that particular conversation were to be treasured for more than one reason.
* * *
He and Cruyff were both right. It was the speed and accuracy of the ball that counted when it came to what he could do on a pitch, and he could and did improve at it. When he finally got the official call-up, though, it wasn't because he had measured up to and beaten Cruyff's standards. No, they simply needed a player in his position. They needed something that could change the status quo.
Before the game, the reporters asked him about the state of the team, the problems in attack and defence, as if a nineteen year old fresh from the B team had all the answers.
He didn't, and said so: "I'm not a saviour."
All he did was connect the lines. That was all.
After the first few games, the questions changed. How do you handle yourself in a dressing room full of big players? What do you do as a playmaker when all these superstars are asking for the ball?
That was the way the media worked, and it frustrated Pep at first. They always overcomplicate simple things. Simple things like knowing how a play should develop, where a ball could be most useful. It's not a matter of names. Or at least, under Cruyff it wouldn't be.
* * *
1991
* * *
In all their pages and pages of copy produced every single day on the team, pretty much no one managed to capture what it was really like in the dressing room. Maybe it was inevitable - though he didn't know it at the time, having experienced nothing other than that cauldron of quickly shifting moods and clashing sparks - after all, they were far from a typical group.
Sometimes, it was all he could do to take everything in.
Chapi had taken it upon himself to look after him in the beginning, but he was not much more experienced than Pep, and - in theory, anyway - just as out of his depth amongst the internationals. There was Guille, who would rest his hand on the back of Pep's neck, fingers sometimes burrowing into the curls above, and smile whenever Pep turned uncertain, worried eyes on him, but even he would fall silent sometimes when other voices were insistent. Then there was Zubi, who didn't say much at all, but who always had everyone turning towards him, perfectly silent, whenever he did, and who made a point of turning his attention to Pep whenever he got quiet.
"Always watching and listening, Pep. What are you looking for?"
Jose Mari or Guille would have said it teasingly. Zubi was dead serious.
"That's a hard question to answer."
There was a sort of magnificent stillness about Zubi, all the more obvious at a place like Barca with its constant storms. Pep both admired and envied it, like much else about Zubi - his easy grace amidst any company, his obvious fundamental decency. Whenever he felt unsteady, which was often in the early days, he would look to Zubi.
"I guess I'm trying to learn."
And he was learning all the time about the individual components that made up the team of Cruyff's imagination - the way Michael would fool an opponent just by shifting his balance, the abrupt brutality with which Hristo went through a defence, the power contained in Ronald's freekicks even as they drew perfect arcs through the air, and how he only had to glance at Zubi in front of goal to feel utterly secure.
* * *
That year was the beginning of it all. It was his first time on the city hall balcony, holding up the trophy that bore witness to what they had done. The long reign of La Quinta del Buitre had finally ended, and they had been the ones to apply the final blow.
So Pep faced the jubilant crowd down below with their flags and banners, wrapped in a giant senyera of his own - knowing what the league title meant to them, knowing what the flag around his shoulders meant - and led the chant.
Visca el Barca! Visca Catalunya!
* * *
1992
* * *
Cruyff always had some grand design no one else understood in mind, or so it seemed. This was the year when the team themselves began to sense it coming together to form a greater whole, even through they didn't yet know the shape of the final product.
Sometimes Pep could see the moment when a component clicked into place. It happened more and more often as time went on and Cruyff began to tell him how he wanted the team to play, trusting that he'd know what to do.
The strange thing was that increasingly he did.
* * *
"We are in Wembley. The pitch is perfect, the stadium is full. We are going to play in the final of the European Cup. So go out and enjoy it." - Cruyff's team talk before Barca's European Cup final against Sampdoria.
* * *
The day before the game, they trained at Wembley. Pep was hopelessly distracted for most of the session. Not by anything like nerves, but because he couldn't stop looking around. The Camp Nou had its stories to tell, but he had heard most of them many times over by then; Wembley's ghosts were almost palpable.
"Do you want to go have a look around?" Zubi asked him after training, smiling at Pep as he ducked his head in embarrassment.
"I...yeah. Sorry, was I that distracted?"
"Don't worry, I don't think anyone else could tell," Zubi murmured, quiet and amused, before turning away. "Julio, you coming?"
* * *
"Twenty-five."
"No, I think more like thirty."
"No way!"
"What are you two arguing about?" Zubi cut in, exasperated. They were high up on one of the stands behind a goal looking down the rows upon rows of empty seats at the pitch below - admittedly not the best time to get into a heated discussion about minutia.
"We're trying to guess how many steps there are leading up to the main stand. You know, there. Where they hand out the trophy," Julio said, gesturing wildly for Zubi's benefit.
His voice went a little funny at the end, but both Pep and Zubi pretended not to notice.
Zubi looked thoughtful. "We could find out tomorrow," he finally said, carefully, softly, as if trying not to tempt fate. "If we win."
* * *
They won for Barca, for the culmination of Cruyff's vision, for the settlement of a bitter debt incurred in Berne and in Seville -
- and, or so Julio would jokingly claim afterwards, so they could count the steps.
* * *
Pep made a mess of doing his tie up twice before Zubi intervened to do it for him. He did actually know how, but there was no way his hands were going to work properly then, with the roar of the crowd outside filtering through the walls, and everything else that had happened since Wembley.
"There," Zubi said, stepping back to admire his handiwork with a satisfied nod. "Now, what's the matter?"
At first Pep didn't think he would find the words. When they did come, they tumbled over one other in a jumbled, breathless rush. "I've seen it happen before, but I think this is the first time I've really understood it...There's so much surrounding Barca. You get caught up in it, and then it burns you up."
He looked into Zubi's troubled eyes and saw that he understood.
"What are you planning?"
Pep exhaled loudly. "Just wait. You'll see."
* * *
Later that day, the team returned to be greeted by over a million supporters in the streets of Barcelona...Later, as had become the custom since the coming of democracy, they took their latest trophy to the Placa Sant Jaume, showing it separately from the balconies of both the Generalitat and the City Hall...
It was left to Guardiola...to touch the real emotional nerve of the gathering. He paraphrased the historic words of the Catalan President Josep Tarradellas on his return from exile after Franco's death - 'Citizens of Catalunya, I am here!' declaring, 'Ciutadans de Catalunya, ya la tenim aqui!' - 'Citizens of Catalunya, you have it here!' - Jimmy Burns, Barca: A People's Passion
* * *
They were called the Dream Team, and it wasn't because of some idle boast about being the be-all and end-all of football. The real meaning was smaller: only that they represented an answer to the desires of cules - for an almost dogmatic commitment to a certain style of play, and for that night in Wembley, finally fulfilling a dream that had only been repeatedly shattered until then.
* * *
1993
* * *
The boy king, Michael called him once. He was teasing, in that gentle, mischievous way he had that made people not mind.
Pep was still one of the younger players, even if others like Sergi had come along. As always, he didn't let it stop him from speaking when he felt it was necessary. Cruyff likened him to those trouble-makers at Ajax, always wanting to know why they had to do something. It was true enough. It wasn't in his nature to say nothing, whether it was something Cruyff or the board of directors had done.
Despite what he said, Cruyff didn't usually mind giving explanations when they were asked for. There were occasions, though, when Pep pushed too hard and his temper took over.
It was one of those times when Cruyff told him. Perhaps by accident. Perhaps by design.
Cruyff had been so angry that he grabbed Pep's shoulders and looked like he wanted to shake him to go along with the inevitable shouting. But he didn't. He chose to shock Pep to the core with a few quietly-spoken words instead.
"You need to learn the limits. Why? Someday you'll be captain. What do you think about that?"
Pep went utterly still. "I - "
Cruyff snorted and let go of him. "Give it some thought. You've got time."
* * *
Cruyff was never still. His natural place was at the eye of the hurricane, responding to the harshness of the environment, whether it was at Ajax or at Barca, with constant evolution. So the team changed, bit by bit, every year, even as they kept winning, even as the reality of what they were finally came close to matching the team cules held in their hearts.
Increasingly, Pep came to fear that change. There were no certainties, no untouchables where Cruyff was concerned. Only the dogma of his understanding of the game.
Sometimes, he would look at Julio's slumping shoulders, and the lines etched prematurely into Zubi's forehead, and he would be afraid.
* * *
1994
* * *
They were fantastic to watch, but a dream team? None of the squad could defend - a footballing attribute which Cruyff seemed to view as an inferior preoccupation of managers who feared the opposition. - Phil Ball, Morbo
* * *
They had won the league for the fourth time. Their success was unprecedented in the history of Barca. If anything, the team was stronger than before.
When the final whistle went in Athens, Pep understood with startling clarity that none of it would matter now. Not after losing like they had. Not when Michael couldn't look at Cruyff, and Cruyff couldn't look at Zubi.
It was over.
* * *
At least Andoni could say it wasn't entirely unexpected. Sooner or later, he knew it would have been his turn to go, whether it came by the hand of Nunez or Cruyff. He only wished it hadn't been triggered by something as traumatic as Athens.
They've already started calling it the place where the Dream Team died.
"Strange how in times like these everything becomes clearer," Pep said, his voice laced with bitter irony. He had no resentment for Cruyff in particular, having always had a balanced view of the man from his first days in the senior team, but it's times like these that lay bare the complexities of what Cruyff called the 'environment', and it was clear that Pep didn't like some of what he had seen.
"I forgot - this is the first time you've seen this happen. What will you do, now that you know?"
He's never seen Pep this still, as if that calm centre of his had been stretched to almost breaking point over his skin like a protective layer.
"I won't change."
Zubi had to smile at that. Of course. "Go on being impossible, then."
Pep smiled back with eyes like still water.
"As long as I live."
Notes:
1. Andoni Zubizarreta had his university studies interrupted by a top-flight career. Years later, Pep Guardiola had the same thing happen to him. Both are multilingual intellectual types when it comes to football.
2. Names: Chapi = Albert Ferrer, Miguel Angel = Miguel Angel Nadal (uncle of Rafa), Jose Mari = Jose Mari Bakero, Guille = Guillermo Amor, Michael = Michael Laudrup, Hristo = Hristo Stoichkov, Ronald = Ronald Koeman, Julio = Julio Salinas, Sergi = Sergi Barjuan, Nunez = Josep Lluis Nunez, Barcelona president at the time.
3. The story about counting steps is apparently true, although I've picked my favourite details out of about 3 different versions of the story and melded them together.
4. Zubi won the Spanish title with Athletic Bilbao before moving to Barca. Pep Guardiola was a ballboy at the Camp Nou during the mid-80s.
5. La Masia is Barca's youth academy. Guardiola lived there from the age of 12 until he got into the first team.
6. The quote about Cruyff's grandmother is also true, at least if you listen to certain journalists.
7. Guardiola made his Barca debut in 1990 in a league game against Cadiz. During this time, Barca were short a midfielder due to Milla departing to Real, Amor being suspended and Koeman injured.
8. La Quinta del Buitre were the legendary Real team of the late 80s who won La Liga 5 times in a row. Their dominance was broken by Cruyff's Barca.
9. The debt referred to in Berne and Seville are the two European Cup finals Barca lost, the former to Benfica and the later to Steaua.
10. Cruyff telling Pep that he's going to be captain is also allegedly true according to at least one source.
11. Barca lost the 1994 European Cup final spectacularly to Fabio Capello's Milan, 4-0. It pretty much ended the Dream Team - Zubi was shipped off, Laudrup went to Real, and Cruyff's feuds with Barca's board of directors became increasingly unmanageable.
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