Quotes from Guillem Balagué

No debemos perder de vista nuestra idea».

Ramon Besa put it wonderfully: 'He is a bit of a Quixote. In an era of fast food, Pep wants degustation football, as if it were a wine.

I became a coach because I thought I could dominate the game with what I say, what I do, what we train and how I try to convince players.

He could live with them playing badly now and again, he told them, but he demanded 100 per cent on the pitch in every single game.

You have no idea what it means as a player when you are losing, or things are not working, and a coach tells you the reasons. 'And when things go wrong, he would insist on the idea, he remained consistent, even after a defeat. That is another lesson.

In 1974 Laureano Ruíz became general coordinator for youth football and one of the first things he did was to tear down a notice next to the entrance of his new office that read: 'If you are coming to offer me a youngster who measures less than 1.80 metres, you can take him back.' 'Laureano prioritised the technical quality of a footballer, reaction times and, above other factors, intelligence, to learn and understand the game,

We have to be able to dominate the game, and make sure that we aren't dominated ourselves.

the attacking players would need to become the best defenders; and the defenders would have to become the first line of attack, moving the ball forward from the back.

He wanted players who controlled the ball with their first touch, who had quick feet, who retained the ball and created superiority from individual technique and group work.

He said that if you pass the ball well, you receive it well and have good control; then you have far more possibilities.

La felicidad sobre el campo, el mayor número de decisiones correctas, como en la vida, parte del equilibro.

I saw Guardiola as a mystical type of person. The way he dressed – always in black – he was sometimes very quiet, constantly analysing things, thinking things over: why we won, why we lost, why he'd lost the ball. Sometimes his obsessiveness was excessive.

Superiority in midfield, as predicted by Pep, was the key to the game.

My role was to move the ball around the pitch for my team-mates to finish off the move,' he says. The

I can see that he is capable of doing it because he has made a great deal of decisions in a short space of time.

Guardiola believed in handing greater responsibility to the footballers, trusting that their intuition could help solve a great amount of their problems. As a coach, Pep remained true to this idea and was determined to let his charges take the initiative.

Guardiola told me that if there is a hint of disharmony within the group he removes it, as he did with Eto'o and Ibrahimovi?, who wanted to be stars in a team where no one feels a star.

The players who go through La Masía are taught to behave with civility and humility. The theory being that, not only is it pleasant to be unassuming, but also if you are humble, you are capable of learning – and the capacity to learn is the capacity to improve. If you aren't capable of learning you won't improve.

We have to transmit trust and security in all the decisions we make. 'That trust, security and sincerity are the fundamental pillars for a good coach. The players have to believe in the manager's message. He must always speak to the player fearlessly, sincerely and tell him what he thinks. Without deceiving him.

Pep realised that in order to make the team a success he needed to add intensity and an increased work rate to their technical abilities.

above all else, they had to learn to win. Instilling a fiercely competitive, winning spirit into a team, an academy already blessed with an abundance of talent, represented something of a watershed for grass-roots football at FC Barcelona.

Guardiola has taken certain areas to another level – such as pressing the ball – and Barcelona's disciplined style of play and work ethic have become a trademark of all his teams.

I've been successful at Manchester United for many years and it's not without its problems – every hour of every day you have to deal with something.

The secret is in the details and in observing a lot. You have to pay a great deal of attention, constantly, to what happens every day, more so than to the weekend's game: we are always aware of every aspect, of a player's moods, their expressions, of thousands of almost unfathomable things that could make a difference. Observation is key.