Quotes from Guillem Balagué

In the junior categories we wanted to mould the player. You must know what his strengths and weaknesses are, work on them and correct them.

I only ask this of you. I won't tell you off if you misplace a pass, or miss a header that costs us a goal, as long as I know you are giving 100 per cent. I could forgive you any mistake, but I won't forgive you if you don't give your heart and soul to Barcelona.

He became as demanding of himself as he was with his players and staff but, in everything he did, he always made it a priority to explain why he was asking them to do something. He was always the first to arrive and the last to leave, working mornings and afternoons at the training ground. Every aspect of running the team had to be under his control: he demanded daily reports and updates from all his staff. Nothing was left to chance.

The senior players, meanwhile, understood perfectly well, and as one recognised: 'He always used us as an example, but he was always fair with us and everyone else.' Pep was finding solutions to the team's problems, relying on instinct and experience to motivate, inspire and get the best out of the youngsters.

The key is to have a strong dressing room, knowing that we are stronger together than one person on his own.

there are few pure footballing training sessions and there is a lot of co-existence and it isn't easy. But the lucky thing in this team is having found people with important human values.

We are one. We are not little groups because in all teams this is what ends up killing team spirit.

If each person does their job, and they know what it is because I make sure they know, then we are a team that is difficult to beat.

At the same time, he was humble enough to recognise that he wasn't sufficiently trained in certain areas, mostly defensive work.

Guardiola would ring him to express his doubts to him, whether they be about the use of space by his players or the behaviour of those off the ball. Rodolf Borrell, now at Liverpool FC, was a coach with one of the Barcelona youth teams at the time, and each week Guardiola went to his defensive training sessions to observe and learn.

Perdonaré que fallen, pero no que no se esfuercen.

instilling a new regime of professionalism that was missing even from the first team.

When we have the ball, we can't lose it. And when that happens, run and get it back. That is it, basically.' The squad, the group, was seduced. Not for the last time; far from it. Upon leaving the room, Xavi commented to a team-mate that everything that they had needed to know was there in that talk. A breath of fresh air, order and discipline. A reminder of the style he wanted to reinforce. All that was established from day one.

Pep's do-or-die attitude from the sidelines (constantly correcting and signalling during games, treating every match as if it were the last, intensely focused on the job, passionate and occasionally over-exuberant) as well as his off-pitch behaviour (making the team eat together, scouting rival players and teams, unheard of at the time in the third division) suggested he was a leader, ready for management. Ready to lead at any level. Any team.

What you can't do is study the talks, learn them by heart. Two or three concepts are all you need . . . and then you have to put your heart into it. You can't deceive the players, they are too well prepared, intelligent, intuitive. I was a footballer and I know what I'm saying. In every talk, from that one in St Andrews to the last one, I have put my heart into them. And when I don't feel it, I don't speak, it's the best way.

I know that we have to start work quickly and intensively, whoever wants to be with us from the start will be welcomed. And the rest, we will win them over in the future.

This is the beautiful thing about this job, because each rival, each situation, is different to the previous one and you always have to find that special something, to say to them "Guys, today is important

There is not a single trainer, nor player, that can guarantee success at the start of a season,' Guardiola wrote a decade ago. 'Nor are there magic formulae. If there were, this game of football would be as easy as going to the "solutions shop" and buying them all.

The director of football went away and started doing some digging around, gathering second opinions about Pep's qualities as an actual coach.

Football was his passion, his obsession, the thing he knew best, and Serie A was considered the league that practised the most advanced defensive tactics since Sacchi. His Milan of the eighties were regarded as having set the benchmark in terms of work rate and defensive strategy over the previous two decades – and Pep was determined to learn as much as he could from his time in Italy.

La confianza, la seguridad y la sinceridad son los pilares fundamentales para un buen entrenador.

I always try and give the players the security of knowing what they'll encounter. This increases the possibility of doing things well.

Una columna en el periódico, o un titular de portada, a veces influye más en el estado de ánimo de los jugadores que mi propia opinión. Así que tengo que ver qué titulares han sido publicados acerca de un jugador, y si tengo dos estrellas y hay tres titulares sobre uno de ellos, tendré que hablar con el jugador al que no le han dedicado ninguno.

That work ethic, instilled in him by his parents, is very much part of the Catalan character: saving the soul through industry, effort, honest labour and giving your all to the job.