Pep Guardiola must be one of those people who makes Real Madrid’s skin crawl. Well, Guardiola and Lionel Messi, of course. But one thing they must hate more than an Argentinian alien blazing through their defence is probably a Catalan coach standing on the sideline, yelling commands and steering their biggest rival to eternal glory.
And this is not sugarcoating nor making a bigger deal out of it than it actually is. The prospects of Guardiola and Messi are probably two things Real Madrid most envy their Catalan counterparts and while they did have something similar in Cristiano Ronaldo and maybe Zinedine Zidane, neither of those two really hit the mark.
Sure, Ronaldo was arguably the only thing keeping them competitive at times as the Portuguese went on to become the club’s leading goal-scorer in basically no time at all, breaking all kinds of records of old.
Zidane was also incredibly successful. After all, three Champions League trophies and one La Liga crown can surely attest to that, can they not? Most would probably agree and yet, most would probably still take a Guardiola if the opportunity ever arose.
Real Madrid were always one of the greats. At one point in football’s rich history, they were pretty much the greatest club on the planet, dictatorship regimes or not. But apart from the Galactico trend that was established somewhere in the early 2000s, Real Madrid never had that distinct identity.
“Mes que un club”, goes the Barcelona motto and basically it says that the Catalans are, in fact, more than a club – they are a certain way of life, so to speak. They follow a philosophy started by Joan Gamper at the break of the 20th century and one that was tweaked, perfected and finally moulded in the fires of La Masia by the one and only Johan Cruyff.
While Perez was busy building his well-oiled machine with the Galacticos, Barcelona were building their empire on something much more lasting than that: a secret formula that Real Madrid haven’t been able to crack ever since. Few actually have and not many teams in the world can say for certain that their team is based on a philosophy so strongly identifiable as Barcelona’s.
Granted, one could argue this is very much in the past now and Barcelona are as far away from that said philosophy as ever with their multimillion spending on the market. That would be a fair argument but that’s just the way things work and football is no exception.
Just like civilisations, they have a beginning, a peak and finally a demise. Barcelona might’ve peaked in 2009 when they conquered the world, clinching every trophy imaginable by fielding mostly their academy graduates and spending virtually nothing in the process.
Even though Real Madrid achieved greatness by winning three Champions League trophies in a row, there’s still a feeling they could be so much more. But what if Los Blancos actually could have that? Not now, obviously, since Zidane has just returned and things seem to be very much reminiscent of his last venture with the club.
But let’s look ahead a couple of years into the future.
It would be a stretch to say this has been in the workshop for quite some time but would it also be too big of an absurdity to say that Perez has been building his own Guardiola back in the shops of Castilla?
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Of course, we are talking about another club legend, Raul Gonzalez. The now 42-year-old is a true icon of Madrid; their most capped player to this day, second-best goal scorer and currently the manager of Real Madrid’s youth club, Castilla.
Gonzalez has been a huge name for Los Blancos that stood the test of time and has recently returned to potentially usher in a new era at the club. It is most likely still far too early for any real, solid comparisons between him and Guardiola but the signs are certainly there.
Both were club legends with long tenures behind them, both were products of their respective academies and youth ranks, Raul at Castilla and Pep at Barcelona B, both returned back to coach the clubs of their early careers and both with a great aspiration to one day make that step up to the senior team.
Guardiola spent some time in Barcelona B before making that big jump and Gonzalez is currently doing the very same thing at Castilla. It has to be said, however, that he would not be the first one to go through such a ritual at Real Madrid.
In fact, Julen Lopetegui, Rafael Benitez and Zidane also spent time at the Castilla before taking the reigns of the big Galacticos. Maybe Real Madrid have actually been trying this Barcelona blueprint for even longer than one might think.
Sure, there’s also Vicente del Bosque, who came even before Pep but when he was in charge for the first time, Real Madrid were hardly plagued by an identity crisis that Barcelona would later inflict.
And if this is true and Perez has been experimenting with “a Guardiola” in his own secret project behind-the-scenes, then Zidane must’ve been his first successful attempt at that. Of course, some would say Zidane had the perfect squad to do it – a squad littered with world-class players at the peak of their powers and one that worked extraordinarily well together.
Such a squad hardly needed a highly competent coach. Rather, they just needed someone who knew at least something about kicking a ball and Zidane surely ticked that box. But as soon as the squad wilted and the Frenchman’s “black magic” disappeared, the experiment ended in a fire that is still blazing at the Spanish capital.
As much as Zidane was a good attempt, it still didn’t hit the bullseye. But Raul just might.
There’s no way of knowing if it will work or not until it actually happens but happen it will, in due time, of course. And once it does, maybe Perez finally gets what he’s been wanting all along.
His very own Guardiola, all dressed in white and ready to pick up their crown and put it back on its rightful place in the Spanish capital.
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