Why Pep Guardiola's Final Barcelona Season Fell Apart
Pep Guardiola's Barcelona is widely regarded as one of the best teams of all time and for a good reason. During the four years of the manager's tenure, the club won fourteen trophies, which is an all-time best for them and also played some of the finest football that the sport has ever seen. However, by the time of the 2011/12 season, this squad lost a step or two, which led to them losing La Liga to Real Madrid and getting eliminated in the Champions League semifinal by Chelsea.
Mental Fatigue Sets In
A topic that Guardiola has mentioned since his departure is the fact that he wasn't getting the most out of his players at the time from a mental perspective. This makes sense given what one of his star midfielders, Xavi Hernandez, has stated about him."When they signed him I said: 'Madre mía, we're going to be flying,'" Xavi said in 2012 about Guardiola, as per The Guardian. "I swear it. He's a perfectionist. If Pep decided to be a musician, he would be a good musician. If he wanted to be a psychologist, he would be a good psychologist. He is obsessive; he would keep going until he got it right. He demands so much from himself. And that pressure that he puts on himself, those demands are contagious - it spreads to everyone. He wants everything to be perfect. He is a 'pesado' (very demanding)."
Moreover, this desire to make everything perfect, which has also been documented during his stints with Bayern Munich and Manchester City, took a toll on some of the players who had been key for the club's success.
"He wanted his players to be obsessed with football 24 hours a day, and at that point in my life, I didn't understand it," Gerard Piqué said in The Players' Tribune. "I wasn't as committed to that philosophy. Pep simply didn't trust me anymore, and the crucial moment was when he decided not to play me against Real Madrid in the league. That was crushing to me. I started to think, is this it? Is the dream of playing for Barca over? Is this how fast it can go away?"
This is something that even Pep himself has recognized throughout the years, especially when he took over as Bayern Munich's manager, even going as far as stating that the 2012 UEFA Champions League semifinal elimination against Chelsea was a watershed moment for his time there.
"If you can no longer reach your players, as a coach, the time has come to move on," Guardiola said in 2014, as per World Soccer. "Seeing Barcelona go out against Chelsea in the Champions League semi-final in 2012 was just such a moment. We were better than our opponents, but then conceded an unnecessary goal in the return leg, and before we knew it we were out of the competition. That was a really tough defeat for me. I felt like I could no longer reach my team,"
Alexis Sanchez was signed from Udinese
A Squad That Was Not Properly Reinforced
It is also worth pointing out how Barcelona were weakened during the transfer window. Alexis Sanchez, then starting to explode with Udinese, was brought in as a replacement for Bojan Kirkc, who left for AS Roma after failing to live up to his potential. Moreover, Cesc Fabregas, a former academy product, was signed from Arsenal as the summer's star signing.While two very talented players, Barcelona were lacking goalscorers because of David Villa's running injury issues and Pedro Rodriguez not being that prolific. While Alexis and Cesc would provide 15 goals each that season, that would be a far cry from Lionel Messi's monstruous output of 73 goals across all competitions, creating massive dependency on the Argentinian.
Furthermore, the squad was aging and Guardiola had to rely on academy products who, for a lack of a better word, were lacking the talent to step up. It was a period of transition, and the manager wasn't ready to rebuild.
Too Much Rested on Messi
As mentioned earlier, Messi scored 73 goals during that season, helping Guardiola win his final three trophies as Barcelona's manager (Supercopa de España, Copa del Rey, and FIFA Club World Cup). While it was a phenomenal output by the Argentinian, a strong candidate for the best individual season in the history of the sport, it also signaled how the club was lacking in other areas of the attack.David Villa, once key during the previous season to win La Liga and the Champions League, struggled to stay healthy and Pedro wasn't contributing too much in terms of output. This was a poor combination that led to an overreliance on the Argentinian, which is something that took its toll in the long run and wouldn't be solved until the MSN years with Luis Enrique.
The End of Guardiola's Barcelona Era
Among all of this, Guardiola's personal differences with then-club president Sandro Rosell would also play a part in his departure. He left by the end of the 2011/12 and would take a year off in New York, then taking the Bayern Munich position for the 2013/14 season. The Catalonian manager has made it clear over the years that he is not going to return to the Camp Nou as a coach."I will never go back to Barcelona to be coach there. My period there is gone," Guardiola stated back in 2017, as per Sky Sports. "Barcelona are still the best team in the world. It's always a surprise because they are so, so good, but in football anything can happen."
Despite that, he has stated both the good and the bad of coaching at a club of that caliber, especially with the degree of success he has had.
"Fourteen titles with the space of just four years meant it was the best period in the club's history. But it can also be a curse. I found it increasingly difficult to motivate both myself and my team."