Skip to main content

Barcelona Manager Guardiola

Barcelona Manager Guardiola - The image which Pep Guardiola presented when he came to face the press in the Camp Nou media room after Monday night's vicious destruction of Real Madrid was absolutely astonishing. Several of the Catalan journalists he knows and likes best were moist of eye and still hyperactive with the kind of adrenalin that grips the body when something unexpectedly joyous happens.

The Madrid-based journalists were shocked beyond belief.

What we had all gathered for were Guardiola's words -- a way to make sense of the soccer miracle we'd just been privileged to witness. But Guardiola could barely speak. Not because of emotion or muddled thoughts after wild celebrations in the dressing room. No, Guardiola's voice was ragged like Tom Waits with a bout of bronchitis.

Each sound Guardiola tried to make betrayed a vocal chord which had been stretched, battered and torn to near oblivion, so that when he spoke all that came out were a series of creaks and groans which made his words almost unintelligible.

What this usually elegant and controlled young man began to confirm was that, while he was proud to his core that Barcelona had performed irresistibly well in front of "the eyes of the world," for him it had been a tortuous night.

When you watch Guardiola on the touchline, he will normally need only a few words here and there while his epoch-defining footballers produce their own solutions to the puzzles posed by opposition defenses. Most often he'll sit patiently beside trusted assistant Tito Vilanova, dissecting what they are watching. That was not the case on Monday night.

Guardiola ranted and raved for nearly every one of the 95 minutes. He roared minor adjustments at his players, almost shredding his larynx in order to be heard above the primordial roar caused by 98,000 Catalans rejoicing as their team routed hated rival Madrid.

In the first half, Guardiola played the kind of "find-the-lady" trick which has kept street hustlers in the money for centuries using three facedown cards and a group of gullible passersby. Cristiano Ronaldo came to grab the ball off Guardiola. "Here it is! You want it? Oops, there it goes," the Barca manager seemed to be saying as he kept the ball from Ronaldo, who responded by shoving Guardiola in the chest. The game's first big fracas ensued.

Barcelona Manager Guardiola

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Contactless Debit Cards

Contactless Debit Cards - Contactless debit cards will make their formal debut in Canada next year with the launch of Interac Flash from Acxsys Corp.’s Interac Association, Canada’s national debit network. Interac’s first two Flash issuers are Scotiabank and RBC Royal Bank, which will roll out their first contactless cards next summer. The first acquirer is TD Merchant Services, a unit of Toronto-Dominion Bank. More issuers and acquirers are on the way, an Interac spokesperson tells Digital Transactions News, though no announcements have been made yet. Interac and the banks tested Flash this summer at some high-volume, small-ticket merchants in downtown Toronto. The spokesperson expects national merchants will be making formal announcements about acceptance. “There’s a lot of excitement in the merchant community,” she says. “Merchants are looking for that faster throughput.” In a statement, the Retail Council of Canada endorsed the new card. “Interac Flash is a welcome and needed

The Craigslist Killer TV

The Craigslist Killer TV - Lifetime last night turned the Craigslist killer headlines into a much watched and even more talked about TV movie. The movie told from Ms Megan McAllister’s point of view is chilling, even if it didn’t have her consent. For those who don’t know the story, Philip Markoff a Boston University medical student and fiancé of Ms McAllister met Julissa Brisman on Craigslist and murdered her. Markoff met Brisman on Craigslist, arranged a meeting for a massage. Police at the Boston Marriott Copley Place hotel found Brisman, shot dead and a massage table set up in the room. Brisman, who was 25 at the time, was pursuing a modeling career. Four days earlier a Las Vegas prostitute reported being attacked and robbed by an armed man at a nearby hotel, a stripper at the Holiday Inn in Warwick, Rhode Island reported a similar incident, as well as two more in the area. The Craigslist Killer TV Megan Mcallister, loved and almost married Philip Markoff. The question of thi

'Ferris Bueller's Day Off' Home on the Market for $1.65M

'Ferris Bueller's Day Off' Home on the Market for $1.65M - "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" fans listen up! A home from the iconic '80's film is on the market for $1.65 million, reports the Huffington Post. Starring as the modern digs of character Cameron Frye in the movie, the glassy house is located in Highland Park, Illinois and has been on the market for a little over a year. More photos reveal the glass-wrapped home features floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking a spacious tree-filled lot, according to the listing on Realtor.com. 'Ferris Bueller's Day Off' Home on the Market for $1.65M With four bedrooms, three bathrooms and 5,300 square feet of living space, the home served as the setting for the oddball hijinks in the 1986 film. Architects A. James Speyer and David Haid designed the house, built in 1953, with a specialty glass-enclosed garage to store Ben Rose's collection of vintage cars, reported Luxist.com when the home or