Guardiola\u2019s effectiveness as a coach is one of the most important reasons for his status. Many coaches have stuck to their principles and played stylish exciting football but few have been as effective as Pep.<\/p>\n
In their 2009 paper Cote and Gilbert put forward four aspects of coaching effectiveness.<\/p>\n
Postulate 1 \u2013 Effective coaches in any context integrate three forms of knowledge, professional, interpersonal, and intrapersonal knowledge<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.pger.net\/football\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/Triad-of-Knowledge-300x288.png\")
<\/a><\/h2>\n(From Coach Knowledge, Expertise and Development lecture slides by Abbe Brady 2018)<\/h6>\n
<\/p>\n
Postulate 2 \u2013 Effective coaches in any context develop athletes\u2019 capacities in the areas of competence, confidence, connection, and character tailored to specific athlete needs.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.pger.net\/football\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/Outcomes-Table-300x95.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\n(Cote and Gilbert 2009)<\/h6>\n
Postulate 3 \u2013 The composition of effective coaches\u2019 professional, interpersonal, and intrapersonal knowledge varies according to at least four different coaching contexts.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.pger.net\/football\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/Contexts-300x212.png\")
<\/a><\/h2>\n(From Coach Knowledge, Expertise and Development lecture slides by Abbe Brady 2018)<\/h6>\n
<\/p>\n
Postulate 4 \u2013 Expert coaches are able to demonstrate coaching effectiveness on a consistent basis.<\/p>\n
Fascinatingly Guardiola appears to fulfil these criteria.<\/p>\n
Guardiola also matches with the definition of a sophisticated coach as outlined by the epistemological chain of Grecic and Collins in 2013, particularly the aspects of epistemology itself;<\/p>\n
Coaching knowledge can be discovered in many places. Constant journey of discovery. Experimentation and reflection to create new knowledge. Aim that knowledge is created and owned by the player.<\/em><\/p>\nPlus the aspect of relationships built;<\/p>\n
Trusting, caring, nurturing, autonomy-supportive behaviours demonstrated.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Guardiola playing career timeline of significant moments<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.pger.net\/football\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/Playing-Career-Timeline-300x108.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\nGuardiola managerial career timeline of significant moments<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.pger.net\/football\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/Managerial-career-time-line-300x89.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
In many ways Guardiola achieved perfection at Barcelona. It was a wonderful combination of many of the elements that create excellence in coaching. His time as a player was of great importance. Enabling him understand the fabric of the football club.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe talked and talked football during the long coach journeys travelling to games all over Catalonia, the homeland that he got to know so well in those teenage years. He continually learnt from everything he saw around him, from other teams, from coaches, from older team mates. On one occasion, he asked a couple of his colleagues to repeat a free-kick routine he had seen the B side perform the previous weekend. The move led to a goal and their coach asked, \u201cWhose idea was that? And where did you pick that up from?\u201d \u201cFrom the grown up players,\u201d responded a fifteen year-old Pep Guardiola. La Masia: a footballing university campus where players and coaches mixed.<\/em>\u201d (Guillem Balague \u2013 Another Way Of Winning Page 33)<\/p>\nAs human beings we interact with each other and the world, and in the pursuit of enterprises we learn. In doing so we, develop practices \u201cthat reflect both the pursuit of enterprises and the attendant social relations\u201d. <\/em>(Wenger cited by Culver, Trudel and Werther 2009)<\/p>\nAs a Catalan who came through the famous la Masia academy, Guardiola understood precisely the meaning of Mes Que Un Club <\/em>(More than a club), enabling him develop strong interpersonal and intrapersonal knowledge.<\/em><\/p>\nDuring Guardiola\u2019s time as a player he would come into contact with his first and most significant mentor. Guardiola was the captain of the Barcelona Dream Team, but there was no doubting the leader and transformative presence of Johan Cruyff. Cruyff would be manager and mentor. A tutor to his captain and to all of his players.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.pger.net\/football\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/Mentoring-Snip-300x103.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\n\u201cWe are a little bit like disciples of the essence that Cruyff brought here,\u201d said Guardiola.<\/em> (Guillem Balague \u2013 Another Way of Winning Page 117)<\/p>\nGuardiola\u2019s relationship with Cruyff adapted over time. Initially Cruyff would have taken a supervisory, authoritarian role in a facilitated setting (that of the FC Barcelona itself). Once Guardiola had become manager the relationship changed with the mentoring becoming more informal.<\/p>\n
Johan Cruyff, who regularly shared long meals with Guardiola, understood that well and had already warned Pep that the second year was harder than the first, and the third harder than the second. And if he could relive his experience as boss of the Dream Team he would have left the club two years earlier. \u201cDon\u2019t stay longer than you should,\u201d Cruyff told Pep on one occasion.<\/em> (Guillem Balague \u2013 Another Way Of Winning. Page 6)<\/p>\nBefore becoming manager of Barcelona B Guardiola moved abroad to seek new knowledge and experiences (tying into the postulate 1 and Grecic and Collins\u2019 definition). Firstly in Italy with Brescia and Roma (managed by Fabio Capello) then to Mexico and Dorados. The time spent with Juan Manuel Lillo in Mexico has often been cited as being particularly influential in the development Guardiola\u2019s knowledge.<\/p>\n
While Guardiola had already been well schooled in possession-based play under Johan Cruyff, Dorados\u2019 former assistant Raul Caneda believs he and Lillo helped the Catalan to refine his understanding of collective positioning, defending from the front, and the idea that defence and attack are not separate entities.<\/em> (The Guardian, How A Six Month Spell In Mexico Set Pep Guardiola On The Road To Coaching Greatness, Duncan Tucker, July 2016)<\/p>\nGuardiola would always study Dorados\u2019 next opponents closely and whenever he was absent through injury he would fidget beside Lillo on the bench and help to deliver instructions. \u201cMany players today become c<\/em><\/p>\noaches by virtue of their name but Pep knew this was not enough,\u201d Caneda adds. \u201cHe was very intelligent, very humble and eager to learn, and he soon became a very complete coach with a great knowledge of the game.<\/em> (The Guardian, How A Six Month Spell In Mexico Set Pep Guardiola On The Road To Coaching Greatness, Duncan Tucker, July 2016)<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Guardiola considered Lillo a friend before he joined him at Dorados. Their relationship was (and is) a fusion of different mentoring roles, the peer, the expert, the general mentor, co-mentors and reverse mentoring (Brady 2018, adapted from Kay & Hinds, 2009). A third key mentor was Marcelo Bielsa who Guardiola sought out in Argentina in 2007. When Guardiola and Bielsa met they spoke for eleven hours. Deep conversation, for deep reflection as logically there is no end point of deep reflection \u2013 it can on and on examining issues in a wider and wider context and at different points of time from the event to infinity<\/em> (Moon 2004).<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
\u201cMy admiration for Bielsa is huge because he makes all the players much better. I haven\u2019t met one guy, a former player of Bielsa, who speaks no good of him. They are grateful for his influence on their careers in football. He helped me a lot with his advice. Whenever I speak with him I always feel like he wants to learn too. He\u2019s one of the best coaches.\u201d<\/em> Pep Guardiola (These Football Times \u2013 Philosophies Page 58)<\/p>\nThe balance of power in these relationships adjusted over time. The Guardiola-Bielsa and Guardiola-Lillo relationships are most similar. With Guardiola initially seeking both of them out (therefore they held the power) before shifting to peer based relationships, with possibly Guardiola now holding more power due to his reputation. The Guardiola-Cruyff balance would always be more weighted towards Cruyff, because Johan was Johan.<\/p>\n
Another attractive quality displayed by Guardiola is his willingness to find inspiration from outside football. In a recent BBC interview he spoke of his admiration for the head chef of the world famous El Bulli restaurant, Ferran Adria.<\/p>\n
It doesn\u2019t matter if you are in the desert. They will arrive and build something and millions of people will follow them. The best cooks in the world were in Ferran\u2019s kitchen. If you don\u2019t try to be creative, if you don\u2019t ask \u2018why do we have to do it that way, why can\u2019t we do it another way,\u2019 then humanity doesn\u2019t exist in the way we know.<\/em> (Guardiola in interview for BBC Football Daily, October 25, 2018)<\/p>\nA lasting influence from outside of football has been Manuel Estiarte. Estiarte has been described as \u201cthe Maradona of water polo \u201d (Manchester Evening News, Anthony Jepson, February 2016). Their friendship began in 1991 during Barcelona\u2019s league title celebrations but was cemented in 1992 as Guardiola and Spain went for the Olympic football gold and Estiarte and Spain went for the Olympic water polo gold. Since then they have been firm friends, giving Guardiola a trusted confidant who has been with him at every club.<\/p>\n
He interprets body language brilliantly too, and knows exactly what a particular look or gesture means. The true greats all share this quality, this intuition.<\/em> (Manchester Evening News, Anthony Jepson, February 2016)<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
This is a further testament to Guardiola\u2019s ability\u00a0 to find a learning opportunity in anything. Guardiola is a practitioner of heutagogy. Guardiola is like William.<\/p>\n
William, a coach with 25 years of experience, considers that to be a successful at the elite level, he has to continually be upgrading his knowledge. Therefore, he is regularly looking for and creating different learning opportunities for himself. <\/em>(Stozkowski, J & Collins. D 2017)<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Guardiola\u2019s relationships with Estiarte, Cruyff and Bielsa (and others) have given him reflective partners. Enabling him to reflect even when there is no new material of learning <\/em>(Moon 2004) In this case the learner is dealing with material that is already part of the cognitive structure and the outcome is a reorganization of cognitive structure with accommodation to newly developed ideas (Ward 1999 cited by Moon 2004). Thus he continues to be an evolving coach.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Each of these men would help Guardiola through his time at Barcelona B and in to the position of manager of the Barcelona first team. All of the ideas and methods that had been discussed and debated, his years of preparation and comprehension of the club would count for nothing without success on the pitch.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Definitely. Definitely, it was good for me, I had one game a week, I had time to analyse my process, and I did not have the spotlights, I did not have the media.\u201d Pep Guardiola<\/em> (Goal, How Barcelona B Shaped Pep Guardiola by Sam Lee)<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Guardiola was experiencing deliberate practice <\/em>for a specific purpose, winning, the true test of his effectiveness. As a reflective practitioner <\/em>(Moon 2004) he used the network around him to continually reflect, change and evolve as a manager.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Pep went to see Johan Cruyff soon after the stumbling start to the season, something that he would repeat frequently whenever he needed advice over the coming years. \u201cI\u2019ve got a problem,\u201d he told his mentor. \u201cI\u2019ve got these two guys who I don\u2019t know if I can control, they don\u2019t listen to what I say and that affects how everybody receives my messages. And the problem is, they\u2019re two of the leaders in the dressing room and the best players. I will lose without them on board.\u201d Cruyff\u2019s response was blunt: \u201cGet rid of them. You might lose one or two games, but then you will start winning and by then you would have turfed those two sons of bitches out of the team.<\/em> (Guillem Balague \u2013 Another Way of Winning Page 84)<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Outcomes of reflection:<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.pger.net\/football\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/Triad-of-Knowledge.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\n(Cote and Gilbert 2009)<\/h6>\n
Postulate 3 \u2013 The composition of effective coaches\u2019 professional, interpersonal, and intrapersonal knowledge varies according to at least four different coaching contexts.<\/p>\n
<\/a><\/h2>\n(From Coach Knowledge, Expertise and Development lecture slides by Abbe Brady 2018)<\/h6>\n
<\/p>\n
Postulate 4 \u2013 Expert coaches are able to demonstrate coaching effectiveness on a consistent basis.<\/p>\n
Fascinatingly Guardiola appears to fulfil these criteria.<\/p>\n
Guardiola also matches with the definition of a sophisticated coach as outlined by the epistemological chain of Grecic and Collins in 2013, particularly the aspects of epistemology itself;<\/p>\n
Coaching knowledge can be discovered in many places. Constant journey of discovery. Experimentation and reflection to create new knowledge. Aim that knowledge is created and owned by the player.<\/em><\/p>\nPlus the aspect of relationships built;<\/p>\n
Trusting, caring, nurturing, autonomy-supportive behaviours demonstrated.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Guardiola playing career timeline of significant moments<\/p>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nGuardiola managerial career timeline of significant moments<\/p>\n
<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
In many ways Guardiola achieved perfection at Barcelona. It was a wonderful combination of many of the elements that create excellence in coaching. His time as a player was of great importance. Enabling him understand the fabric of the football club.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe talked and talked football during the long coach journeys travelling to games all over Catalonia, the homeland that he got to know so well in those teenage years. He continually learnt from everything he saw around him, from other teams, from coaches, from older team mates. On one occasion, he asked a couple of his colleagues to repeat a free-kick routine he had seen the B side perform the previous weekend. The move led to a goal and their coach asked, \u201cWhose idea was that? And where did you pick that up from?\u201d \u201cFrom the grown up players,\u201d responded a fifteen year-old Pep Guardiola. La Masia: a footballing university campus where players and coaches mixed.<\/em>\u201d (Guillem Balague \u2013 Another Way Of Winning Page 33)<\/p>\nAs human beings we interact with each other and the world, and in the pursuit of enterprises we learn. In doing so we, develop practices \u201cthat reflect both the pursuit of enterprises and the attendant social relations\u201d. <\/em>(Wenger cited by Culver, Trudel and Werther 2009)<\/p>\nAs a Catalan who came through the famous la Masia academy, Guardiola understood precisely the meaning of Mes Que Un Club <\/em>(More than a club), enabling him develop strong interpersonal and intrapersonal knowledge.<\/em><\/p>\nDuring Guardiola\u2019s time as a player he would come into contact with his first and most significant mentor. Guardiola was the captain of the Barcelona Dream Team, but there was no doubting the leader and transformative presence of Johan Cruyff. Cruyff would be manager and mentor. A tutor to his captain and to all of his players.<\/p>\n
<\/a><\/p>\n\u201cWe are a little bit like disciples of the essence that Cruyff brought here,\u201d said Guardiola.<\/em> (Guillem Balague \u2013 Another Way of Winning Page 117)<\/p>\nGuardiola\u2019s relationship with Cruyff adapted over time. Initially Cruyff would have taken a supervisory, authoritarian role in a facilitated setting (that of the FC Barcelona itself). Once Guardiola had become manager the relationship changed with the mentoring becoming more informal.<\/p>\n
Johan Cruyff, who regularly shared long meals with Guardiola, understood that well and had already warned Pep that the second year was harder than the first, and the third harder than the second. And if he could relive his experience as boss of the Dream Team he would have left the club two years earlier. \u201cDon\u2019t stay longer than you should,\u201d Cruyff told Pep on one occasion.<\/em> (Guillem Balague \u2013 Another Way Of Winning. Page 6)<\/p>\nBefore becoming manager of Barcelona B Guardiola moved abroad to seek new knowledge and experiences (tying into the postulate 1 and Grecic and Collins\u2019 definition). Firstly in Italy with Brescia and Roma (managed by Fabio Capello) then to Mexico and Dorados. The time spent with Juan Manuel Lillo in Mexico has often been cited as being particularly influential in the development Guardiola\u2019s knowledge.<\/p>\n
While Guardiola had already been well schooled in possession-based play under Johan Cruyff, Dorados\u2019 former assistant Raul Caneda believs he and Lillo helped the Catalan to refine his understanding of collective positioning, defending from the front, and the idea that defence and attack are not separate entities.<\/em> (The Guardian, How A Six Month Spell In Mexico Set Pep Guardiola On The Road To Coaching Greatness, Duncan Tucker, July 2016)<\/p>\nGuardiola would always study Dorados\u2019 next opponents closely and whenever he was absent through injury he would fidget beside Lillo on the bench and help to deliver instructions. \u201cMany players today become c<\/em><\/p>\noaches by virtue of their name but Pep knew this was not enough,\u201d Caneda adds. \u201cHe was very intelligent, very humble and eager to learn, and he soon became a very complete coach with a great knowledge of the game.<\/em> (The Guardian, How A Six Month Spell In Mexico Set Pep Guardiola On The Road To Coaching Greatness, Duncan Tucker, July 2016)<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Guardiola considered Lillo a friend before he joined him at Dorados. Their relationship was (and is) a fusion of different mentoring roles, the peer, the expert, the general mentor, co-mentors and reverse mentoring (Brady 2018, adapted from Kay & Hinds, 2009). A third key mentor was Marcelo Bielsa who Guardiola sought out in Argentina in 2007. When Guardiola and Bielsa met they spoke for eleven hours. Deep conversation, for deep reflection as logically there is no end point of deep reflection \u2013 it can on and on examining issues in a wider and wider context and at different points of time from the event to infinity<\/em> (Moon 2004).<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
\u201cMy admiration for Bielsa is huge because he makes all the players much better. I haven\u2019t met one guy, a former player of Bielsa, who speaks no good of him. They are grateful for his influence on their careers in football. He helped me a lot with his advice. Whenever I speak with him I always feel like he wants to learn too. He\u2019s one of the best coaches.\u201d<\/em> Pep Guardiola (These Football Times \u2013 Philosophies Page 58)<\/p>\nThe balance of power in these relationships adjusted over time. The Guardiola-Bielsa and Guardiola-Lillo relationships are most similar. With Guardiola initially seeking both of them out (therefore they held the power) before shifting to peer based relationships, with possibly Guardiola now holding more power due to his reputation. The Guardiola-Cruyff balance would always be more weighted towards Cruyff, because Johan was Johan.<\/p>\n
Another attractive quality displayed by Guardiola is his willingness to find inspiration from outside football. In a recent BBC interview he spoke of his admiration for the head chef of the world famous El Bulli restaurant, Ferran Adria.<\/p>\n
It doesn\u2019t matter if you are in the desert. They will arrive and build something and millions of people will follow them. The best cooks in the world were in Ferran\u2019s kitchen. If you don\u2019t try to be creative, if you don\u2019t ask \u2018why do we have to do it that way, why can\u2019t we do it another way,\u2019 then humanity doesn\u2019t exist in the way we know.<\/em> (Guardiola in interview for BBC Football Daily, October 25, 2018)<\/p>\nA lasting influence from outside of football has been Manuel Estiarte. Estiarte has been described as \u201cthe Maradona of water polo \u201d (Manchester Evening News, Anthony Jepson, February 2016). Their friendship began in 1991 during Barcelona\u2019s league title celebrations but was cemented in 1992 as Guardiola and Spain went for the Olympic football gold and Estiarte and Spain went for the Olympic water polo gold. Since then they have been firm friends, giving Guardiola a trusted confidant who has been with him at every club.<\/p>\n
He interprets body language brilliantly too, and knows exactly what a particular look or gesture means. The true greats all share this quality, this intuition.<\/em> (Manchester Evening News, Anthony Jepson, February 2016)<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
This is a further testament to Guardiola\u2019s ability\u00a0 to find a learning opportunity in anything. Guardiola is a practitioner of heutagogy. Guardiola is like William.<\/p>\n
William, a coach with 25 years of experience, considers that to be a successful at the elite level, he has to continually be upgrading his knowledge. Therefore, he is regularly looking for and creating different learning opportunities for himself. <\/em>(Stozkowski, J & Collins. D 2017)<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Guardiola\u2019s relationships with Estiarte, Cruyff and Bielsa (and others) have given him reflective partners. Enabling him to reflect even when there is no new material of learning <\/em>(Moon 2004) In this case the learner is dealing with material that is already part of the cognitive structure and the outcome is a reorganization of cognitive structure with accommodation to newly developed ideas (Ward 1999 cited by Moon 2004). Thus he continues to be an evolving coach.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Each of these men would help Guardiola through his time at Barcelona B and in to the position of manager of the Barcelona first team. All of the ideas and methods that had been discussed and debated, his years of preparation and comprehension of the club would count for nothing without success on the pitch.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Definitely. Definitely, it was good for me, I had one game a week, I had time to analyse my process, and I did not have the spotlights, I did not have the media.\u201d Pep Guardiola<\/em> (Goal, How Barcelona B Shaped Pep Guardiola by Sam Lee)<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Guardiola was experiencing deliberate practice <\/em>for a specific purpose, winning, the true test of his effectiveness. As a reflective practitioner <\/em>(Moon 2004) he used the network around him to continually reflect, change and evolve as a manager.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Pep went to see Johan Cruyff soon after the stumbling start to the season, something that he would repeat frequently whenever he needed advice over the coming years. \u201cI\u2019ve got a problem,\u201d he told his mentor. \u201cI\u2019ve got these two guys who I don\u2019t know if I can control, they don\u2019t listen to what I say and that affects how everybody receives my messages. And the problem is, they\u2019re two of the leaders in the dressing room and the best players. I will lose without them on board.\u201d Cruyff\u2019s response was blunt: \u201cGet rid of them. You might lose one or two games, but then you will start winning and by then you would have turfed those two sons of bitches out of the team.<\/em> (Guillem Balague \u2013 Another Way of Winning Page 84)<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Outcomes of reflection:<\/p>\n
Plus the aspect of relationships built;<\/p>\n
Trusting, caring, nurturing, autonomy-supportive behaviours demonstrated.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Guardiola playing career timeline of significant moments<\/p>\n Guardiola managerial career timeline of significant moments<\/p>\n <\/p>\n In many ways Guardiola achieved perfection at Barcelona. It was a wonderful combination of many of the elements that create excellence in coaching. His time as a player was of great importance. Enabling him understand the fabric of the football club.<\/p>\n \u201cHe talked and talked football during the long coach journeys travelling to games all over Catalonia, the homeland that he got to know so well in those teenage years. He continually learnt from everything he saw around him, from other teams, from coaches, from older team mates. On one occasion, he asked a couple of his colleagues to repeat a free-kick routine he had seen the B side perform the previous weekend. The move led to a goal and their coach asked, \u201cWhose idea was that? And where did you pick that up from?\u201d \u201cFrom the grown up players,\u201d responded a fifteen year-old Pep Guardiola. La Masia: a footballing university campus where players and coaches mixed.<\/em>\u201d (Guillem Balague \u2013 Another Way Of Winning Page 33)<\/p>\n As human beings we interact with each other and the world, and in the pursuit of enterprises we learn. In doing so we, develop practices \u201cthat reflect both the pursuit of enterprises and the attendant social relations\u201d. <\/em>(Wenger cited by Culver, Trudel and Werther 2009)<\/p>\n As a Catalan who came through the famous la Masia academy, Guardiola understood precisely the meaning of Mes Que Un Club <\/em>(More than a club), enabling him develop strong interpersonal and intrapersonal knowledge.<\/em><\/p>\n During Guardiola\u2019s time as a player he would come into contact with his first and most significant mentor. Guardiola was the captain of the Barcelona Dream Team, but there was no doubting the leader and transformative presence of Johan Cruyff. Cruyff would be manager and mentor. A tutor to his captain and to all of his players.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are a little bit like disciples of the essence that Cruyff brought here,\u201d said Guardiola.<\/em> (Guillem Balague \u2013 Another Way of Winning Page 117)<\/p>\n Guardiola\u2019s relationship with Cruyff adapted over time. Initially Cruyff would have taken a supervisory, authoritarian role in a facilitated setting (that of the FC Barcelona itself). Once Guardiola had become manager the relationship changed with the mentoring becoming more informal.<\/p>\n Johan Cruyff, who regularly shared long meals with Guardiola, understood that well and had already warned Pep that the second year was harder than the first, and the third harder than the second. And if he could relive his experience as boss of the Dream Team he would have left the club two years earlier. \u201cDon\u2019t stay longer than you should,\u201d Cruyff told Pep on one occasion.<\/em> (Guillem Balague \u2013 Another Way Of Winning. Page 6)<\/p>\n Before becoming manager of Barcelona B Guardiola moved abroad to seek new knowledge and experiences (tying into the postulate 1 and Grecic and Collins\u2019 definition). Firstly in Italy with Brescia and Roma (managed by Fabio Capello) then to Mexico and Dorados. The time spent with Juan Manuel Lillo in Mexico has often been cited as being particularly influential in the development Guardiola\u2019s knowledge.<\/p>\n While Guardiola had already been well schooled in possession-based play under Johan Cruyff, Dorados\u2019 former assistant Raul Caneda believs he and Lillo helped the Catalan to refine his understanding of collective positioning, defending from the front, and the idea that defence and attack are not separate entities.<\/em> (The Guardian, How A Six Month Spell In Mexico Set Pep Guardiola On The Road To Coaching Greatness, Duncan Tucker, July 2016)<\/p>\n Guardiola would always study Dorados\u2019 next opponents closely and whenever he was absent through injury he would fidget beside Lillo on the bench and help to deliver instructions. \u201cMany players today become c<\/em><\/p>\n oaches by virtue of their name but Pep knew this was not enough,\u201d Caneda adds. \u201cHe was very intelligent, very humble and eager to learn, and he soon became a very complete coach with a great knowledge of the game.<\/em> (The Guardian, How A Six Month Spell In Mexico Set Pep Guardiola On The Road To Coaching Greatness, Duncan Tucker, July 2016)<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Guardiola considered Lillo a friend before he joined him at Dorados. Their relationship was (and is) a fusion of different mentoring roles, the peer, the expert, the general mentor, co-mentors and reverse mentoring (Brady 2018, adapted from Kay & Hinds, 2009). A third key mentor was Marcelo Bielsa who Guardiola sought out in Argentina in 2007. When Guardiola and Bielsa met they spoke for eleven hours. Deep conversation, for deep reflection as logically there is no end point of deep reflection \u2013 it can on and on examining issues in a wider and wider context and at different points of time from the event to infinity<\/em> (Moon 2004).<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cMy admiration for Bielsa is huge because he makes all the players much better. I haven\u2019t met one guy, a former player of Bielsa, who speaks no good of him. They are grateful for his influence on their careers in football. He helped me a lot with his advice. Whenever I speak with him I always feel like he wants to learn too. He\u2019s one of the best coaches.\u201d<\/em> Pep Guardiola (These Football Times \u2013 Philosophies Page 58)<\/p>\n The balance of power in these relationships adjusted over time. The Guardiola-Bielsa and Guardiola-Lillo relationships are most similar. With Guardiola initially seeking both of them out (therefore they held the power) before shifting to peer based relationships, with possibly Guardiola now holding more power due to his reputation. The Guardiola-Cruyff balance would always be more weighted towards Cruyff, because Johan was Johan.<\/p>\n Another attractive quality displayed by Guardiola is his willingness to find inspiration from outside football. In a recent BBC interview he spoke of his admiration for the head chef of the world famous El Bulli restaurant, Ferran Adria.<\/p>\n It doesn\u2019t matter if you are in the desert. They will arrive and build something and millions of people will follow them. The best cooks in the world were in Ferran\u2019s kitchen. If you don\u2019t try to be creative, if you don\u2019t ask \u2018why do we have to do it that way, why can\u2019t we do it another way,\u2019 then humanity doesn\u2019t exist in the way we know.<\/em> (Guardiola in interview for BBC Football Daily, October 25, 2018)<\/p>\n A lasting influence from outside of football has been Manuel Estiarte. Estiarte has been described as \u201cthe Maradona of water polo \u201d (Manchester Evening News, Anthony Jepson, February 2016). Their friendship began in 1991 during Barcelona\u2019s league title celebrations but was cemented in 1992 as Guardiola and Spain went for the Olympic football gold and Estiarte and Spain went for the Olympic water polo gold. Since then they have been firm friends, giving Guardiola a trusted confidant who has been with him at every club.<\/p>\n He interprets body language brilliantly too, and knows exactly what a particular look or gesture means. The true greats all share this quality, this intuition.<\/em> (Manchester Evening News, Anthony Jepson, February 2016)<\/p>\n <\/p>\n This is a further testament to Guardiola\u2019s ability\u00a0 to find a learning opportunity in anything. Guardiola is a practitioner of heutagogy. Guardiola is like William.<\/p>\n William, a coach with 25 years of experience, considers that to be a successful at the elite level, he has to continually be upgrading his knowledge. Therefore, he is regularly looking for and creating different learning opportunities for himself. <\/em>(Stozkowski, J & Collins. D 2017)<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Guardiola\u2019s relationships with Estiarte, Cruyff and Bielsa (and others) have given him reflective partners. Enabling him to reflect even when there is no new material of learning <\/em>(Moon 2004) In this case the learner is dealing with material that is already part of the cognitive structure and the outcome is a reorganization of cognitive structure with accommodation to newly developed ideas (Ward 1999 cited by Moon 2004). Thus he continues to be an evolving coach.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Each of these men would help Guardiola through his time at Barcelona B and in to the position of manager of the Barcelona first team. All of the ideas and methods that had been discussed and debated, his years of preparation and comprehension of the club would count for nothing without success on the pitch.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Definitely. Definitely, it was good for me, I had one game a week, I had time to analyse my process, and I did not have the spotlights, I did not have the media.\u201d Pep Guardiola<\/em> (Goal, How Barcelona B Shaped Pep Guardiola by Sam Lee)<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Guardiola was experiencing deliberate practice <\/em>for a specific purpose, winning, the true test of his effectiveness. As a reflective practitioner <\/em>(Moon 2004) he used the network around him to continually reflect, change and evolve as a manager.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Pep went to see Johan Cruyff soon after the stumbling start to the season, something that he would repeat frequently whenever he needed advice over the coming years. \u201cI\u2019ve got a problem,\u201d he told his mentor. \u201cI\u2019ve got these two guys who I don\u2019t know if I can control, they don\u2019t listen to what I say and that affects how everybody receives my messages. And the problem is, they\u2019re two of the leaders in the dressing room and the best players. I will lose without them on board.\u201d Cruyff\u2019s response was blunt: \u201cGet rid of them. You might lose one or two games, but then you will start winning and by then you would have turfed those two sons of bitches out of the team.<\/em> (Guillem Balague \u2013 Another Way of Winning Page 84)<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Outcomes of reflection:<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n