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\u201cYou run slower than my granny!\u201d was Johan Cruyff\u2019s first impression of Pep Guardiola.<\/strong><\/p>\n Cruyff\u2019s pithy remark was made after watching Guardiola\u2019s performance in a pre-season friendly prior to his first-team breakthrough, whilst the legendary Dutchman also revealed that Barcelona had tried to sell Guardiola\u00a0in his autobiography.<\/p>\n \u201cAs a player at Barcelona, they wanted to get rid of Pep because they thought he was a lanky great beanpole who couldn\u2019t defend, who had no strength and couldn\u2019t do anything in the air,\u201d he wrote in My Turn.<\/p>\n \u201cSo he was blamed for all the things he wasn\u2019t good at, while I thought they were all things he could learn to do well.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat all those people didn\u2019t see was that Guardiola had the fundamental qualities needed at the top level: speed of action, technique, insight. Those are phenomena that very few people exhibit, but in his case they were present in spades.\u201d<\/p>\n There was something else in spades too; sheer chutzpah. The kind that sends Joao Cancelo to Bayern Munich or sells Ronaldinho & Deco to make room for Sergio Busquets and Pedro.<\/p>\n And the kind that decides a high-quality Champions League match with a pass that was smoother than Usher buttering a slice of toast.<\/p>\n The Stade Louis II in appropriately regal Monaco was the setting for Guardiola\u2019s submission to the annals of human excellence.<\/p>\n Barcelona had travelled to the principality for their opening group match in September 1993, but a line-up containing Hristo Stoichkov and Romario found their French opponents unexpectedly stubborn to break down.<\/p>\n Happily, Guardiola held the master key to unlock their defence. Receiving the ball inside his own half, the midfielder glanced up like a pensioner spotting their bus on the distant horizon and drop-kicked a pass over the despairing heads of the Monaco backline.<\/p>\n Dissected like a dead frog in a science lab, the opposition centre-backs were powerless to stop Stoichkov from latching onto the ball and firing past\u00a0Jean-Luc Ettori for the game\u2019s only goal.<\/p>\n While Guardiola has built his managerial reputation on making football seem both incredibly simple and impossibly complicated, here was a moment of stripped-back genius from the Catalan.<\/p>\n If there was any justice, a frame-by-frame deconstruction of the assist would hang in the Tate Modern. And we\u2019d get commission for supplying them with exh<\/p>\n pic.twitter.com\/jJ5zDP0WdE<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 No Context Sexy Passes (@SexyPasses) January 27, 2023<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n It was Cruyff who intervened at a B team game, moving Guardiola into the holding midfield position that would come to define his playing career. He also later promoted him to the first team when Ronald Koeman suffered an injury, instead of following the board\u2019s desire to bring in a more experienced head.<\/p>\n Cruyff\u2019s decision, like so many others, proved inspired and ensured Guardiola fulfilled his \u2018non-negotiable dream\u2019 to become synonymous with a golden period in the history of Barcelona.<\/p>\n \u201cI knew nothing about football until I met Cruyff,\u201d the current Manchester City manager once said. One swish of Guardiola\u2019s right boot on a French field is enough to make us all thankful for the Dutchman\u2019s persistence with him.<\/p>\n By Michael Lee<\/strong><\/p>\n READ MORE:\u00a0The story of the Englishman and the manager tree that created Guardiola<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n TRY A QUIZ:\u00a0Can you name Guardiola\u2019s 30 most-used players throughout his career?<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n