Anyone expecting Pep Guardiola to make a bid for the presidency of Catalonia may have been disappointed by his speech to the Catalan parliament the other day, where he received a medal, honouring him or his professional work.
Pep’s short speech was short, articulate, and hugely inspirational. He was there to make clear the importance of being passionate about what you do in life-however unimportant you think what you do is- , and to leave us with no doubt that the one overriding passion in his life is football- playing it, managing it, watching it, breathing it, sleeping on it, sharing it.
Of course the fact that Pep said this in the context of his experience as a Barca player (formed in La Masia) and now manager, that he spoke in Catalan, and that he ended declaring his faith in the future of Catalonia as a country in its own right put what he had to say on a different level to the usual bland commentaries we hear week in week out from football players and managers around the world.
Listening to him I tried to imagine Ferguson or Mourinho speaking in similar terms to the Scottish or Portuguese parliaments (let alone the House of Commons or Madrid’s Las Cortes! ) – it was an impossible task. While Pep’s presence seemed natural, equivalent acts by Ferguson or Mourinho would not only have been unbelievable but also embarrassing.
FC Barcelona has political, cultural, and social identity written into its DNA. Nevertheless Pep is I think is only too aware that football is probably best left untouched by personal political ambition, and in Barca’s case his mission needs to be focused in delivering the best possible football and ensuring that the club does not simply become a vehicle of a crude kind of antagonistic nationalism that excludes its claim to universality and squanders its global popularity. Pep spoke less as a champion, than a wise man- football’s true guru.
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