Pep Guardiola was holed up in his dark office in the Nou Camp with no natural light to illuminate his agonising over a Barcelona team, which had lost its opening game 1-0 at Numancia and drawn 1-1 to Racing Santander, when the visitor knocked on the door.
It didn't look especially good for the rookie boss, appointed by President Joan Laporta in that summer of 2008 despite his only managerial experience being with the Barcelona B team. To use an English analogy, it looked a little like Alan Shearer being given the Newcastle job; an emotionally-satisfying appointment which made no sense in practice.