Pep Gurdiola was thinking of the future. He was 32 and playing out an unhappy season at Roma. His team-mate, Gabriel Batistuta, turned to him and said: ‘If you want to be a coach, you have to get together with this guy.’ He meant Marcelo Bielsa: a man Guardiola came to regard as the best coach in the world.
It would take Guardiola three years to meet him. In 2006 both men were in a lull in their careers. Bielsa had not worked since resigning as manager of Argentina after taking them to the gold medal at the Athens Olympics.