Barcelona vs Bayern Munich: Frosty welcome awaits prodigal son Pep Guardiola

Pep Guardiola brings an injury-hit Bayern to the Nou Camp for Wednesday’s Champions League first leg

Pep Guardiola is fearful of what an in-form Barcelona might do to Bayern (Getty Images)

The modern Barça meets its maker this week and there will be a strange division among supporters as to just how to welcome him. Pep Guardiola won 14 of a possible 19 trophies in his four years at the club and yet his walking away into the arms of a big European rival is still what some prefer to remember him for.

Some have likened it to the return of the prodigal son and argued that he no more deserves the fattened calf and the banquet, than the errant offspring of the biblical parable. That smacks of a spectacular misreading of history: did he not make Barcelona the greatest team in the world before he left?

“Who knows why some of them have a problem with him,” one respected pro-Guardiola journalist told me with a sarcastic smile. “Maybe it’s because he beat Real Madrid 6-2 at the Bernabeu, or won 5-0 against Jose Mourinho’s Madrid at the Camp Nou, or won two European Cups or three leagues.”

The logic leaned on by his detractors is that Barcelona’s success from 2008 onwards belongs not to Pep, but to Leo Messi. It’s the theory that Guardiola simply had the good fortune to inherit Barcelona’s greatest ever group of players, and among their number the best of them all.

It’s true that the great Barcelona forward-lines of the last seven years – Messi, Samuel Eto’o and Thierry Henry (100 goals in 2009); Messi, David Villa and Pedro (98 in 2011; Messi, Cesc Fabregas and Alexis Sanchez (101 in 2012; and Messi, Luis Suarez and Neymar (102 this season) – all have one player in common.

But it is also true that it was Guardiola who moved Messi into that deep-lying central striker position from where he scored so many of those goals. And that as Tata Martino proved last season, having Messi is no guarantee of trophies.

Guardiola’s greatest crime in the eyes of some is that, having never commited to Barcelona for more than a year at a time, he then signed a three-year contract at Bayern Munich; that having never given a single one-to-one interview in his time at Barcelona, he allowed a fly-on-the-wall book of his first year at Bayern, albeit written by a Catalan journalist; and that having said he was quitting because he was exhausted he then, after a year out of the game, took one of the most high-pressure jobs in football.

Those close to him vouch for the emotional drain of four seasons at the most politically-charged, ultra-intensive, goldfish-bowl existence football club in Europe, genuinely having been the reason for his 2012 exit. And despite Bayern’s equivalent grandeur, the pressures at the two clubs are incomparable. That much was evident on Wednesday when, after their Cup semi-final defeat to Borussia Dortmund, they still opened their training session to the public and were put through their paces in front of some 2,000 supporters and the odd, still sobering-up, Dortmund fan.

Guardiola did, however, cancel his planned press conference for the Spanish media despite the fact that journalists were already at the Sabener Strasse training ground.He had decided that after that exhausting semi-final loss on penalties, it was not the best time to talk. It led inevitably to headlines that he is “running scared”. Fear would be the wrong word but he is understandably apprehensive of what a Barcelona side on such good recent form might do to his walking-wounded Bayern.

Arjen Robben came back for the semi-final but lasted 16 minutes before breaking down again and will not play on Wednesday. Robert Lewandowski wants to play, but has a fractured nose and jaw and will need a protective mask. “Morale could be better,” admitted Xabi Alonso in reference to the injury crisis that also deprives Bayern of Franck Ribery, Holger Badstuber and David Alaba. “Once the game comes around, all that will be forgotten and we will be focused on the huge challenge in front of us,” added Alonso. And midfielder Javi Martinez said: “Knowing Guardiola, he will have scrutinised every aspect of Barcelona’s play.”

And perhaps therein lies another explanation for the cold welcome that some will want to give their former coach – trepidation at what, even with a weakened side, he might be able to conjure.

Players currently in the Barça team who were there when Pep Guardiola was manager.

Martin Montoya

Gerard Pique

Sergio Busquets

Xavi Hernandez

Pedro Rodriguez

Andres Iniesta

Lionel Messi

Rafinha

Javier Mascherano

Marc Bartra

Sergi Roberto

Adriano

Dani Alves