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FC Barcelona captain Sergi Roberto: “Pep’s Barça team played the best football the world has ever seen” During Guardiola’s four years in charge, a squad packed with La Masia academy graduates won 14 out of a possible 19 trophies and did so playing scintillating football. The current Barça captain looks back at that team, 15 years after Pep was appointed. On June 17th 2008, FC Barcelona made one of the biggest decisions in club history. Following a 2007/08 campaign in which Los Blaugrana didn’t win any trophies and in which they finished a whopping 18 points behind rivals Real Madrid in LALIGA EA SPORTS, change was needed and the directors at the Camp Nou made a bold decision: they promoted Pep Guardiola from B-team coach to first-team coach. At the time, it was viewed by many as a gamble, a major roll of the dice, but those closest to the young tactician felt confident. They’d seen Guardiola’s work with the B team, where he had just achieved a promotion, and knew what he was like from his 386 matches as a player for the club. Players like Xavi and Andrés Iniesta were excited to work with a figure they’d grown up idolising and who they completely revered. As Xavi famously put it, if Guardiola had wanted to become a musician then he’d have studied obsessively until he achieved that dream. Fortunately for FC Barcelona, Guardiola’s passion was football and he led the club on an incredible journey. Following a rocky start, as the new-look team lost 1-0 at CD Numancia and drew 1-1 at home to Real Racing Club in the first two matchdays, Guardiola’s side started to click as the players grew increasingly comfortable in his fluid 4-3-3 system, and they became almost unstoppable. Playing some of the most scintillating football ever seen, FC Barcelona went on to win the first treble in club history in the 2008/09 campaign, winning LALIGA EA SPORTS, the Copa del Rey and the Champions League. At the time, only four other clubs in Europe had ever won a treble of domestic league, domestic cup and European Cup, and none of them had done so playing such attractive football as this Barça side. Even more impressive was that FC Barcelona followed that up by winning a sextuple in the 2009 calendar year, by adding the UEFA Super Cup, Spanish Super Cup and Club World Cup. At the time of that treble, Sergi Roberto, the current FC Barcelona captain, was a 17-year-old in the FC Barcelona youth system and he watched on in awe. “I think it was the best football ever played in the whole world, in all of history,” he recalled, speaking to LALIGA. “What’s more, it was achieved with homegrown players. I think it was very special for all, to play this kind of football, to win so many titles and to do so with a squad that was made up of so many homegrown players.” Sergi Roberto is right to highlight the fact that La Masia contributed so many players to Guardiola’s squad. Looking at the starting XI of the 2008/09 Champions League final, which was won 2-0 against Manchester United in Rome, there were seven La Masia academy graduates in the line-up: Víctor Valdés, Carles Puyol, Gerard Piqué, Sergio Busquets, Xavi, Andrés Iniesta and Lionel Messi. The other four players were Sylvinho, Dani Alves, Yaya Touré and Thierry Henry, who each complemented the homegrown talents in their own way.