Flags in support of Catalan independence hung from the second tier of a football stadium in Manchester, England. In between read the message, "Pep Guardiola – Volem Que Et Quedis". It means, "Pep Guardiola, we want you to stay" in Catalan.
At the opposite end of Manchester City's Etihad Stadium, a double tifo read "Guardiola" in massive 10-metre letters, with an image of his face replacing the ‘O’. Opposite the main stand was the longest flag of all, reading: "We’ve Got Guardiola – 1,000 games."
That’s 1,000 games as a professional football manager, to add to more than 500 he played on the pitch, most as a cultured holding midfielder in great sides for the club he has supported all his life - FC Barcelona.
Sir Alex Ferguson rated Guardiola highly as a player, once giving Nicky Butt specific instructions to squeeze the area he played in a Champions League game. It didn’t work. Barcelona won 4-0.
City's 3-0 win against Liverpool on Sunday, which lifted his side into second thanks to Erling Haaland’s header, Nico Gonzalez’s deflected strike, and Jeremy Doku’s outstanding right-footed shot, was Guardiola’s 550th as City coach.
It was the first time City defeated Liverpool in two-and-a-half years and Guardiola had won only six of the previous 24 games against them.
As the seventh win came, also City’s seventh consecutive home win, he was expressive in the heavy Mancunian rain, prowling his area and interacting with nearby spectators as his team enjoyed their best performance of the season.
City and Liverpool have won the last eight Premier League titles between them. Both need to chase down Arsenal, four points clear at the top. Guardiola’s team showed up on a big day for their boss, while it was Liverpool’s fifth league defeat in six.
“Thank you to the players and staff for giving me an incredible present against the most important opponent we faced in my time here,” he said. “It has been a special night with my kids here.”
But his story as a coach is not only about what he’s done in Manchester. He grew up in Santpedor, where there’s not much to attract a tourist, a largely working class town of 6,000 people located 73 kilometres north-east of Barcelona. Its brightest young people, like Guardiola, leave for Barcelona. Just not usually to play for Barcelona.
A student of Johann Cruyff’s philosophy, both as a player and coach, he was made at the Camp Nou, where he’d coach the first team for 247 games, then Bayern Munich for 161 more.
But the side he led for the fewest matches was Barcelona’s B team, for just one season, and 42 games in 2007-08. He was 36 when he started his managerial career in Spain’s regional fourth tier.
Barca B – or Barcelona Atletic as they are now known - had played second and third tier football in Spain for 35 years until 2007, the year Guardiola took over. His playing career finished in 2005; the year he trialled unsuccessfully at Manchester City.
When Guardiola became coach, the team had dropped to the fourth level, playing on dirt pitches at clubs that averaged 400 fans per game. Guardiola would stun opponents by turning up to scout them in person with his assistant Tito Vilanova, who followed him all the way and eventually replaced him as Barcelona boss before dying in 2014, aged 45, having suffered from throat cancer.
Guardiola would give chances to promising youngsters like Sergio Busquets. “It was a great experience because we’d been relegated to Tercer (the fourth level),” said Busquets.
“Pep was manager and we’d go to little Catalan towns where everyone wants to shoot you down because you played for Barca. I remember one game at Rapitenca in a tiny stadium in the south of Catalonia near the Ebro Delta. The people were shouting all kinds of abuse at us, as were the other players. Most of us were 18, 19, playing against 34-year-old men who wished they’d played for Barca.”
Guardiola was hardly any older and fiercely protective of his players. “It didn’t intimidate me,” said Busquets. “I don’t mind that part of the game. In fact I quite like an aggressive game – I’m from a barrio so I was not scared playing down there, but some of the other players were nervous after the first challenges went in."
Despite a few early hiccups, Guardiola’s charges ended up top of Tercera Division. They won with 83 points and were promoted, not that he could stay with them. The club president met him one day and asked him to coach Barcelona’s first team.
“You won’t have the b***s,” Guardiola replied when it was proposed he replaced the departing Frank Rijkaard. It was an inspired choice and the new boss was an unqualified success, turning Barca into a winning machine playing the attacking, passing football first instilled by his former master Cruyff.
Guardiola’s flawless Catalan credentials led cynics to label him "the myth" – as in he’s so perfect that he can’t be true. He was obsessed with work and operated out of a spartan office with a solitary picture of his wife and kids above his old generation iPad. His attention to detail about his own side and future opponents was obsessive, but he carried his players with him.
“Pep helped me enormously,” said Busquets. “I’d played a year under him for the B team and then he promoted me straight to the first team in 2008. Right from the first pre-season games in Scotland, he showed absolute faith in me.
"He gave me lots of minutes and I played almost every game despite there being very good footballers in my position. He told me to enjoy myself and not to get nervous. He said there was no pressure because I was good enough to play for Barca. I was lucky that everything went well for me from the start. We won the treble at the end of my first season”.
Barcelona won all six trophies in that 2008-09 season, including clinching the treble against Sir Alex Ferguson’s Manchester United in the Champions League final. After Ferguson retired, the lads who’d been at Barcelona together: Guardiola, Luis Enrique and Jose Mourinho would become the best coaches in football.
On Sunday, Guardiola stood getting soaked by the rain, 1,000 games to his name.
He’s aged, the stress of the job does that. The Stone Island jumpers have been replaced by those of City sponsors CP Company, but he’s still only 54. As the fans celebrated, they sang: “We’ve got Guardiola.” He led a parade around the pitch, smiling, a little emotional.
Our family matters legal consultant
Name: Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.
Whiile you're here
Defence review at a glance
• Increase defence spending to 2.5% of GDP by 2027 but given “turbulent times it may be necessary to go faster”
• Prioritise a shift towards working with AI and autonomous systems
• Invest in the resilience of military space systems.
• Number of active reserves should be increased by 20%
• More F-35 fighter jets required in the next decade
• New “hybrid Navy” with AUKUS submarines and autonomous vessels
England's all-time record goalscorers:
Wayne Rooney 53
Bobby Charlton 49
Gary Lineker 48
Jimmy Greaves 44
Michael Owen 40
Tom Finney 30
Nat Lofthouse 30
Alan Shearer 30
Viv Woodward 29
Frank Lampard 29
Company Profile
Company name: Fine Diner
Started: March, 2020
Co-founders: Sami Elayan, Saed Elayan and Zaid Azzouka
Based: Dubai
Industry: Technology and food delivery
Initial investment: Dh75,000
Investor: Dtec Startupbootcamp
Future plan: Looking to raise $400,000
Total sales: Over 1,000 deliveries in three months
Bawaal%20
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EDirector%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Nitesh%20Tiwari%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EStars%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Varun%20Dhawan%2C%20Janhvi%20Kapoor%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3ERating%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%201%2F5%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
Essentials
The flights
Emirates flies direct from Dubai to Seattle from Dh6,755 return in economy and Dh24,775 in business class.
The cruise
UnCruise Adventures offers a variety of small-ship cruises in Alaska and around the world. A 14-day Alaska’s Inside Passage and San Juans Cruise from Seattle to Juneau or reverse costs from $4,695 (Dh17,246), including accommodation, food and most activities. Trips in 2019 start in April and run until September.
Veil (Object Lessons)
Rafia Zakaria
Bloomsbury Academic
Know your cyber adversaries
Cryptojacking: Compromises a device or network to mine cryptocurrencies without an organisation's knowledge.
Distributed denial-of-service: Floods systems, servers or networks with information, effectively blocking them.
Man-in-the-middle attack: Intercepts two-way communication to obtain information, spy on participants or alter the outcome.
Malware: Installs itself in a network when a user clicks on a compromised link or email attachment.
Phishing: Aims to secure personal information, such as passwords and credit card numbers.
Ransomware: Encrypts user data, denying access and demands a payment to decrypt it.
Spyware: Collects information without the user's knowledge, which is then passed on to bad actors.
Trojans: Create a backdoor into systems, which becomes a point of entry for an attack.
Viruses: Infect applications in a system and replicate themselves as they go, just like their biological counterparts.
Worms: Send copies of themselves to other users or contacts. They don't attack the system, but they overload it.
Zero-day exploit: Exploits a vulnerability in software before a fix is found.
COMPANY%20PROFILE
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EName%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3EKinetic%207%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EStarted%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%202018%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EFounder%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Rick%20Parish%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EBased%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Abu%20Dhabi%2C%20UAE%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EIndustry%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Clean%20cooking%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EFunding%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20%2410%20million%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EInvestors%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Self-funded%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
Milestones on the road to union
1970
October 26: Bahrain withdraws from a proposal to create a federation of nine with the seven Trucial States and Qatar.
December: Ahmed Al Suwaidi visits New York to discuss potential UN membership.
1971
March 1: Alex Douglas Hume, Conservative foreign secretary confirms that Britain will leave the Gulf and “strongly supports” the creation of a Union of Arab Emirates.
July 12: Historic meeting at which Sheikh Zayed and Sheikh Rashid make a binding agreement to create what will become the UAE.
July 18: It is announced that the UAE will be formed from six emirates, with a proposed constitution signed. RAK is not yet part of the agreement.
August 6: The fifth anniversary of Sheikh Zayed becoming Ruler of Abu Dhabi, with official celebrations deferred until later in the year.
August 15: Bahrain becomes independent.
September 3: Qatar becomes independent.
November 23-25: Meeting with Sheikh Zayed and Sheikh Rashid and senior British officials to fix December 2 as date of creation of the UAE.
November 29: At 5.30pm Iranian forces seize the Greater and Lesser Tunbs by force.
November 30: Despite a power sharing agreement, Tehran takes full control of Abu Musa.
November 31: UK officials visit all six participating Emirates to formally end the Trucial States treaties
December 2: 11am, Dubai. New Supreme Council formally elects Sheikh Zayed as President. Treaty of Friendship signed with the UK. 11.30am. Flag raising ceremony at Union House and Al Manhal Palace in Abu Dhabi witnessed by Sheikh Khalifa, then Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi.
December 6: Arab League formally admits the UAE. The first British Ambassador presents his credentials to Sheikh Zayed.
December 9: UAE joins the United Nations.
Results
2pm: Al Sahel Contracting Company – Maiden (PA) Dh50,000 (Dirt) 1,200m; Winner: AF Mutakafel, Tadhg O’Shea (jockey), Ernst Oertel (trainer)
2.30pm: Dubai Real Estate Centre – Maiden (TB) Dh60,000 (D) 1,200m; Winner: El Baareq, Antonio Fresu, Rashed Bouresly
3pm: Shadwell – Rated Conditions (TB) Dh100,000 (D) 1,950m; Winner: Lost Eden, Andrea Atzeni, Doug Watson
3.30pm: Keeneland – Handicap (TB) Dh84,000 (D) 1,000m; Winner: Alkaraama, Dane O’Neill, Musabah Al Muhairi
4pm: Keeneland – Handicap (TB) Dh76,000 (D) 1,800m; Winner: Lady Snazz, Saif Al Balushi, Bhupat Seemar
4.30pm: Hive – Conditions (TB) Dh100,000 (D) 1,600m; Winner: Down On Da Bayou, Royston Ffrench, Salem bin Ghadayer
5pm: Dubai Real Estate Centre – (TB) Handicap Dh64,000 (D) 1,600m; Winner: Lahmoom, Royston Ffrench, Salem bin Ghadayer
The specs
Engine: 3-litre twin-turbo V6
Power: 400hp
Torque: 475Nm
Transmission: 9-speed automatic
Price: From Dh215,900
On sale: Now
Plastic tipping points