Chapter 182: Talent
The locker room was empty now. Silent. Still.
It wasn’t the peace of victory. It was the heavy, suffocating quiet of humiliation.
Under the harsh white lights of the Manchester City locker room, a single man remained seated, hunched over a cluttered desk in the adjoining manager’s office. The door was ajar, allowing a sliver of the sterile room’s light to spill across the abandoned benches and discarded kits—blue shirts draped over hooks like surrendered flags, shin pads lying forgotten on the floor, and the unmistakable scent of sweat, turf, and something else—defeat.
Inside the office, the man was a blur of chaotic energy.
Pep Guardiola.
His usually immaculate shirt was wrinkled, sleeves rolled up past his elbows. His bald head was tilted down, eyes fixed on the mess of papers before him—tactical sheets, player ratings, match analysis notes—now torn, crumpled, scribbled on, discarded. He was mumbling to himself, his Catalan accent punching through the silence with sharp, clipped words as he scrawled across yet another page.
"Verticality... no rhythm... no compactness between the lines... Rodri too slow to reset—why, why, why?!" he spat, slashing red ink across a page. He threw the pen down and clutched at his temples.
"Five-two," he muttered, shaking his head violently, as if the numbers themselves offended him. "Five-two at home. To Leicester." He stood up suddenly, knocking over his chair.
Another page was scrunched and hurled against the wall.
"Stupid mistakes—naïve defending! Mendy, Walker, Eric, Stones—where’s the aggression?! Where’s the bloody desire?!"
He began pacing the narrow space behind the desk, like a man possessed. The muttering never stopped.