Manchester City painted in Barca's colours: Are Begiristain and Soriano Guardiola's forerunners?
Ozren Podnar
What a magnificent reinforcement for Manchester City! Legendary Spanish international and more recently a mover and shaker on the players' market, Aitor Begiristain has joined Manchester City as the new director of football.
Formerly a Barcelona player and technical director in its two most glorious eras is a man with a golden touch. Not only was he a distinguished member of Barca's all-conquering Dream Team for a full seven seasons, but he also spent seven years at Camp Nou as a top operative during Joan Laporta's presidency.
His arrival, while a brilliant move in itself by the English champions, may well be interpreted as something more: Josep Guardiola's forthcoming landing at Etihad Stadium.
The signs are there as Begiristain did not come alone.
A month earlier, Ferrán Soriano, his former boss at Barcelona, was named Manchester City's CEO in the owners' attempt to transplant the Catalans' triumphant formula onto Etihad Stadium.
Soriano (45) was Barca's financial vice-president and general manager for five years and is widely credited with almost tripling the club's income to 308 million euros in 2008. In fact, it was Soriano who persuaded the board to bring Begiristain, with whose abilities he perfectly acquainted himself in their glorious five years together at Camp Nou between 2003 and 2008.
"Support" Mancini would rather waive
According to Manchester City, Begiristain's new role will be to support the manager Roberto Mancini in all matters related to signings and running the first team. The wording of the the boardroom's communique sounds slightly ironic, since many believe Mancini will not be manager for much longer. With Guardiola, Barcelona's model would be copied almost entirely except for, well, the most important part - the football academy, the famed La Masia.
It is not hard to ascertain why the club's owner Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan is not happy with Mancini. His achievements at City, which so far include an FA Cup, a Premiership and a Community Shield, may not be enough to protect him from dismissal if his team fails once again in Europe. And this may well be in store, since the Blues are bottom of their Champions League group with a single point, five behind second placed Real Madrid.
After crashing 3-1 to Ajax in Amsterdam, City's position has become hopeless. To qualify, they must win all three remaining matches, including against Borussia in Dortmund's inferno and against Jose Mourinho's Real Madrid at home. A mission which while not impossible certainly looks complicated.
The two Spaniards are in Manchester to make sure advancing in Europe cease to be such a drama for a team of City's stature. In fact, Sheikh Mansour would be very disappointed if a Champions League does not land in his club's trophy room sooner rather than later.
Begiristain, a Spanish international at all levels during the eighties and nineties, had already been lured to the Premiership, but his negotiations with Chelsea and Tottenham did not come to fruition. His reputation in football is beyond reproach, since he managed to replicate his on-field success during his seven years in Barca's offices.
The Basque, a tricky winger in his playing days, was the only technical director at Barcelona during the presidency of Joan Laporta between 2003 and 2010. In that period, he worked with two great managers, the Dutchman Frank Rijkaard and Pep Guardiola.
With Begiristain as technical director, els blaugranes won four League titles, one King's Cup, three Spanish Supercups, two Champions Leagues, one European Supercup and one World Club Cup. Besides, they left the club in good order at all levels to the current president Sandro Rosell, when he won the elections in 2010 after Laporta had served the maximum of two terms.
Zlatan - Aitor's only slip
Such was Begiristain's influence within the club that the outgoing Laporta claimed during his final board meeting that "hiring Txiki was the best decision" he had made as Barcelona's president.
As the club's key dealmaker, Begiristain signed 38 players, seven of which at cost zero. Between his first signing, the Portuguese Ricardo Quaresma, and the last David Villa, Barca welcomed such stars as Ronaldinho, Samuel Eto'o, Dani Alves, Yaya Touré and Seydou Keita.
Only one of the incoming players - Zlatan Ibrahimovic - was signed at an exorbitant price, the hallmark of the disastrous Joan Gaspart era that preceded Laporta and Begiristain.
But, Zlatan turned out to be a bad deal not through Aitor's fault, but because of Barca's haste to offload the unsettled and lavishly paid Swede after Guardiola pledged not to line him up again. Ibrahimovic was eventually sold to Milan for 24 million euros, a cute 65% discount, after Begiristain had already quit.
Incidentally, Begiristain's predecessor Brian Marwood has been made managing director of the club's academy, away from Mancini's outbursts of anger over City's recent failure to sign all the expensive stars the Italian had put on his shopping list.
While Marwood will be faced with a daunting task of turning the youth academy into something resembling La Masia, his foe Mancini will have to deal with the wily new guy Begiristain. And on his ability to find a common language with him hinges his survival on Manchester City's bench.
Of course, if his side collapses in the Champions League again, no level of mastery of Castillian, Catalan or Basque will help him hold on to his current job.
© Ozren Podnar & Soccerphile.com
Buy tickets for soccer matches around the world