Pep Guardiola's father: I couldn't imagine seeing my son win the Champions League again

Publish date: 2024-04-24

Less than 24 hours after Pep Guardiola won his third Champions League, his father, Valenti spoke about his son's latest triumph.

He highlighted the enormous pleasure his son takes in his work and considers that to be the best legacy he left the Manchester City coach.

Pep's call

"Pep calls me before every game, but yesterday he called me 30 minutes before. He was calm and confident and he said to me: 'Well father, we are ready to go out on the pitch, I think we will win, let's go for it'. I told him that luck would be with him. He has this habit of calling me and you can see that it's lucky for him to call his father," he told Super Deportivo Radio.

His son's third Champions League

"I'm 92 years old and thank God I have my head on straight. I didn't think that at this age I would see my son win the Champions League again. I feel good and I can enjoy it. When he started at Barcelona, at the age of 12, I always preferred not to have any dreams. I never had high expectations and look how far he has come."

The match against Inter

"It was a great joy. I was with my sister and a neighbour watching the game at home. We suffered a bit because the goal didn't come and I thought it could go wrong again, but we were very happy and luckily everything went well. Yesterday I didn't move and I didn't go out on the terrace, because there are games that I stop watching because the pressure is too great and I get very nervous."

The Guardiola work ethic

"At the age of 14 I did 10 hours of bricklaying and 12 kilometres on a bicycle. My children have grown up like me, with the culture of work, like Pep: work, work and work. He got that from his father. You have to live 24 hours a day for your work. Whether you are a bricklayer, as in my case, or like Pep, who is a coach. He lives 24 hours a day for football. Only football. He is sick about football, because we were talking about any subject and he was talking about football, from the age of 5 when he already had the ball at his feet."

Guardiola's future as a coach

"The only thing I would like is for him to finish as he has done so far and for his health to respect him and his family. It seems to me that he has reached a point in his career where it will be difficult to achieve more. I only ask for his health, because if you lose your health you lose everything."