After Barcelona suffered a crushing defeat at the Bernabéu, Barcelona finally made a decision after a meeting that lasted more than five hours the next day.
European football reporters gathered at the press conference and Barcelona's president, Laporta, personally made an appearance.
President Laporta announced that Manager Rijkaard would leave at the end of the season and the Black Swan would be replaced by the legendary player, Guardiola.
The departure of the Black Swan and the appointment of Guardiola was not news. The Spanish media reported the news early on.
It was unforgivable for Barcelona not to win the title for two years. At today's official press conference, Laporta also looked a little helpless. "Yes, I officially announce today that Rijkaard will no longer be the manager of the team at the end of the season and the person who will replace him will be Guardiola."
"He worked hard and was very successful, but unfortunately for us, we have not won a trophy for two years." The president was not happy to hear that.
The 37-year-old Guardiola was no stranger to the Barcelona fans. During his playing days, the legendary player played at Camp Nou for 17 years and won six league trophies and one Champions League trophy with the team.
Although Guardiola did not have more coaching experience than the previously rumored successor, Mourinho, he was undoubtedly more suitable for Barcelona than Mourinho.
"He has a deep understanding of football and is very knowledgeable. In addition, his confidence and ambition will help him succeed here." President Laporta gave Guardiola full trust.
At present, Barcelona's most important task was to determine their qualification for the Champions League in the remaining games. The team was ranked third behind Villarreal. When talking about the lineup for the new season, Laporta only said one sentence, "I plan to let the team have the best lineup in the world."
The media's focus began to turn to Guardiola. After all, a manager with no top-level coaching experience suddenly taking charge of one of Europe's top powerhouses would definitely attract a lot of attention from the outside world.
Guardiola, who only had 30 Serie D games coaching experience, was chosen as Barcelona's new manager. This showed that the Barcelona club always had the courage to trust newcomers.
However, apart from being happy, Guardiola felt more responsibility. It was a huge responsibility to bring Barcelona, a century-old powerhouse, out of a crisis.
Guardiola had a lot of tasks ahead of them, and the first step was to build a fighting team.
It was reported that Guardiola first discussed the formation of the new team with Barcelona's technical director, Bekiristain, and the head of the club's youth training camp, José. They also discussed the structure of the new team.
However, for Guardiola, the originally difficult but hopeful outlook for the future had now encountered a realistic obstacle.
The most difficult one was the club's economy. Barcelona's economic situation was not optimistic. Guardiola's purge plan was in conflict with the Barcelona club's bank account.
A person in Barcelona leaked a lot of information to the media, most of which was related to Guardiola's purge list. The largest purge list included 13 players.
Guardiola hoped to make Barcelona look new by cleaning the rotten parts and introducing new strength. However, 13 players were too many and unrealistic. Pinto, Marcos, Zambrotta, Thuram, Deco, Ezquero, Silvinho, Edmilson, Ronaldinho, Holcra, Gudjohnsen, Eto 'o, and Oleg. These 13 players were more than half of Barcelona's lineup. If all of them were to be purged, not only would it hurt the team, but it would also be a big problem to fill the gaps.
What was more difficult was that, due to Laporta's "2010 project" two years ago, most of the club's players' contracts would not expire until 2010. Among the 13 players, only Edmilson, Silvinho, Thuram, Ezquero, and Pinto's contracts would expire at the end of the season.
If the players were not willing to leave, the club could only dismiss them. The price was to pay the players' salaries for the rest of their contracts, which would be a huge expense.
Therefore, the list of 13 players had to be narrowed down. If Barcelona could purge seven or eight players in the end, it would be considered very good.
Although the club had Sevilla's Dani Alves and Christian Poulsen, FC Porto's Bruno Alves, Lyon's Benzema, and Bayern Munich's Lahm on the list of signings, Barcelona's signings had not made much progress. The main reason was the lack of cash in the club's safe.
It was like a person with no money in his bag. Even if he liked something very much, he did not have the motivation to go up and bargain with the merchant because everything was in vain.
There was news that Barcelona's Camp Nou renovation plan designed by Norman Foster had been put on hold because of the lack of money.
Barcelona could only raise transfer funds in one way, and that was to sell the players. However, only a few of the players who could be sold could bring in a large amount of money for Barcelona. Barcelona now hoped to get a higher transfer fee from players like Ronaldinho and Eto 'o, but the problem was that there were not many clubs who wanted to buy these superstars, and the prices offered by the other clubs were not very ideal.
Milan had frozen the transfer negotiations for Ronaldinho. Now it seemed that their biggest hope was still on Eto 'o. Inter Milan and Tottenham Hotspur were now pursuing Eto 'o. According to La Gazzetta dello Sport, Inter Milan was even willing to offer 40 million euros for Eto' o. Although the Italian media's news was not necessarily reliable, it was a fact that Eto 'o's value was not low.
In any case, it was basically impossible for Barcelona to spend lavishly in the transfer market this summer. The club would still follow a pragmatic approach and bring in the most needed players. Guardiola would also narrow down his purge list. For example, according to media reports, Guardiola was very optimistic about the substitute player, Ezquero. Although Ezquero did not play much, Guardiola valued his professionalism.
Real Madrid's rebuilding experience after the Florentino era would be a model that Barcelona would follow. After Calderón took over Real Madrid, the team did not undergo a large-scale transformation. But he did do two important things. One was to drive out the leading players who lacked professionalism in the team, such as Ronaldinho. The other was to restore the team's fighting spirit. The players trained harder, played more seriously, and the locker room was more united. The new and old players were treated the same, and the big name players and ordinary players were treated the same.
Guardiola might also selectively purge a few players who had an important negative impact on the locker room, retain the main framework of the team, and supplement the weak links. But the most important thing was to restore the team's morale and the club's fighting spirit.
Barcelona's task of returning from the dark times to the light seemed to be a long way off.
Perhaps it was only because Guardiola was a rookie in the eyes of the outside world that they felt there were many problems and difficulties.
No one would have expected that this rookie could rebuild Barcelona into the outstanding style of the Dream Team in a few months!
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