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Graham Hunter, writer, Spain
Whatever happens next to Ilkay Gundogan and whatever his performance after achieving supremacy with Manchester City, Barcelona know they have gained an elite player who is genuinely eager to join them.
And the player who might be the bridge from where they (the kids) are to where they most need to be: adults, tougher, smarter.
If he wanted to, the 32-year-old could have multiplied his new salary by 10 thanks to Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund. chose not to.
Like his old Borussia Dortmund teammate Robert Lewandowski, whose goals effectively turned Barcelona into a title-winning side last season, Gundogan was smitten by the convincing exuberance of coach Xavi Hernandez, by the sweet life in the city where his new club is based and by the romantic notion of reviving an identity. Spherical remains dull and opaque.
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Unlike Lewandowski, who will certainly score more goals and look a lot more comfortable when Gundogan supplies him, Barcelona’s newest recruit has already felt a genuine affection and belonging to the club – or at least his teenage impression of it.
When I was on the city’s Etihad campus the week of the recent Champions League final, interviewing Erling Haaland, I ran into Gundogan – just enough time to congratulate him on a great season and wish him well against Inter in Istanbul.
Before the Champions League final (losing to Chelsea two seasons ago), I spent an hour in the company of Gundogan.
At the time, in search of anecdotes to understand him better, he shared some of the feelings that have led him since then to refuse to extend his contract with the treble-winners and reject the idea of transfers – with Cristiano Ronaldo and Karim Benzema. , with N’Golo Kante – to play in Jeddah or Riyadh.
Gundogan told me: “When I was a teenager… I admired Pep Guardiola’s Barcelona team So a lot about how to play.
“Not just being successful and lifting all those trophies, the way they were playing. When Pep was in charge of Barcelona, my biggest dream of all was to play in that side.
“He was so far away, but it was amazing to watch. I loved him so, so much.
“When Pep came to the Bundesliga it was exciting, it was very difficult to play against him [Bayern] side. They always had a plan, and their plan was always better than yours.”
Guardiola, at Man City, became a mentor to Gundogan, such a messianic figure it’s very natural to want to play for a man with similar (if not identical) ideas – an evangelical disciple of the brand of football that Gundogan adores.
This guy is Xavi. It has become interesting, across this LaLiga winning season, to hear the Barcelona coach and a handful of his new players talk about each other.
In the case of Lewandowski, Andreas Christensen and Jules Conde, Xavi referred to each of them with the phrase: He was a specific player that I wanted.
This meant that the process did not select the type of footballer and then settle on whoever the club found more available. Xavi targeted specific players. And I got them.
Then, when Lewandowski, Christensen, Conde, Rafinha and Frank Kessie talked about their reasons for joining, it was at times an uncomfortable decision as they waited, sweating, to find out when or indeed if they could be signed up to play due to Barcelona’s financial fair play. Each of them said: When Xavi spoke to me, I was convinced.
So it was with Gundogan.
Barcelona, in the form of directors of football Jordi Cruyff and Matteo Alemany, have been working on the mechanics of the move for months. But it was the direct mutual feeling between the two diminutive midfielders, the 43-year-old Catalan treble-winner and the 32-year-old German treble-winner, that got the deal right.
Gundogan plays, and thinks, the way Xavi desperately needs him if he is to turn the pragmatic, often defense-oriented football that won Spain the title in his first full season into a football brand that can, at least, make Barcelona. Elite rivalry in Europe. Their recent relationships with Bayern Munich, Inter Milan, Eintracht Frankfurt, Manchester United, Juventus and Paris Saint-Germain have shown that they are emphatically not.
Again, there is a clip from my interview with the lovable, detailed and impressive Gundogan which I think (despite his brilliance for City) sheds light on what he brings, as a man, to this stage of Barcelona’s development. He spoke to me about his love and desires after the Champions League, but noted that his beginnings in the tournament were brutally rough.
Gundogan trained under a later Champions League winner (Jurgen Klopp), played with the man who would score the winner in a World Cup final (Mario Götze) and played with another future treble winner (Lewandowski) among many other great footballers. His first two Champions League matches, against Marseille and Olympiacos. Then it was dropped.
Read his words closely and then try to tell me they don’t remind you of the naive and fragile way Barcelona have played in recent UEFA competitions.
“I remember my first season in the Champions League with the talented Dortmund team,” he said. “Everyone expected us to go away.
“It hit us like a bus. It was very difficult to predict how it would be handled. We did really badly in that first season in the Champions League with Dortmund.
“No blame. No regrets. We weren’t ready. That’s the way it is sometimes.”
“Sometimes you need to experience, smell, feel, what it’s like. To be in the field, fly away, stay more than two nights, play in the evening in front of unbelievable fans and stadiums full of emotions. We’ve had to adapt and get over that frustration.” .
This describes Barcelona’s last three disastrous campaigns perfectly.
Gundogan adapted and played with such magical, elusive distinction that he went to the Champions League final with Dortmund, with Manchester City two years ago, won the treble this season (playing an important part in Rodri’s winning goal) and could have been a World Cup winner with the German national team. in 2014 but with a horrific back injury.
His role now is to add brains, experience, know-how, technique, skill and seniority to a Barcelona midfield that, even before Sergio Busquets left, is neither using the ball effectively enough nor blocking the defense well.
In addition, one of Gundogan’s many values now is to play enough in the left midfield that Xavi, in fact the entire Barcelona team, is not so lethally dependent on Pedri that he plays and plays and plays and plays until he gets injured and then misses months. .
Gundogan is multilingual, wonderfully polite, polite, interesting, down-to-earth…but don’t mistake him at any cost for someone who isn’t cruel. It will make it his job to add the mental and emotional toughness which Frenkie de Jong, the talented player, sorely lacks.
Gundogan will teach in word, deed and coaching performance. Xavi’s lieutenant will be on the field. Watch out for Gundogan attacking players who make wrong decisions, who let the ball wide, who are naive about positioning.
His point is: “Adversity develops you as a person and not just a footballer. The journey itself that comes with this career, my public and social life — I appreciate that.
“The sad parts, the setbacks, the difficult moments. I had a lot: defeats, injuries. But I was always able to respond, to come back well.
“Every time it felt good because I was strong enough to come back well and be at the top of my game again. I think that is the challenge of life in general, not just football.
“You always try your best; sometimes it’s not enough…you lose and you fail. But then it’s about standing up again and trying to move forward again.”
If you watched Barcelona play last season, don’t those sentiments sound exactly as Xavi is trying, and partially succeeding, to instill?
You’ve seen Gundogan become a star for club and country. You need a little reminder of his agility, his technical excellence, his movement, his increasingly confident finishing or his desire to win and win and win.
But perhaps his words give some insight into who he is, what he thinks and how he operates as well as some understanding of why Xavi wanted to sign him with the same fervent determination as Guardiola once did, pushing him into the tunnel before Bayern’s game against Dortmund and warning him that they would work together one day. They did, and they made beautiful music together.
This task, in Barcelona’s unequal, young team, who has been kicked out of the Camp Nou and faces a much more serious challenge than Real Madrid, seems more and more difficult. But Gundogan is special as a man and as a footballer. It might be exactly what the champions of Spain need.
In any case, it will be interesting to watch.
