EXCLUSIVE: Inside Lionel Messi’s secret conversations and private messages with Pep Guardiola to join Man City – it started with a five-word message… plus why Pep turned down Cristiano Ronaldo

That was all the message said, but Pep Guardiola knew that Lionel Messi wanted to join Manchester City in August 2020. Because he was close to the player, Sergio Aguero had already sent out a warning, but Guardiola was still too down after City’s disappointing loss to Lyon in the Champions League during the pandemic.

But those five words woke him up, and the next day Guardiola met Messi at his home in Barcelona so that both men could get to know each other. After six hours, the player was sure he wanted to move, and the boss was set on keeping him at the Etihad for another year.

Unfortunately, the deal did not go through because Messi chose not to get into a fight with his old team. What Marti Perarnau’s book The Pep Revolution does, though, is show how carefully everything was planned for it.

Guardiola and assistant coach Juanma Lillo went back to Manchester after meeting with Messi at his home. On the way, they planned how the celebrity would fit into the City team while on the plane. He would basically stay in the middle circle when City didn’t have the ball to push opponents wide. When City did have the ball, he would bring everyone up to the box with him.

At the time, the Manchester Evening News claimed that Messi might be moving. While Guardiola was making plans, Bernardo Silva sent him a message asking if the rumour was true. He said, “I’d run twice as much!” when asked how he felt about it.

As part of his in-depth look at all seven seasons in Manchester, Perarnau writes about how Guardiola was so down after hearing that Messi was staying with Barcelona that he couldn’t even train at the City Football Academy. He eventually got himself together though and found the drive to lead City to one of their best seasons ever.