Man City's new DOF

[Rosco]

Manchester City appoint Txiki Begiristain as director of football

• Spaniard to assist Mancini in developing and recruiting players
• Begiristain held the same role at Barcelona until 2010​

• Share​
  12​
• Email​

• Press Association
• guardian.co.uk, Sunday 28 October 2012 16.08 GMT

Txiki Begiristain, right, held the same position at Barcelona between 2008 and 2010, in a successful period for the club. Photograph: Josep Lago/AFP/Getty Images
Manchester City have announced the appointment of the Spaniard Txiki Begiristain as their new director of football.
The Premier League champions have appointed the 48-year-old, who has held the same position at Barcelona, as part of their plan to make the club the world leaders in developing and recruiting players.
Begiristain worked at Barcelona from 2008 to 2010 and City confirmed he would "take responsibility for supporting the first-team manager, Roberto Mancini, in first-team recruitment and operations".
City also confirmed Brian Marwood, currently the club's football administrator, would take on the role of managing director of the new City Football Academy when it opens at the start of the 2013-14 season.
He will be responsible for the recruitment, development, training and management of up to 400 players.
Both men will report to the chief executive, Ferran Soriano.
Begiristain, who played for Real Sociedad and Barcelona during his playing career, told the club's official website: "I am very pleased indeed to have been offered such an exciting opportunity.
"The progress and on field achievements at Manchester City are plain for all to see and I am honoured to have been asked to contribute to its future success.
"I am very much looking forward to working with Brian Marwood, Roberto Mancini and Ferran Soriano in continuing to build a football team and philosophy which will serve Manchester City well in the near and long-term future."
Soriano added: "Sustainability has always been central to Sheikh Mansour's investment in Manchester City Football Club.
"The long-term future of the football club is dependent upon our ability to recruit and develop young players all the way through to the first-team squad. The focus must be on both academy and first team and the close co-ordination between them.
"Given the scale and importance of this challenge, we want to commit our very best people to it. I am delighted that Brian Marwood will take leadership of the CFA initiative and I am equally very pleased to welcome an individual of Txiki Begiristain's calibre to the club.
"I have no doubt that together, and in support of Roberto Mancini and the wider football club, they will be a formidable team."
Marwood added: "The club's new football operations structure is a hallmark of our hard work to date and the two leadership roles are a necessity born of both success and ambition.
"Txiki and I have a shared philosophy when it comes to football operations and I very much look forward to the work that we will carry out together.
"The leadership of CFA allows me to take up an incredibly challenging role. We have a shared expectation that CFA will shape the footballing future of MCFC and as a result it is a role through which I feel I can make a major contribution to the club."
City were second in the table following the win over Swansea, one point behind Chelsea.​

They look to be on their way out of the Champions League at the group stage for the second season running, though, as they have taken one point from their opening three games.

 

[Rosco]

Meet Txiki Begiristain, Manchester City's new man and Guardiola's mentor

Manchester City's new director of football is the man credited with bringing Pep Guardiola to Barcelona; the question everyone wants to know is: will he bring him to Eastlands?​

• Share​
  43​
• Email​

• Sid Lowe
• The Guardian, Sunday 28 October 2012 17.33 GMT
• Jump to comments (127)

Manchester City's new director of football is the man who recommended Pep Guardiola to Barcelona. Photograph: Alexandre Meneghini/AP
Two down, one to go? No sooner had Txiki Begiristain been confirmed asManchester City's director of football than the inevitable question began to be asked and once they started they did not stop. Begiristain's statement said he was looking forward to working with Roberto Mancini, which it had to say of course, but it seemed everybody wanted to know the same thing: does this mean Pep Guardiola is coming too?
Aitor 'Txiki' Begiristain was the sporting director who turned to Pep Guardiola when Barcelona sacked Frank Rijkaard at the end of the 2008 season. He travelled to see José Mourinho and decided the Portuguese was too much of a fire-starter to entrust with the job. The decision seems logical now: Guardiola became the most successful coach in Barcelona's history, winning a treble in his first season. At the time the decision was a brave and risky one.
Now everyone wants Guardiola; back then, few did. Begiristain was one of them. Guardiola won the European Cup. Rijkaard, the first coach to work under Begiristain, had won one too. Joan Laporta, the Barcelona president, once said: "Bringing in Txiki was the best decision I ever made." Under him, Barcelona won two European Cups and five league titles in seven years. When he came in with Laporta in 2003, Barcelona had gone four years without a trophy and were lurching from crisis to crisis.
Yet Barcelona had begun a slide under Rijkaard and even before the 2007-08 season was finished Begiristain had determined a change was needed, even as some on the board resisted. The decision may even have come late, but it did finally come. Begiristain said Rijkaard had lost control of the dressing room. There was, though, no guarantee that Guardiola would wrest it back again, still less that he would prove successful. He had only been a coach for one season: with Barcelona B.
But Begiristain had faith in Guardiola. He formed part of the Johan Cruyff-led dream team alongside Guardiola that won the 1992 European Cup and they shared an approach. Cruyff was Laporta's mentor; Begiristain was Cruyff's suggestion.
Begiristain is a Basque who had been signed from Real Sociedad and claims to have learnt Catalan sitting in Barcelona's traffic jams, repeating everything he heard on the radio. Funny, chatty, likeable and smart, Cruyff described him as a "clever" player. So clever, Cruyff's No2 Charly Rexach claimed, that in the pouring rain and mud of Atoxa, he'd leave the pitch with hardly a stain on him.
As sporting director he insisted on the need for style and substance. Full-backs had to be attacking and at least one of the central defenders must be capable of bringing the ball out from the back – of being a player as well as a protector. Although there were question marks about some of his signings - Maxi López and Alexandr Hleb among them – the decision to go for Guardiola has huge symbolic significance. It would have been easier to chose Mourinho. Indeed, as Graham Hunter explains in his book Barça, Guardiola himself told him just that.
Begiristain had travelled to Lisbon with two directors, Marc Ingla and Ferran Soriano, to see Mourinho. The presentation was impressive but Begiristain, Soriano and Ingla were not keen; there was something about his personality that did not fit. They would win, sure, but it was not enough simply to win. Guardiola was not just the right manager, he was the right man. When they returned, the message was unanimous: it has got to be Guardiola. Soriano and Begiristain went to get him.​

Soriano left Barcelona in 2008, Begiristain two years later and Guardiola last summer. Soriano and Begiristain have since arrived at Manchester City. Guardiola is in New York on a sabbatical, mulling over his next move.

 

[RedZeppelin III]

wasn't there a rumour that we wanted Cruyff for the role but he recommended begiristain ?

We don't need him , ayre and brendan have it all in hand

 

[gkmacca]

The scouting brief for us is clear - only buy young players who need a cuddle.

 

[Rosco]

The scouting brief for us is clear - only buy young players who need a cuddle.

Jimmy Saville could have been a great scout for us if that was the watching brief

 

[Athens]

Jimmy Saville could have been a great scout for us if that was the watching brief

Jimmy Savile liked young girls though. Which means we still would have signed Torres.

 

[Halmeister]

Guardiola there next summer when they sack Mancini?

 

[Ryan]

Guardiola there next summer when they sack Mancini?

Absolute certainty.

 

[LarryHagman]

Mancini won't last till next summer.

 

[Hansern]

I think it will be Mourinho to City and Guardiola to Utd.

 

[StevieM]

I think it will be Mourinho to City and Guardiola to Utd.

I think you have that the wrong way round.

 

[Mors]

I think you have that the wrong way round.

I don't like it either way round

 

[Athens]

If Mourinho went to Utd I think I might switch off from Football altogether.

 

[Mors]

If Mourinho went to Utd I think I might switch off from Football altogether.

They'd win the league ever bastard year at a canter

 

[Athens]

They'd win the league ever bastard year at a canter

I hated him at Chelsea, I don't know how far my hatred for him would develop if he went to Utd. Although it would be a difficult task to top whiskey nose.

 

[jon545660]

I reckon Jose will only go to a team where he's guaranteed the ability to outspend all his domestic opposition. So I reckon City.

 

[LeTallecWiz]

I reckon Jose will only go to a team where he's guaranteed the ability to outspend all his domestic opposition. So I reckon City.

Yup, he only goes to teams where everything is set up for him to win. Will never be in the same class as Ferguson (*spits*)

 

[Silver Sean]

Mancini will be gone if they don't win either the Champion's League or the title. Neither of which look that likely at the moment.

 

[King Binny]

Manchester City’s youth coaches are having to write detailed Ofsted-style reports on every training session below first-team level as technical director Txiki Begiristain strengthens his grip on the club.

With the future of manager Roberto Mancini undecided, former Barcelona executive Begiristain, 48, is increasing his powerbase regardless of who is in charge of the first team next season.

City’s coaches, many of whom were appointed by Mancini, have been told to produce plans for each practice so Begiristain can check it for content and value. He wants every City side from Under-15s to the development team, who play in the Under-21 Premier League, to share a common style based on Barcelona’s tiki-taka game.

It has led to some tension among staff at the club’s Carrington training ground, who feel torn between loyalty to Mancini and having to satisfy Begiristain.

The over-riding priority of Begiristain and chief executive Ferran Soriano is to recruit the best young teenage players in the world, both having worked at Barcelona when a young Lionel Messi emerged through the ranks of their famous finishing school, La Masia.

City have themselves invested £150million on a new academy called The Etihad Campus which will open next year on the same site as the main stadium.

However, their vision does not automatically mean Mancini, 48, will leave this summer, though that will depend on how the Italian and his assistants can handle a reduction in power.

After City’s second straight Champions League failure, there is an acknowledgement that the club will have to sign at least one A-list star this summer along the lines of Uruguay forward Edinson Cavani of Napoli. Mancini’s first choice, Brazilian Neymar of Santos, is also being chased but is expected to join Barcelona.

Soriano, 45, described Mancini as ‘a champion’ in an interview last week but they want him to concentrate solely on coaching the first team and not interfere with the club’s transfer or wider coaching policy.