OLIVER HOLT: I sat face-to-scarred-face with Pep Guardiola - this is what he revealed about whether he can rise from his darkest hour Pep Guardiola had several cuts on his face after Man City's draw with Feyenoord Join Mail+ to read OLIVER HOLT's unmissable column every Tuesday, plus more of your favourite writers, exclusive stories and in-depth sports reporting By OLIVER HOLT Published: 02:00, 30 November 2024 | Updated: 02:00, 30 November 2024 e-mail View comments Genius is usually a stranger to serenity and so it has been with Pep Guardiola . Even as the football world has bowed before him, there has always been a restless, searching, questioning quality to his triumph. The level of his psychological intensity has sometimes been faintly unnerving and yet also endlessly inspiring, especially to his players, who feed off the relentlessness of his hunger for success, and fans, who love the sight of his emotional investment in the job.
It is his intensity that defines him, which was part of the reason why, when he walked into the press conference theatre that abuts Manchester City 's training complex on Friday afternoon, a hundred pairs of eyes fixed on the still-vivid cut on the bridge of his nose. That wound and a collection of angry red lines on his shaved head, inflicted by his own hand during City's 3-3 Champions League draw against Feyenoord on Tuesday night, had borne alarming testimony to the extent of Guardiola's frustration and his despair. In those circumstances, it.