Johan Cruyff has revealed that Barcelona almost sold club legend Pep Guardiola - over claims that he was lacked physicality and couldn't defend.
The Dutch legend made the revelation in his posthumous autobiography, My Turn, and spoke about Guardiola's time as a player under his tutelage.
The former Barcelona player and manager graduated from the famed La Masia academy and went on to win 16 trophies across 282 appearances with the club, before leaving on a free transfer in 2001.
Guardiola returned to take charge of Barcelona's senior side in July 2008 after a 12-month spell at the helm of their B team, and led the Catalan giants to arguably their most trophy-laden era in the club's history.
Cruyff, who is famed for instigating the 'Barcelona way' philosophy of total football at the Camp Nou, stated that the 45-year-old may not have had the chance to become the manager he is today if his former club had followed through with their desire to let Guardiola leave.
He wrote: "As a player at Barcelona they wanted to get rid of Pep because they thought he was a lanky great beanpole who couldn't defend, who had no strength and couldn't do anything in the air.
Johan Cruyff blocked Barcelona's attempted sale of Pep Guardiola https://t.co/QuoiwfGRG1 pic.twitter.com/USZNk9dcyI
"So he was blamed for all the things he wasn't good at, while I thought they were all things he could learn to do well.
"What all those people didn't see was that Guardiola had the fundamental qualities needed for the top level: speed of action, technique, insight.
"Those are phenomena that very few people exhibit, but in his case they were present in spades.
"If I hadn't been at Barcelona, for sure he would have been sold to a Segunda Division club."
Cruyff, who passed away in March after a long battle with cancer, added that he told Guardiola that he had to be resolute in his decision-making if he was to become a top manager.
The now-Manchester City boss has won a further 21 titles during spells at Barcelona and Bayern Munich, and Cruyff said that Guardiola had followed a similar path to that which he had tread during his formative years in management.
He added: "I told him that above everything else, you have to be the boss, the one that makes the decisions and is responsible for the consequences. In that sense, Pep [Guardiola] followed the same path and guidelines that I did."
Johan Cruyff: "Here (at Barça) the mentality is either (we're) the best in the world, or the worst in the world. That's it."
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