Guardiola celebrates Barca's Champions league success with his players
Triumphant Barcelona manager Pep Guardiola could add film director to his burgeoning CV after producing the perfect images to inspire victory over Manchester United in the Champions League final.
Guardiola showed a specially made film to his players in their dressing room 10 minutes before the final in Rome, which Barcelona won 2-0 to dash United's hopes of becoming the first team to defend a Champions League title.
The film highlighted action images of his players' finest moments - featuring every member of the Barca squad - and Guardiola had clearly done his homework on the Eternal City and Italy ahead of the final in the Stadio Olimpico.
The pictures were set to a soundtrack from the Russell Crowe film Gladiator and the opera Turandot performed by Italian legend Pavarotti.
The film had the desired effect as Barcelona went on to outclass United to become champions of Europe for the third time thanks to goals from Samuel Eto'o and Lionel Messi.
Before showing the film to the Barca squad, Guardiola gave members of his staff a sneak preview, moving several of them in tears.
Barca's success was also a personal triumph for rookie boss Guardiola, who insisted that he should not appear in the movie.
The 38-year-old out-foxed United manager Alex Ferguson to repeat his European success as a player with Barcelona in 1992 and complete a historic Spanish treble - Barca had already won the league and cup prior to last week's final - in his first season as coach at the Nou Camp.
In doing so Guardiola became one of only six coaches to win the Champions League both as a player and coach.
The film was broadcast on Catalonia's public television channel TV3 on Monday.
Guardiola spoke to TV3 journalist Santi Padro about the film idea on the Sunday before the final and the movie was made by Jordi Gaya.
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