The Fans Football Blog3

Catalan sports paper El Mundo Deportivo claims that Villarreal manager Manuel Pellegrini (55) was one of the top candidates to replace former Barcelona manager Frank Rijkaard earlier this year.

When the Barcelona board had made the final decision to dismiss Rijkaard, the Chilean coach was at the start the main challenger of current Inter Milan manager José Mourinho, who had the support of then vice-presidents Ferran Soriano and Marc Ingla. Pellegrini was supported by a group of board members, including people like Albert Perrín and Jacint Borràs who stayed when a part of the board left in July.

Although Mourinho lead the race for quite some time, the Portuguese didn't get the support of Barcelona president Joan Laporta, also because the former Chelsea manager wasn't approved by external adviser Johan Cruijff. Rijkaard would nevertheless have advised the president to sign Mourinho as his successor.

When the Mourinho option was excluded, the name of Barcelona B coach Josep Guardiola was put forward and supported by then board member Evarist Murtra and current sports vice-president Rafael Yuste. Although the board members who didn't believe in Guardiola gathered behind Pellegrini, it was in the end the former Barcelona captain who was appointed as new Barcelona head coach.

Read more:
Guardiola backed by board but not by fans
The bench candidates who did not make it
The race to the bench: Guardiola takes Mourinho's pole