Pep really does seem to be rapidly approaching Lance Armstrong levels of villainy.
Both immensely talented, but with a penchant for ‘win at all costs’ having no delineating line between pushing a boundary and outright cheating.
They both seem to have a sense of internal ethics that whitewashes all their behaviour. A kind of ‘everyone else is doing all they can do to beat me, so I will too’. I don’t know if it’s knowing reframing, or they’re just broken people.
The odd doublethink in his Catalan independence comments while working for Abu Dhabi, his use of PEDs and the resulting ban, his forever pot-kettle-black comments on other teams.
As with Lance, he’s been a soldier of fortune. Wherever gives him the best chance of winning, he’ll be. They’ll remain an arms length away from the mechanics and just focus on the winning. At times it’s been impossible to hold that line. Lance would deny doping in pressers. Pep gets shirty when asked anything non football related. Lance would routinely say ‘Im the most tested athlete in sport’. Pep will say ‘I focus on the football, and let the other people at my club handle everything else’.
Both have this myopic focus on winning as if their wins can’t be tainted by anything that doesn’t happen on the field of play. That their success isn’t massively assisted by criminality in the background.
Lance is undoubtedly one of the greatest cyclists of all time. He got to have all the adulation, stage and race wins, money and fame. He’s sitting pretty, richer than Christ surrounded by 7 yellow jerseys. Nothing can colour his career bad in his eyes. Even his contrition looks sociopathic.
Pep may end up looking exactly the same. He cheated as a player via the use of drugs. Barcelona are under investigation for referee payments. Rumours of doping amongst his playing squad look paper thin or conspiratorial at times, but the smell is there. His huge disputes with Bayerns doctor seems to fly in the face of player welfare. And, as The Times once said, he seems to have his hand on the tiller of a pirate ship at City.
Lance knew he was cheating. Pep knows that City cheat. It’d be a shame if all of Pep’s success was tainted by investigations held years after the trophies had been won, but I really think his house of cards is going to topple in exactly the same manner as Armstrongs.