It was only 198 days, but Pep Guardiola was once a Roma player. The Catalan opened and closed his spell in Italy with Brescia, but he spent six months in the Italian capital for what was the toughest spell in his career.
"I know the bench of the Stadio Olimpico better than the pitch," he joked in 2009 when he returned as a coach with Barcelona for the Champions League final.
He signed for the club in the summer of 2002, convinced by club president Franco Sensi and against the opinion of then-coach Fabio Capello, who wanted other targets.
"What shirt number do I want? The No.10 of [Francesco] Totti, but they won't give me it," he joked in his presentation, but his enthusiasm didn't last long.
Capello gave him just six appearances while he was there. One of them was against Real Madrid in a 3-0 defeat on September 17, 2002, with Raul, Luis Figo and Zinedine Zidane scoring. For the return game in Spain a month later, he didn't play a minute and it summed up his time at a club which he departed in January.
Capello has always spoken positively of Guardiola, praising his professional approach and dedication to training and team meetings, but it was clear that he had other preferences. The Italian coach was an admirer of Daniele de Rossi who was emerging as a young player and who made his debut after the current Manchester City coach left in January of 2003.
"I could see that he wasn't in his world in Rome, he looked disoriented," De Rossi later said of his former teammate.
Guardiola returned to Brescia and was crucial in keeping his team up in Serie A alongside Roberto Baggio, Andrea Pirlo and Luca Toni. After that, a two-season spell with Al-Ahli in Qatar served as an ending before hanging up his boots.

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