On Saturday, FC Barcelona will face an Almería team led by Basque coach Juan Manuel Lillo, a man who has never hidden his admiration for Pep Guardiola, or the attacking style of play in the Catalan capital. Amazingly enough, Lillo actually recruited Guardiola to play with his team, Dorados al Sinaloa, in the Mexican first division in 2006.

Lillo (44) replaced former Real Madrid star Hugo Sanchez at the head of Almería in December of 2009 on a one-year deal that will see him through to the end of the current campaign. This marks a waypoint in a professional career that has been full of interesting twists and turns. He has been successful in pulling Almeria out of the relegation zone and into a more comfortable 13th position, just 1 point behind Osasuna. Lillo’s arrival has seen a resurgent Almeria win 16 of their total 29 points in January and February alone.

Unlike many top managers, Lillo never had a professional career as a player, opting instead to dive right into coaching at age 16 for Amaroz KE. After several years with a variety of second and third division teams, he finally led UD Salamanca to the Spanish first division, and, at age 29, became the youngest manager to coach a first division side. His career continued with coaching stints at Real Oviedo, CD Tenerife, and Real Zaragoza.

After leaving Zaragoza, Lillo was hired by Antena 3 where he provided match commentary for a national Spanish TV audience during the 2002 World Cup. He had a controversial stint at Dorados Sinaloa (2005-06), (his squad included player-coach Pep Guardiola) where he resigned in mid-season. Coaching duties in Mexico and Spain resumed soon afterwards, with Lillo ending up most recently at second division outfit Real Sociedad, where he made an unsuccessful attempt to guide the team back into the first division but they ended up in the 4th position.

In the nine games since Lillo assumed the helm, Almería have consistently lined up in a 4-2-3-1, a formation that packs the midfield and tries to monopolize ball possession. Sound familiar?  Lillo himself humorously commented on the tactical similarities between his team and the style of game played in Barcelona in a recent interview on the Almería official website: “Barcelona and Almería both want to control the ball; the problem is that there is only one of them on the field. We will try to take the ball away from them and keep it under our control for as much time as possible.”