Samuel Eto'o has told BeIN SPORTS Pep Guardiola "never had the courage to say things to my face" when the pair were at Barcelona and revealed they barely spoke.
• Guardiola explains Barcelona exit
Central to the Barca side that won the Primera Division and Champions League double under Frank Rijkaard in 2005-06, Eto'o, 33, also played an influential role when the Catalans achieved an unprecedented Treble in Guardiola's first season in charge in 2008-09.
However, despite scoring 30 goals in 36 appearances in the league campaign and finding the net in the Champions League final against Manchester United, the Cameroon international found himself on his way to Inter Milan with Zlatan Ibrahimovic moving in the opposite direction that summer.
"You know the press and the TV. There are those who are favourites and those who are not. I was one of the latter. That was my role, but I had a very important role in the dressing room where I could say anything to anyone, looking them straight in the eye," Eto'o said.
"I first of all reminded Guardiola that he'd never been a great player. He was a good player, that's true. I told him. As a coach, he had proven nothing. He came in and didn't even know the story of the dressing room.
"I talked to him and had a very good offer to go and play for six months in Uzbekistan where they would have given me 26 million dollars. In his office, he said to me: 'That could do you good, go for it.' I told him that Eto'o was the one who made him win and that he would come and ask for forgiveness. And I stayed. He never had the courage to say things to my face."
The Chelsea forward added: "I didn't want to speak to Guardiola until he had apologised. I spoke to him two times. Pep wanted to give me lessons on how to be a striker, but he was a midfielder. Pep told me how to move like a striker. I told him: 'You're not normal!' The true story is that Pep didn't respect the things in football."