To many a football fan, current Bayern Munich manager Josep "Pep" Guardiola has rightfully earned his place as perhaps the greatest manager in the beautiful game at present. The ex-Barcelona player and manager, who was also capped 47 times for Spain, has, within the last 7 years established himself as one of Europe's most successful managers, with an attractive style of football.
Between the years of 2008-12, Guardiola lead his Barcelona side to an unprecedented 14 trophies. In 2009, his side managed to win an astounding and quite frankly unbelievable 6 competitions ( Copa Del Rey, La Liga, Champions League, Spanish Super Cup, UEFA Super Cup and Club World Cup ). The following season, they won La Liga and the Spanish Super Cup. In 2011, they returned to Camp Nou with La Liga, the Champions League, the Spanish Super Cup and the UEFA Super Cup, and in Guardiola's final year, they reigned victorious in the Club World Cup and Copa Del Rey.
Quite the list of achievements, in just a 5 year tenure at the Camp Nou. At the end of the 2012 season, however, Guardiola announced to the world's surprise that he would be taking a sabbatical from management. "I'm not interested in coaching now. My desire is to do other things. Maybe sometime in the future I will go back to a bench, but I don't know at the moment." He also said that he needed to "recharge my batteries", and rejected an offer from Barcelona to extend his contract. Other reasons for the break may have been to spend more time with his family, and that he may have thought that he had nothing left to improve the side at the time. Finally, he is also quoted as saying "I went off to learn English and I ended up trying to learn German. That was all I focused on."
To fully understand the concepts and tactics of Guardiola, we must step back in time to his playing career. One of the linchpins in Johan Cruyff's Dream Team, Guardiola most resembled Xavi Hernandez in style with his ability to dictate the tempo of a game. Tempo, as it happens, unsurprisingly turns out to be one of the key aspects of any of Guardiola's teams. Guardiola was a passer, he wasn’t extremely athletically gifted but he could read the game brilliantly and always picked out the right pass. At the turn of the century however, football went for brawn over brains, meaning there was no room left for a player of his capabilities. Guardiola knew this, and it is why he left Barcelona at only the age of 30, despite the fact that his ability had not diminished and he still could have played at the very top level for several more years.
His philosophies, in any case, are similar to his playing style. Guardiola was stubborn, he wanted the game to be played in a style similar to the way he did. It is a very personal connection for him. He is obsessed by possession-based systems, the infamous short-paasing tiki-taka system he developed and deployed to such substantial appraisal and success at both Los Blaugranes and Die Roten.
In his first meeting with the Barcelona squad, Guardiola spoke of the system “The style comes dictated by the history of this club and we will be faithful to it. When we have the ball, we can’t lose it. When that happens, run and get it back. That is it, basically.” Sounds simple, but on a more complex scale, this was the beginning of both the tiki taka and gegenpressing ideals so widely assosciated with Barcelona.
His Barcelona side regularly lined out in a 4-3-3 formation, looking to replicate the "Total Football" of the Netherlands from the 1970's ( you can read a piece about Total Football here https://www.vavel.com/en/international-football/359995-total-football-totally-finished.html ), which former Cule Johan Cruyff was attempting to establish during his time as Barcelona manager in the 1990's. Guardiola played under Cruyff, and saw firsthand the changes that the Dutchman was implementing at Camp Nou. The high pressure system he implemented was in response to his frist quote to the players. Developed all the way from La Masia to the first team squad, the philosophy that La Masia works with is so organic and natural that players who are called upon to represent Barcelona B and the first team rarely struggle with philosophical adaptation. They seem to slot in with consummate ease. Their tender age is negated by their supreme understanding of the tactical requirements of each player.
Each player looks to close off the relevant passing lanes of the opposition, forcing them into either hoofing the ball long, or an error of some sort, as seen in the below image:
At Bayern, Guardiola has stamped his same authority and phiolosophies onto the squad. The season before he took the reins in Munich, the side who averaged the highest possession percentages in Europe's top 5 leagues? Barcelona. Second placed? Bayern. So while the main ideals had already been implemented by Jupp Heycknes and before him Louis van Gaal, Pep tweaked the system slightly, with a higher demand for a gegenpressing system similar to that of league rivals Borussia Dortmund. He usually lined out in a 4-1-4-1 formation, with the mercurial Philip Lahm at defensive midfield and Mario Mandzukic leading the line. Below is how they would line out when attacking:
They also successfulling implemented the gegenpressing system, and had an excellent defensive shape for much of the season, as seen in the below image:
Until they faced Real Madrid in the Champions League semi-final, that is. With Los Blancos playing a pace-based, counter-attacking style of football, Bayern were simply ripped to shreds, and the lack of defensive organisation and co-ordination was most evident in the below image:
Karim Benzema is left in acres of space as 4 Bayern men look on. The game was widely brandished as "the death of tiki-taka", and although the coach accepted defeat "They are the best counter-attacking team in the world, they have legs, they are athletes. They are football players, but mainly athletes. I did not want to have the typical German game of back and forth. I wanted a lot of possession and we managed that in parts. But we did not finish our chances well", he was clearly on the defensive in relation to his tactics. Accusations that hadn't been thrown up until then came think and fast, claiming that Guardiola's sides "had no Plan B" and that it "was wrong for Bayern to change their style to accomodate Pep."
For a manager with no Plan B, 18 trophies in 5 seasons is no mean feat.
