When Pep Guardiola was announced as the Barcelona manager in 2008, after just a year in management coaching their B team, fans must have been unsure. Guardiola is Catalan through and through, he was a club legend having played under Johan Cruyff. But he wasn’t quite the star manager that Barcelona fans had expected, he was a fresh faced and inexperienced, not fit to handle the squad of superstars. However, what Barcelona fans were about to witness was a master of the game announcing himself on to the world stage.
Guardiola in his first season of senior management led the Barcelona team to a historic treble, becoming the first Spanish side in history to win the league title, the domestic cup title and the Champions league title. He did this by introducing his signature brand of Cruyff’s total football. He combined a high press with Tiki-Taka style passing to enforce what he dubbed his ‘Juego de Posicion’ philosophy. Without trying to sound too much like an essay I wrote earlier this year about Thomas Tuchel; this positional play created order within his side, whilst creating disorder within the opposing team. This is because many teams did not have any idea as to how to deal with this brand of play that had never been seen before. Guardiola also made clever signings, bringing in the likes of Dani Alves and returning Gerard Pique to the club. This combined with his keen eye for la Macia academy products, in his first season promoting the likes of Pedro and Busquets into the first team. These new players quickly settled in with the established players such as Eto’o (mentioned in both articles so far, wonder how long I can keep that up) and Lionel Messi. This gave Guardiola a ginormous pool of talent at his disposal, something which has been a constant at all 3 clubs he has managed.
Some may criticise the man for this, but I may offer this rebuttal. In order to play beautiful football, you need beautiful players, not look’s wise but in the way they place football. Guardiola’s sides have a knack of making football seem effortless, it is rare to see a side under him play a boring game (that can happen of course, just look at this season’s first Manchester derby). It is undeniable that with this talent Pep has become one of the greatest managers of all time, in that first season at Barcelona alone, he only lost 5 games all season, having an unbeaten run that stretched over 20 games. He ended that season with a goal difference of 70. Whilst I would be the first to claim stats don’t mean everything, they can be used to back up points, Guardiola being an instant success is clear for all to see especially when paired with those result statistics.
Pep’s focus upon the transitions within the game are what makes him truly unique. His teams are experts in winning back possession and, when in possession, pushing forward and catching the opposition off-guard. The verticality of Pep’s current system uses this press to its advantage, playing balls up the pitch instead of horizontally to make this counter effective, unnerving the opposition defenders. For example, earlier this season a section on Sky’s Monday Night Football (MNF) analysed the way that Man City set up during their attacks compared to how they set up in defence. What was found was in attack, the team would form a back 3, allowing the fullback on the side of the attack to push up the pitch and add to the attacking numbers. The defensive midfielder then became a sort of Libero in between the two CB’s whilst the fullback on the other side functioned as a sort of asymmetric Anchor. This allows Pep’s teams to completely overwhelm the opposition with attacking players, whilst also giving more opportunities to pass up the pitch. In defence his teams will quickly reset, forming a back 4, as the fullback will be in midfield, the DM functions as a CB whilst the CB pushes out to be able to stop a counter coming down the side without a fullback. This is what has made Dias and Stones incredibly effective this season, as their ability on the ball and speed allows them to shut down any counter attack before it reaches Ederson, despite Ederson also being an incredible keeper.
Pep’s idea of keeping the ball at the team’s feet is made clear by his use of ball-playing centre backs and a sweeper keeper role. Ederson is regarded within the City squad as the best passer and penalty taker in the team. This came to the fore recently with Guardiola being asked if Ederson would be placed on penalty duty given City’s current problem scoring penalties. He has advanced his brand of hipster football, doing something rarely seen. He has turned the false 9 role into a deeper playmaker. This obviously has led to their current striker Gabriel Jesus scoring far less goals this season, however he does still have 8 G/A from 12 appearances so far this season. This is also due to Jesus’ poor finishing ability and less of a reflection of the chances that have been created for him (averaging 1.8 shots per game). This poor form and Aguero being injured has led to Pep’s creation of this new false 9, preferring to play a combination of Phil Foden, Raheem Sterling or Kevin De Bruyne. This has proved to be rather incredible, with City currently sitting 20 games unbeaten in all competitions, having recently dispatched a rather impressive West Ham in style. This new role, as previously mentioned allows the player to function deeper in the pitch, almost as a sort of 10 but without the midfield duties of one. De Bruyne shows this perfectly, his creativity was already some of the best that the Premier League has ever seen, making him one of the best midfielders in the world. His ability to perfectly place the pass as the attackers foot or head is unsurpassed in world football, he makes the difficult look easy and the easy look completely effortless. Despite having missed games through injury he already has 11 assists this season, with this number set to rise judging by his performance at the weekend, performing a fantastic overhead ball to Rueben Dias which was then headed into the goal. His role is further shown as he averages 3 key passes per game. The passes he plays forward, as required in Pep’s vertical Tiki – Taka system, are what these passes are created by. This may be as he has dropped slightly further back into midfield in order to win the ball back and he starts a counter attack, or he has received the ball in the final third and characteristically floats a ball through to the onrushing attacker.
David Moyes recently dubbed Guardiola the Heston Blumenthal of football due to the experimental nature of his play. If we are using chef analogies I would prefer to say Pep is the Alan Ducasse of football. For those who may not know Alan Ducasse is a 3 Michelin star chef who owns multiple restuarants, including the Alan Ducasse at the Dorchester in London. His food is outstanding in multiple ways, similar to Pep’s style of football it is also unique, multi-faceted and gorgeous. Most importantly the reason why I would argue this is a better compasrison is Ducasse has one ingredient that he puts in at least one dish in his menus; coffee. Pep’s coffee is his passing, no matter what team his he managed at, his teams always keep the ball by passing it between them. Whether this be the horizontal Tiki-Taka of Barcelona or the vertical Tiki-Taka of Bayern and City, this method of ball retention is a constant. It’s almost beautiful to see, at its best it is liquid football, the whole team working as a unit with a singular mentality effortlessly passing between one another working the ball towards the opposition goal. This is shown by the team averaging 684.9 passes per game, which in a team that hasn’t lost in over 20 games shows the effectiveness of this method. Much like the coffee which isn’t expected to work, there were questions as to whether Pep’s style of play would work in English football, a more physical league than La Liga or the Bundesliga. However, just like the coffee changes the flavour of the dish, Pep has changed English football. He has transitioned top sides away from a defensive mentality with a big one and little one up front to high pressing, fast passing, defensively high-lined units. A return to flair within football, the style that made watchers fall in love with men such as Ronaldinho, Neymar and a young Ronaldo, has to be attributed to Pep. Whilst no player is arguably at the same level of flair within the game, there is something to be said for the creative freedom that many teams have now been given. Take for example Giroud’s bicycle kick against Atletico Madrid, was it necessary? Not at all, was it a beautiful goal? Absolutely.
Whilst I am aware this is no way near the level of analysis of Tifo or Rabona TV, both fantastic YouTube channels, I do hope I managed to explain in my own way what I believe makes Pep Guardiola so special. The man changed the face of the game and has won almost everything there is to win as a manager, surely going down as one of the all-time greats alongside his mentor in Cruyff.
Thank you for reading,
The Football Student
Sources:
all statistics from WhoScored.com
MBP: complex systems: case study Pep Guardiola
The Tactics Board: 10 lessons from Pep Guardiola
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