Don’t ever confuse Pep Guardiola
for a style-over-substance aesthete.
Unsurprisingly for someone
who has won 19
trophies in seven
and a half seasons
as a top-flight
coach, he wants
to win.
At the centre of
everything, however,
is the desire to win
with style. Ultimately,
Guardiola chose Bayern as
his next club after Barcelona –
where he wants to one day return,
to head up La Masia – because he
wanted to prove he could advance on the
‘perfection’ that former coach Jupp
Heynckes had left. Before joining Bayern,
he researched every Bundesliga club to
understand how they counter-attacked,
but all the hours spent
studying videos,
talking to his
players and
analysing every
detail is pointless
if he doesn’t win.
Thiago agrees.
“It’s a great mix: you
know how he wants
you to play and how to
combine that with your
own qualities. That’s how good
results follow.
The players will end up drained by Pep.
He’s so intense, he’ll exhaust us.”To be an elite footballer, you need to
eat like one. Hardly revolutionary, but
when Guardiola saw pastries and
cakes laid out for the team during his
first pre-season at Bayern, he called for
a nutritionist.
Eating the meal provided in the players’
lounge is compulsory. When only four
players did so after a Bundesliga game
against Nuremberg in August 2013,
Guardiola spat at his squad: “I won’t
ask again. You must eat within an hour
of the match and since you’re all
professionals playing at the highest
level I trust that you will do it from
now on.”n UTRITIOn IS A SERIOUS BUSIn ESS
THERE’ S n O ROOM
FOR ROMAn TICISM
The other way Guardiola
provides space for his
interiores is by maintaining
width. If play develops down
the right wing, the opposite
wideman must hug the left-
hand touchline to avoid
overpopulating central midfield
and denying Iniesta, Robben or
Ribery the space to play.
“Guys who are supposed to
play on the right are not allowed
to cross to the left, and on the
left you’re not allowed to cross
to the right,” former Barcelona
forward Thierry
Henry (below)
recently recalled on
Sky Sports’ Monday
Night Football.
It’s what Guardiola
calls “the third man”
and is an extension
of a rondo variation
to escape counter-
pressing – wait for the moment
to switch the play to the
opposite wing and change the
reference point of the attack. It’s
why Xabi Alonso, with his range
of passing, has become so vital
to the Bayern system, whether
he’s in defence or his natural
holding midfield role.
It’s a system Pep learned
as part of Cruyff’s Dream Team.
In his autobiography, Guardiola
describes the play as
“pels extrems
i amb els extrems”,a wonderful Catalan phrase that
means “on the limit and with
the wingers”.
There is scope for
improvisation, however. Once in
the final third, Guardiola’s
players are allowed total
freedom to move as they see
fit to score. Messi could seek
space. Ditto Thomas Muller,
that ‘space investigator’, or
Robert Lewandowski. Henry
added: “He used to say: ‘My job
is to bring you to the last third;
your job is to finish it’. The last
third was freedom for
us. But if you don’t do
what he is asking you
to do, you are going
to be in trouble.
When Pep has a plan,
respect his plan.”
The Frenchman
knows this from
experience. In 2008,
frustrated at not touching the
ball much in the first half of a
5-2 Champions League win in
Portugal against Sporting, Henry
vacated his left-wing berth to
look for it.
“I could hear him being upset
on the side, but I still went there- I didn’t care,” admitted Henry.
“I scored a goal, and at half-
time he took me off.” Every
player has a job and Pep’s
instructions must be
followed. To the
letter.
ImagesImagesPA; Getty ImagesPA; Getty ImagesTHE THIRD MAn
IS CRUCIAL
PEP
GUARDIOLA