Four Four Two Presents - The Managers - UK - Issue 01 (2021)

At Barcelona it was Sergio
Busquets; occasionally Xavi or
Andres Iniesta. For Bayern,
Thiago Alcantara, Xabi Alonso
and Philipp Lahm have performed
the role. In every game,
Guardiola picks his avatar – the
player whose job is to keep the
play moving, as he did.
In his 2001 autobiography he
wrote: “[Ex-Barça boss Johan]
Cruyff used to tell me that if I
was fouled, it was my own fault
because I’d held onto [the ball]
too long; I had to let it go
much before.”
Yet Guardiola also demands
what he calls “players with
a pause”. Capable of holding onto
the ball for half a second longer
than your average midfield
clogger, they lull the opposition
into a positional error. He did it
better than most himself. “I tried
to trick the opposition into
thinking I’d pass it wide again,”
he says in 2014’s Pep
Confidential, Marti Perarnau’s
account of Guardiola’s first
season at Bayern, “and then –
boom! – I’d split them with an
inside pass to a striker.”
It was this understanding
that prompted his decision to
play Lahm (right) in midfield
instead of his customary full-
back position.
“He is super-intelligent,”
Guardiola has said of his elegant
captain. “He understands the

game brilliantly; knows when to

come inside or stay wide. The

guy is f**king exceptional.”

In short, Lahm is his organising

midfielder, the fulcrum around

which the whole team moves.

Only the most intelligent players

can pull off this difficult role,

which demands one player that

does everything that both

holding midfielders do – the

ball retention, positioning and

intercepting – in the 4-2-3-1

setup that Guardiola seldom

uses because it’s not

attacking enough.

When he really

wants total

domination of

the ball, he chooses

his former Barcelona

protégé Thiago as

conductor, the

player he demanded

oder nichts (“or

no one”) when he

took over from Jupp

Heynckes in 2013.

“The basis is there:

maintaining

possession and playing

the ball out from the

back,” Thiago explains

to FourFourTwo,

comparing Guardiola’s

two teams. “Of course,

every team is different, but

any Pep team is always going to

be based on ball retention. It’s

his mentality.”

HE BUILDS AROUn D A COn DUCTOR

Busquets became

Pep’s conductor

at Barcelona

Images

PA; Getty Images

FourFourTwo.com The Managers 133

PEP

GUARDIOLA