Nothing is left to chance. The
same long-established
process is followed
religiously in preparation for
each fixture. Such preparation
serves to calm the 44-year-old
coach’s pre-game nerves.
Two days before every
game, Guardiola and his
assistant will analyse the data
and videos on the next
opponents, shutting
themselves in their respective
training ground offices so that
their thoughts are not
contaminated by each other.
Guardiola then plans. Alone.
For hours.
There are three pre-game
team talks. The first, at
training the day before the
match, will outline the video
analysis results, with the
session that follows focusing
on how they’re to be
countered. The second, on
the morning of the game,
details defensive and
attacking set-pieces. Finally,
two hours before kick-off,
Guardiola’s focus will be
entirely on attacking strategy
and motivation.
Perhaps surprisingly, he
never enters the team
dressing room before the
game, believing it to be the
players’ domain.
There is a routine to his
in-game life, too, all hand
signals and shouts of
encouragement while up in
the stands, head of analysis
Planchart will send images of
specific moves down to
Torrent’s iPad on the bench.
Half-time is the one and only
occasion that Guardiola
enters the dressing room
before or during the game.
Post-match is when he is at
his most relaxed. He’s chatty,
amiable and will wander
round the players’ lounge
talking about what he’s just
witnessed to anyone who’ll
listen. He has been known, as
the adrenaline exits his
system, to steal the odd bit of
food from his players’ plates,
before gorging himself later.
Then it’s back to the training
pitch and more preparation.Much is made of Pep’s Barça-
ball style, yet he has clearly
adapted to Bayern’s strengths
out wide, encouraging
crossfield balls for Robben
and Ribery. “I’m not some
kind of Taliban; I’m not totally
inflexible,” he says in Pep
Confidential. “I’m happy to
evolve. But please don’t ask
me to do something I don’t
believe in.” And if you don’t do
what he believes in, you’ll find
yourself discarded.
Guardiola will not bend over
backwards to accommodate
a player who won’t adapt to his
requirements in the same way
that Pep adapts for the team.
Javi Martinez has evolved to
great effect; ditto captain Lahm
and star man Ribery. “I love
you, Pep,” the French winger
told him in 2014. “I’m just a
street kid, but you will always be
in my heart.”
Yet he struggles to manage
players with a singularity of
personality. Samuel Eto’o,
Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Mario
Mandzukic have all lasted just
one season under Guardiola.
The latter’s sulking
when out of the
team was a
particular annoyance to him. It’s
no coincidence that these three
are driven centre-forwards with
more than a dash of ego, who
define themselves by goals.
“Guardiola disappointed me
because he didn’t treat me with
respect; it was twice as good
when Jupp Heynckes was there,”
said Mandzukic, who joined
Atletico Madrid at the end of the
Spaniard’s first season at the
Allianz Arena. Eto’o and Ibra
have also cited a lack respect.
Guardiola’s preference for
a false nine may not help, but
Robert Lewandowski’s 48 goals
in his first 75 Bayern games is
proof that if you’re willing to
adapt, Pep will change his
tactics for you.
On the day Douglas Costa
arrived at Bayern from Shakhtar
Donetsk, his new coach asked
him: “Are you ready to open your
mind and learn how to play
football?” Frequently used in an
unfamiliar left-wing position, the
Brazilian had scored five goals
and assisted a further 12 by the
winter break. He’d learned well.
One wonders whether Premier
League stars, used to prioritising
physique over tactical mastery,
will be able to follow suit.YOU HAVE TO BUY In TO PEP
Guardiola’s belief in his own
ideas, however well founded,
can be his biggest downfall.
When Guardiola introduced
3-4-3 to Barcelona in 2011-12,
with mixed results, he wanted
to challenge a team that had
already won everything.
Unfamiliar with the system,
Los Cules lost the league to
Mourinho’s Real Madrid and
exited the Champions League
to Chelsea in the last four.
When presented with two
possible options, he always
chooses the more attacking
one (“Pep would rather die
going forward than stay alive
defending,” Thierry Henry once
said of his former coach).
There is much to admire in
this. But in Bayern’s biggest
games in the last two and a
half seasons, the coach’s
master plan went badly wrong.
First, there was the 2014
Champions League semi-final.
Trailing 1-0 from the first leg,
a 4-2-3-1-shaped Bayern
side surrended midfield
superiority of the ball in
favour of four out-and-out-
attackers (Robben, Ribery and
Thomas Muller pushed high,
with Mandzukic as centre-
forward) and lost 4-0 at home
to Real Madrid.
Twelve months on, question
marks were again raised over
Guardiola’s daring after he
selected a back three
(Boateng, Rafinha, Medhi
Benatia) to face Barcelona’s
fearsome attacking trident of
Messi, Neymar and Luis Suarez.
“Pep Guardiola is probably the
only coach in world football
who would do this away at the
Nou Camp,” said commentator
Gary Neville. “Everyone else
would be thinking: ‘How do we
double-up on them, or protect,
or screen?’”
After 20 minutes of a Barça
barrage, he had to change to
a back four. Bayern lost 3-0,
and the tie was effectively
over. So often does the risk-
reward football work, he
possibly gets too clever for his
own good. This would see him
come unstuck in the Premier
League furnace.HE’S A
RISK-TAKER
HE’S OBSESSED
WITH ROUTIn E
PEP
GUARDIOLA