Authors: Martí Perarnau
‘All of that has had an effect on Pep and changed him.’
The prodigious calendar year of 2013 has finished and it is time to put all the clocks back to zero. Football’s revolving wheel is about to start turning again. The Bayern which leaves its winter camp in Doha is one in full gallop in search of more trophies and it will shortly swallow up the Bundesliga.
43
‘I’M GOING TO HAVE TO MAKE SOME RADICAL CHANGES.’
Stuttgart, January 29, 2014
‘THERE ARE DAYS when you play badly and nothing works for you. You think, “what the hell am I doing out here?” But then you give an assist and score the goal of your life.’
Bayern pretty much win the league on this cold January evening when, despite having a poor game, Thiago Alcántara scores a colossal goal in the final minutes.
Bayern’s game has been boring, clunky and chaotic and the home team’s excellent performance has certainly warranted a better result. They’ve done everything right. With a compact and solid defence, they have conceded very little and when Bayern do break through the double defensive line, their keeper, Ulreich, who has had an exceptional game, is there to frustrate them. Stuttgart attack with precision and intelligence, ruthlessly taking advantage of any lapse in Bayern’s positional play and causing the defence genuine, if infrequent, problems. And when Bayern finally do find their rhythm, Stuttgart disrupt it by slowing down restarts and throw-ins.
The home side’s coach, Thomas Schneider, who will be out of a job in six weeks, has shown himself to be a first-class tactician. Bayern have looked lost, as if they are no longer thinking clearly. Perhaps losing this match, which has been postponed from December, would be no big deal. They do, after all, have a 14-point lead over Borussia Dortmund.
For the first time this season Guardiola has repeated his line-up of the Friday before, when they produced a sizzling 2-0 victory in Mönchengladbach’s Borussia Park in the first league match after the winter break. How on earth could a group of players who played such aggressive, penetrating, brilliant football just five days before have dipped so dramatically?
‘It was like we couldn’t give any more. We were blocked mentally after Friday’s match against Gladbach, which had been really tough,’ Thiago explains as he bounces out of the Mercedes Benz Arena dressing room in Stuttgart, obviously on cloud nine. ‘These things happen in football. Sometimes you just collapse and can’t do any more. The minutes tick by and you’re praying for it to end because you can see no way forward. But in the end, we found one.’
This time the solution has come from the bench. There were three reasons for Pep’s decision to turn out the same line-up: Firstly, it’s his preferred option, with Lahm at
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, Kroos and Thiago slightly advanced of him and Götze, Müller and Shaqiri constantly swapping positions in attack; secondly, Ribéry, Robben, Schweinsteiger and Javi Martínez were out through injury or other problems and, thirdly, because Mandžukić was being punished for his apathetic attitude to training. Pep was not willing to start the striker unless he was prepared to put in some effort to earn his place.
In Stuttgart however, nothing has gone the way the coach had hoped. Bayern have bossed possession, moving the ball around just outside the penalty area at will with Thiago and Götze easily getting between the two Stuttgart lines of midfield and defence. However, the final passes have been poor and the shooting still less effective. As has happened before in other games, Bayern’s overwhelming domination has not translated into a serious threat and, as the minutes pass, the opposition’s counter-attacks begin to make an impact. Stuttgart take the lead at the 30-minute mark and Bayern’s game continues to deteriorate.
At half-time Pep decides to change tactics and Mandžukić, Pizarro and Contento start to warm up in the first minute of the second half.
Pep radically transforms the game. He’s tried it before without success, but in Stuttgart his alterations do the trick.
Guardiola has always taken an interventionist approach to what is happening on the pitch, but now he has one undoubted advantage, lacking in his Barcelona days: he has different players who are capable of completely altering the way they are playing.
‘We’re going nowhere, Domè,’ he tells Torrent the minute they get into the dressing room. ‘I’m going to have to make some radical changes because we can’t win like this.’
His team are so stuck that Pep breaks his own rules by making two changes within the first minutes of the second half, putting Mandžukić and Pizarro on for Shaqiri and Kroos. He goes further. He uses a double
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composed of Thiago and Lahm, he puts Pizarro in the No.10 position and tells him to spread the play wide to either wing. It’s now a 4-2-3-1 shape and the defenders are told to get the ball as quickly as possible to Thiago and Lahm. Either of them feeds Pizarro and the Peruvian, at the top of his game, keeps on opening up the play to Müller and Götze wide, then pushes up quickly to support Mandžukić in the striker role.
Pep’s changes represent a radical shift away from his usual game plan. In fact, you could say that they are the antithesis of his normal playing style. In November, in Dortmund, he put all his emphasis on the most agile, technical players flooding the middle of the pitch, especially Thiago and Götze, in order to win 3-0. You could call that the most ‘Guardiola’ of tactics. But in Stuttgart, he demands that the ball goes wide to the wingers and they cross in to Mandžukić.
It is possible to conclude that Pep has betrayed his own principles, but when asked this very question after the game, his response is blunt. ‘What the fuck are you talking about, mate? We needed to win the game…’
The pieces take a few minutes to fall into place, but it quickly becomes clear that Stuttgart are going to struggle to hold back this reformed Bayern, even if players like Götze and Thiago are clearly exhausted. Just like Guardiola said months ago, when a fightback is needed, Bayern are capable of anything. They have started to push up into Ulreich’s area and are looking dangerous. They equalise with 15 minutes to go, Pizarro getting it after Thiago’s free-kick. Pep makes a third change which could prove decisive. Contento comes on for the flagging Götze and Alaba is now a left winger. They continue to slog away despite a series of terrific counter-attacks which put Neuer under real pressure.
Pep tells his men to execute a manoeuvre which, although fairly straightforward, could be difficult for them to even recall in the heat of battle. He wants them to remember how to overload the play down one wing, suddenly switch to the other open wing and then cross into the middle. It was the same message he applied to great effect in the epic European Super Cup final against Chelsea. Overload the left with bodies, switch suddenly to the right and then get the cross into the box. In the 93rd minute this is how they score.
Alaba, Contento, Thiago and Pizarro all combine down the left before Lahm instantly switches to Rafinha, who has appeared down the right. The Brazilian wing-back crosses accurately and Thiago produces a brilliant overhead kick – the volley which seals the game and practically the league title, too.
The Bavarian team’s euphoria brings to mind a certain night in Prague when Javi Martínez equalised in the last second of extra-time against Chelsea, as well as the Dortmund match when Bayern routed their great rival. This is the goal which will earn them the Meisterchale, the silver shield given to the league champions.
‘Did it come off your shin?’ the player is asked in the dressing room.
‘No, no. I used my whole boot. It was a dream goal, just a clean volley.’
‘Thiago oder nichts.’
Thiago or nobody.
It was Thiago’s first goal in the Bundesliga, and it kept the team on their record-breaking run: 43 consecutive league matches undefeated; 28 away games with at least one goal scored; and the first club to win 16 out of their first 18 games – records which they would continue to smash over the next few months, during which Bayern would add 10 more consecutive victories to effectively win the title by the end of March, earlier than anyone else in history.
Guardiola was delighted with their comeback in Stuttgart, but hid his emotions behind one of his blank, Egyptian-mummy expressions. He had joined in the ecstatic celebrations in the dressing room but now, on his way to the press room, he put the win out of his mind and started reflecting on other pending issues: we have to get Ribéry, Robben and Javi back immediately; I have to persuade Mandžukić to keep working full-out even if he’s not getting 90 minutes every game; I need to ensure that contract negotiations don’t distract Kroos (the player is demanding an increase in salary); I need to make sure that the team doesn’t relax now that they think that the league is in the bag (despite a 17-point lead) and most importantly I need to work out how to deal with Arsene Wenger’s Arsenal. The Champions League is just around the corner and the whole of Europe’s eyes are on Munich.
As he leaves the dressing room, Lorenzo Buenaventura explains why he backed Pep’s decision to change the dynamic of the game: ‘We were completely bogged down. It was completely the reverse of what happened in Mönchengladbach. Pep managed to change the game for two reasons: because he now has a host of new ideas, learned from watching his players and opponents here, and because he has a group of players with the skill to adjust the way they are playing. And there’s a third factor, this guy’s no inflexible ideologue. He’s smart enough to have studied, analysed and adapted to the Bundesliga, still without abandoning the basic concepts which define his playing style.’
But Pep isn’t listening. His thoughts have turned to their upcoming games.
‘Loren, we need to rotate the team. From now on we need to choose very carefully.’
‘Pep, let’s make sure that we don’t make the same mistake so many have done before us,’ adds Domènec Torrent. ‘We can’t risk running the players into the ground just for the sake of breaking a few records.’
He had had his five minutes of celebration in the dressing room and now he is looking to the future once again.
44
‘I LOOK AT THE FOOTAGE OF OUR OPPONENTS AND THEN TRY TO WORK OUT HOW TO DEMOLISH THEM.’
Munich, January 31, 2014
PEP YELLS: ‘MY feet are like ice! It’s bloody freezing here!’
Stuttgart and that epic last-minute victory is behind them. Thiago has been lapping up all the praise and the front-page coverage, but it’s time to get back to the usual routine. There’s a new opponent to face and Pep needs to analyse them and prepare the tools with which he will try to win.
As a rule, Guardiola gives three team talks before each match, each of them about 15 minutes long. He uses images to clarify his points, usually video footage that doesn’t last more than seven minutes. The three talks follow the same pattern.
The day before the match Pep dissects their opponent’s attacking play. Using video footage he points out where their adversary is likely to be most dangerous, drawing attention to the way key players work. The coach then gives his men specific instructions about the defensive moves Bayern should make to stop the other team. His men then implement these instructions in the training session that follows.
He gives his second talk just before the training session on the morning of the match. It consists of a detailed explanation of how they use defensive and attacking throw-ins and free-kicks. Assistant coach Torrent has studied the last 50 corner kicks the rival has taken and explains anything significant that they regularly try. Torrent will remind the substitutes of the positions they need to be in for set-plays, just before they enter the match. After this talk the team does some light training during which they run through the attacking and defensive moves they have just covered. Pep still won’t have decided on his line-up so everyone has to take part in all the moves. If it’s an away match they don’t do this. Instead, they review video footage of them practising those free-kicks in Säbener Strasse.
Pep delivers his third and final talk two hours before the match in the team hotel (he prefers not to do it in the dressing room). You could call it a motivational talk, but it will also include a technical review of Bayern’s attacking tactics. This is also the moment the coach tells his men which of them are in the starting XI.
The players know exactly what to expect by now. This talk will focus solely on how to attack. Precisely how they’ll use the first corner kick or wide free-kick they win will also be specified by the coach.
Usually, although not always, Pep will also use the talk as a motivational tool. For example, in the return leg of the Champions League quarter-final against Manchester United in early April, Pep dropped this third talk. On that occasion he had already named the team the day before, they had practised their attacking moves and he felt there was nothing else to add. In contrast, the team arrived at Mönchengladbach’s Borussia Park with just minutes to spare for the first match of 2014 on January 24 because Pep’s talk had delayed them. He wanted to leave his men in no doubt as to why they had been resoundingly thrashed six days before in a friendly in Salzburg: they hadn’t bothered to run and their game had lacked intensity.
‘I can take us so far,’ he told them. ‘I can analyse our opponents and use my tactical know-how to place you in the best positions. So, for example, today David [Alaba], I don’t want you going too far up the pitch because Stuttgart’s right wing [Martin Harnik] could do us some damage. But from here on in lads, it’s down to you. If you choose not to play with intensity, if you decide you’re not going to run your legs off out there, well, we won’t win the match.’
Pep plans his three talks only after a detailed analysis of the opposition and his own team. These talks also reveal his talent for innovation. Xavier Sala i Martín, who is an economics professor at Columbia University, puts it like this: ‘For me, Pep is a great innovator. He wins matches by analysing his opponent’s weak point and then attacking it. But, more than that, he introduces constant innovations so that even if his opponents catch on and correct their own errors, Guardiola has already altered his strategy. He is always one step ahead and manages to stick to his own game philosophy of superiority in the middle of the field whilst at the same time adapting Bayern’s game to the characteristics of their current opponent.’