FC Bayern Forum

[ottackon]

I can only speak for myself here and what bothers me is not scenes like that one (where Guardiola is right to be pissed IMHO) but it's more in the last third where we make too little out of the possession we have sometimes...

Guardiola after the match :""We urgently need to improve our final ball if we want to beat the best teams in Europe".

[#12]

Well, statement is promising (do you have a source?)... I hope he knows which strings to pull!

[Badger]

In another thread – the Alonso thread – a discussion about counter-attacking football arose. That was probably always doomed to be off-topic in the Alonso thread. In the end, I parked my bit of the discussion and determined to continue it, or something like it, here in the Tactics & Formations thread.

Firstly, since the terms mean different things to different people, here are some working definitions. That means, this is how I’m defining them for the context of my further comments. There’s no particular need for people to agree with the terms beyond that scope.
- Counter-attack: this is when a team being attacked, attacks back before the opponents have time to reorganise their defence.
- Counter-attacking team: team which relies heavily on this tactic.
- Fast counter attack: although I’m guilty of using the term elsewhere on this forum, “fast” is a superfluous word, since counter-attacks are meaningless unless they are fast.
- Tempo: the whole concept of fast, effective football, of which counter-attacks are a small part.

Generally, I think that counter-attacking is the wrong starting point for an analysis of fast effective football. It is a small part of the story and, used to extremes, it is a very negative approach to football. It was associated with Chelsea a few years ago, for example, and with Mourinho teams in general, and it came to be viewed as a heavily defensive approach where teams parked the bus, waited for an opponent’s loss of the ball far up the field, and then tried to outrun the opposition. There was the odd spectacular, exciting goal, but mostly those teams ground out 1-0 wins, and sometimes ground out titles.

A better place to start analysis is the whole area of tempo – i.e. fast effective football. This is a vast subject, but we have enjoyed seeing it in many guises over the past years at Bayern. All of the recent managers – Van Gaal, Heynckes and Guardiola – deserve some level of credit for what we see, and often the tactics one founded is not always recognised enough when continued and enhanced by the other.

I won’t attempt a comprehensive discussion of tempo, but here are several points worth considering:

1. Tempo includes not only counter-attacks, but also fast, close combination play, fast movement of the ball, fast movement off the ball, fast changes of tactics, running fast at, past and through opponents, and much more.

2. Virtually all managers in the modern game, and especially the 3 recent Bayern managers regarded tempo as very important. (They also regarded possession as very important.)

3. Guardiola’s appreciation of tempo has been clouded in the past year or so, as his fastest players have been out injured a lot – Robben, Ribery and Alaba. He has created tempo in other ways, but the average fan only sees players running fast. He now has a fresh injection of pace, in the form of Robben’s return, Costa and, possibly, Coman. Guardiola’s game will not change much, but it will appear to change a lot because he has these high-visibility runners once again. (Naïve fans will probably say stupid things like “He’s eventually realised his mistakes and is now copying Heynckes”.)

4. A passed ball will always travel faster than any player running with the ball, so the best way to speed things up is with fast accurate passing and lots of movement. Unfortunately, this is not as exciting as a player running with the ball, for the average fan.

5. High levels of possession force the best of opponents deep into their own half. If Bayern are already all in the opponents’ half, most of the game, then the opportunities for counter-attacking are very limited.

6. Guardiola almost certainly dislike slow tika taka as much as anyone else. It is supposed to be fast and prise teams open from various angles. When players pass across the field, teammates are supposed to move fast off the ball to create a constantly changing picture that defences can’t completely cover. Played slowly it is ineffective, but that is more the players’ fault than Guardiola’s. Things are improving.

7. High tempo, if played more by fast accurate passing than by sheer running, is more likely to be sustainable, but even it has its limits, if players are not to tire in the 90 min (or overall late in the season). At times teams must take the tempo out of the game and reintroduce it later.

Clever use of tempo is the thing that matters, not just a simplistic approach of emphasising counter-attacking.

[PunkCapitalist]

In another thread – the Alonso thread – a discussion about counter-attacking football arose. That was probably always doomed to be off-topic in the Alonso thread. In the end, I parked my bit of the discussion and determined to continue it, or something like it, here in the Tactics & Formations thread.

Firstly, since the terms mean different things to different people, here are some working definitions. That means, this is how I’m defining them for the context of my further comments. There’s no particular need for people to agree with the terms beyond that scope.
- Counter-attack: this is when a team being attacked, attacks back before the opponents have time to reorganise their defence.
- Counter-attacking team: team which relies heavily on this tactic.
- Fast counter attack: although I’m guilty of using the term elsewhere on this forum, “fast” is a superfluous word, since counter-attacks are meaningless unless they are fast.
- Tempo: the whole concept of fast, effective football, of which counter-attacks are a small part.

Generally, I think that counter-attacking is the wrong starting point for an analysis of fast effective football. It is a small part of the story and, used to extremes, it is a very negative approach to football. It was associated with Chelsea a few years ago, for example, and with Mourinho teams in general, and it came to be viewed as a heavily defensive approach where teams parked the bus, waited for an opponent’s loss of the ball far up the field, and then tried to outrun the opposition. There was the odd spectacular, exciting goal, but mostly those teams ground out 1-0 wins, and sometimes ground out titles.

A better place to start analysis is the whole area of tempo – i.e. fast effective football. This is a vast subject, but we have enjoyed seeing it in many guises over the past years at Bayern. All of the recent managers – Van Gaal, Heynckes and Guardiola – deserve some level of credit for what we see, and often the tactics one founded is not always recognised enough when continued and enhanced by the other.

I won’t attempt a comprehensive discussion of tempo, but here are several points worth considering:

1. Tempo includes not only counter-attacks, but also fast, close combination play, fast movement of the ball, fast movement off the ball, fast changes of tactics, running fast at, past and through opponents, and much more.

2. Virtually all managers in the modern game, and especially the 3 recent Bayern managers regarded tempo as very important. (They also regarded possession as very important.)

3. Guardiola’s appreciation of tempo has been clouded in the past year or so, as his fastest players have been out injured a lot – Robben, Ribery and Alaba. He has created tempo in other ways, but the average fan only sees players running fast. He now has a fresh injection of pace, in the form of Robben’s return, Costa and, possibly, Coman. Guardiola’s game will not change much, but it will appear to change a lot because he has these high-visibility runners once again. (Naïve fans will probably say stupid things like “He’s eventually realised his mistakes and is now copying Heynckes”.)

4. A passed ball will always travel faster than any player running with the ball, so the best way to speed things up is with fast accurate passing and lots of movement. Unfortunately, this is not as exciting as a player running with the ball, for the average fan.

5. High levels of possession force the best of opponents deep into their own half. If Bayern are already all in the opponents’ half, most of the game, then the opportunities for counter-attacking are very limited.

6. Guardiola almost certainly dislike slow tika taka as much as anyone else. It is supposed to be fast and prise teams open from various angles. When players pass across the field, teammates are supposed to move fast off the ball to create a constantly changing picture that defences can’t completely cover. Played slowly it is ineffective, but that is more the players’ fault than Guardiola’s. Things are improving.

7. High tempo, if played more by fast accurate passing than by sheer running, is more likely to be sustainable, but even it has its limits, if players are not to tire in the 90 min (or overall late in the season). At times teams must take the tempo out of the game and reintroduce it later.

Clever use of tempo is the thing that matters, not just a simplistic approach of emphasising counter-attacking.

Very well put Badger. I'd like to add that one thing which I've observed in Bayern for some months is players are not moving enough when off the ball. They just seem to remain where they are until they get the ball. This doesn't work for the "juego de posición" that Pep wants to implement. Instead, we seem to be persuing the long diagonal to fast players approach exclusively, which can only work if we have a great long passer like Xabi in the base of midfield. I'd like us to return to juego de posición instead, and drop Xabi, who is a liability against aggressive pressing teams.

[saturdaysoncouch]

I have written a little about Bayern v Bayer if you guys are interested in that, but even if not I have a tool here:http://statsbomb.com/2015/09/bayern-v-bayer-act-one-in-the-bundesliga/ that lets you filter every Bayern pass by passer/receiver/destination/distance/etc this season. so if you want to see every second half pass from Vidal or Alonso to Muller or Lewandowski, you can


same with every dangerous completion from Costa



I think you guys would enjoy it

[pyrasur]

Great post Badger!

I'd add though that tempo doesn't always equal speed. It's impossible to operate at a fast pace indefinitely, which is why the moments of tactical pause remain important, to briefly take stock of the situation and reorganize the pieces while the opponent is in disarray. Unfortunately like PunkCapitalist mentions players still blurring the lines, staying still when they are supposed to be moving, allowing the opponent to settle and strengthen the weaknesses in their defense before our team ups tempo again to strike what would be a decisive blow at their critical weakness. That Adidas advert with Guardiola is actually quite good, because Guardiola needs players to cause chaos while control agents shift the effort when the weakness opens up.

We have actually been quite good the past two Hinrunden at working this bug out. Guardiola just needs to hold off the combination of complacency, injury, and crap luck this season.

[Dumbledore7]

-snip-

You're wrong. Only Heynckes can pursue this very special style of play. It is solely because of him the biggest and best team in Germany, a country known for counter-attacking, know how to counter-attack and anything resembling a counter-attack after his retirement is fully credited to him, because Pep Guardiola who has only won everything there is to win in club football wouldn't realise this obvious use of counter-attacking.

After all, it was Heynckes who taught Alonso to make that long diagonal pass, and it was also him who told Douglas Costa to receive it very close to the touchline to make it harder for Hilbert. He was there 2 years ago to teach Alonso and Costa to make this quick play because it was very effective during the treble season. So were Benatia, who made the dead-accurate clearance during the 2014 Pokal Halbfinale against Dortmund, and Lewandowski who scored from that unique counter-attacking play. Thank God they remember all this from the Heynckes days, so they can just forget about Guardiola's boring tactics and counter-attack from time to time without the coach's authority.


^That is how ridiculous Korab and #12 sound most of the time.

[Badger]

-snip-

You're wrong. Only Heynckes can pursue this very special style of play. It is solely because of him the biggest and best team in Germany, a country known for counter-attacking, know how to counter-attack and anything resembling a counter-attack after his retirement is fully credited to him, because Pep Guardiola who has only won everything there is to win in club football wouldn't realise this obvious use of counter-attacking.

After all, it was Heynckes who taught Alonso to make that long diagonal pass, and it was also him who told Douglas Costa to receive it very close to the touchline to make it harder for Hilbert. He was there 2 years ago to teach Alonso and Costa to make this quick play because it was very effective during the treble season. So were Benatia, who made the dead-accurate clearance during the 2014 Pokal Halbfinale against Dortmund, and Lewandowski who scored from that unique counter-attacking play. Thank God they remember all this from the Heynckes days, so they can just forget about Guardiola's boring tactics and counter-attack from time to time without the coach's authority.


^That is how ridiculous Korab and #12 sound most of the time.

LOL. Thanks for that. I must say you had me laughing aloud as I read that.

[JANCKER]

...because Pep Guardiola who has only won everything there is to win in club football...

Not with Bayern...

[Badger]

Very well put Badger. I'd like to add that one thing which I've observed in Bayern for some months is players are not moving enough when off the ball. They just seem to remain where they are until they get the ball. This doesn't work for the "juego de posición" that Pep wants to implement. Instead, we seem to be persuing the long diagonal to fast players approach exclusively, which can only work if we have a great long passer like Xabi in the base of midfield. I'd like us to return to juego de posición instead, and drop Xabi, who is a liability against aggressive pressing teams.

Thanks, PunkCapitalist. And thanks for a good additional point. I have also thought at times that the Bayern players weren't moving into space as much as Guardiola would like to see. Yes, they can't sprint around all the time or they'll be tired out like the opposition defense, but nevertheless there are times where they could move better and faster. Thankfully, though, there is a fair bit of good movement, and the season is early yet, so there'll be more fine-tuning done to the team over the next weeks.

[Dumbledore7]

Very well put Badger. I'd like to add that one thing which I've observed in Bayern for some months is players are not moving enough when off the ball. They just seem to remain where they are until they get the ball. This doesn't work for the "juego de posición" that Pep wants to implement. Instead, we seem to be persuing the long diagonal to fast players approach exclusively, which can only work if we have a great long passer like Xabi in the base of midfield. I'd like us to return to juego de posición instead, and drop Xabi, who is a liability against aggressive pressing teams.

Thanks, PunkCapitalist. And thanks for a good additional point. I have also thought at times that the Bayern players weren't moving into space as much as Guardiola would like to see. Yes, they can't sprint around all the time or they'll be tired out like the opposition defense, but nevertheless there are times where they could move better and faster. Thankfully, though, there is a fair bit of good movement, and the season is early yet, so there'll be more fine-tuning done to the team over the next weeks.

One point that should always be questioned is if it needs everything and every player to be perfect to the last foot and second for every attempted pass in order for the tactics to work. That is one criticism I have on Pep, if it only works when everything goes exactly as planned, we may never fully succeed. This being said, missing our fastest and intelligent players all at the same time should never happen again and even without all of the pieces of Pep's puzzle, I'm optimisstic after our peformance in the 2nd leg against Barca last year (imagine that game with any one of Costa, Robben, Ribery and Alaba).

Also, despite that, we HAVE been creating a lot of chances. A whole lot of them. Our finishing has been rather poor these days though, and that should be down to the players only. Regarding defending with possession, Pep needs to instil those almost-telepathic instinct of being at the right zone at the right time to Vidal, and quick. Only then will we not suffer from counter attack, and even that still counts on the defenders not making any mistakes. All in all Pep seems like he still needs a good day to succeed, and I hope that that dependence will diminish as this season progresses.

[Badger]

Very well put Badger. I'd like to add that one thing which I've observed in Bayern for some months is players are not moving enough when off the ball. They just seem to remain where they are until they get the ball. This doesn't work for the "juego de posición" that Pep wants to implement. Instead, we seem to be persuing the long diagonal to fast players approach exclusively, which can only work if we have a great long passer like Xabi in the base of midfield. I'd like us to return to juego de posición instead, and drop Xabi, who is a liability against aggressive pressing teams.

Thanks, PunkCapitalist. And thanks for a good additional point. I have also thought at times that the Bayern players weren't moving into space as much as Guardiola would like to see. Yes, they can't sprint around all the time or they'll be tired out like the opposition defense, but nevertheless there are times where they could move better and faster. Thankfully, though, there is a fair bit of good movement, and the season is early yet, so there'll be more fine-tuning done to the team over the next weeks.

One point that should always be questioned is if it needs everything and every player to be perfect to the last foot and second for every attempted pass in order for the tactics to work. That is one criticism I have on Pep, if it only works when everything goes exactly as planned, we may never fully succeed. This being said, missing our fastest and intelligent players all at the same time should never happen again and even without all of the pieces of Pep's puzzle, I'm optimisstic after our peformance in the 2nd leg against Barca last year (imagine that game with any one of Costa, Robben, Ribery and Alaba).

Also, despite that, we HAVE been creating a lot of chances. A whole lot of them. Our finishing has been rather poor these days though, and that should be down to the players only. Regarding defending with possession, Pep needs to instil those almost-telepathic instinct of being at the right zone at the right time to Vidal, and quick. Only then will we not suffer from counter attack, and even that still counts on the defenders not making any mistakes. All in all Pep seems like he still needs a good day to succeed, and I hope that that dependence will diminish as this season progresses.

I know what you're saying about the perfect player, etc. It has struck me too, but more in relation to Bayern's defence and players who haven't quite perfect concentration. My conclusion is that, bad luck and injuries aside, Pep's teams need players who are individually very very good, but not necessarily perfect; there is enough margin for small errors. If nothing else, no opponent has an average shots-to-goals ratio better than something like 3:1 or maybe 4:1.

[#12]

Basically I agree with everything... I actually think my English is quite decent ( or better... ) but I'm starting to think this is a language problem... How can you write stuff like that:

You're wrong. Only Heynckes can pursue this very special style of play. It is solely because of him the biggest and best team in Germany, a country known for counter-attacking, know how to counter-attack and anything resembling a counter-attack after his retirement is fully credited to him, because Pep Guardiola who has only won everything there is to win in club football wouldn't realise this obvious use of counter-attacking.

After all, it was Heynckes who taught Alonso to make that long diagonal pass, and it was also him who told Douglas Costa to receive it very close to the touchline to make it harder for Hilbert. He was there 2 years ago to teach Alonso and Costa to make this quick play because it was very effective during the treble season. So were Benatia, who made the dead-accurate clearance during the 2014 Pokal Halbfinale against Dortmund, and Lewandowski who scored from that unique counter-attacking play. Thank God they remember all this from the Heynckes days, so they can just forget about Guardiola's boring tactics and counter-attack from time to time without the coach's authority.

?

See Dumboledore, here I was thinking this would be a serious discussion... I could go in the same direction: What the fuck has he done to deserve your praise? He spent 300m ever since he got here and brought us two Bundesliga titles and one Pokal... Wow... This is your great Messiah? There are coaches in third tier that could do that from scratch with that kind of money...
I could ramble on with the same kind of pungent sarcasm, but I'll spare you... Just a serious question: how is his winnig "everything" ONLY in Barcelona proof of his skills, when you basically say ALL THE TIME that it's more or less luck to win the CL?

So here goes:
The way I see it, the current kind of pressing we play was introduced by Guardiola... Obviously, we cannot keep it up for 90minutes, but it works really well most of the time... (see, this is a plus for your infallible coach... )
But - and this is not related to injuries, since it already happened before and already in his first season - more often than not we fail to profit from this... Teammates' paths do not work out, theres not enough movement, supporters are not advancing fast enough and so a promising game situation is thrown away...
Since the "Umschaltspiel" (is there an English term?) worked pretty smoothly with Heynckes it's only logical to compare it with what happened in his reign... I said it a couple of times before and I'll probably say it a couple of hundred times more and there will still be people who will simply ignore it since it doesn't fit in their particular concept: I'm not saying that everything was better with Heynckes... But put it whichever way you like: he got more out of this team than Guardiola... At least so far...

Back to the "tempo" thing: I think so far it has been pretty inconsistent: there are times when we have a lot of it in our game, and times when we don't (not neccessarily the ones we lose - but also not only the ones where we have injuries... )... To me that is an indicator, that the team still has not fully understood what he wants from them...

[JANCKER]

We'll see(at least some of us) what will Pep win when he'll be sixtysomething.
He has only one regret, subbing Mueller in the 2012 final.

[PunkCapitalist]

For those saying the game against Leverkusen was Jupp-like:

http://spielverlagerung.com/2015/08/31/ ... rkusen-30/

That's a great blog BTW, I recommend it. Despite the huge praise the author had, Bayern's passing in attack was not particularly fast or great. But still...