albanian7 wrote:#12 wrote:The book dates back a few seasons, doesn't it albanian7? When was that?
The match takes place in August 2013. I found it funny since we've spent the past weeks in this forum talking about long balls to the wings, crosses, headers, etc
It's funny how some people simply don't get it.
When Guardiola arrived in Munich he most probably had spent the previous six months learning German, eating pretzels and, more importantly, wathcing GolTV in New York. During his first press conferences he described, in what he openly thought was German football most important characteristic, counter attacking. He called Germany 'Counterland'.
At least that was what he could openly say about German tactics before giving away too much of his thinking.
The thing is it bares some truth in it. Dortmund had been a devastatingly impressive team in those previous two years by picking 6 people above the back four and telling them where to press. Once they got the ball back, they were the fastest team on earth to transit it to the oppositions' area. Hell, they even had a training machine (
footbonaut they called it) commissioned for that purpose.
In such form you had to be extremely lucky not to concede a goal or two against them until they ran out of gas for an hour or so of sprinting (2013 CL final anyone?) Pundits used to joke that in order to beat Dortmund all you had to do was sit back, relax for an hour, and then walk to score. That joke proved to be true in more than one
final.
Guardiola had a different style. And everyone knew that. For all the benefits his passing game brought to the pitch, sooner or later Klopp, Weinzert of Favre were going to dispossess him of the ball and run their way to a win. It was also quite obvious and widely covered tiki-taka was upon Bayern. Everyone expected Bayern to be a Barca; employ the same tactics, copy them to the shoes and laces. Guardiola was happy to oblige, in theory.
The thing is Guardiola's Barcelona was quite aware of pressing. La Masia's training was based on it. You had to have the ball; no questions asked. They trained in a way in which when you lost a pass, you had five seconds to enlist your nearest teammate and run-to-recover it or go back to your zone. They had it so perfected in Guardiola's team they reached two seconds and three-men pressing groups at their peak. It was fantastic to watch. This is why I once wrote here Barcelona's 2011 team vs Dortmund's was a match football history never gave us and will be one of the sports great lost treasures.
Back on the pitch people tend to be dumb. It is human nature to put what you don't know or understand in a four square box and brand it one colored and Guardiola was happy to let everyone think they were tiki-taking their way to the title. The thing is Guardiola indentified his more important challengers and let Dortmund & co take poblate midfield-after all, he did announce he was in love with midfielders- while in reality he bombarded the flanks and strikers with long balls. These pictures, from 2013:


It was quite funny he once had his tactics appeared on Bild before the game vs Dortmund. Bild ran a now famous article describing how Bayern were going to long ball their game and Guardiola got furious, called for the mole's head and threatened to fire him. At the end there was no mole, only a handful of reporters on a hill watching the supposedly secret training and learning all the team did was make long balls to the strikers or then wings. Curtains got raised. No heads rolled.
Back in Dortmund the game got so frustrating (after Bayern won 0-3)
Klopp/The Guardian had this to say:
The Guardian wrote:It was also extremely strange to see a Pep Guardiola pumping long balls forward in the first half. Klopp counted "more long balls than in the last three years combined"from the opposition but also recognized the thinking behind the tactic - tactics Guardiola was concerned had been leaked by a mole. "They wanted to play around our counter-pressing, our biggest strength," the Dortmund manager explained; "... first you work us with long balls and then you bring on the 1.70m boys."
The tactics used by Guardiola last week were nothing new. He's been beating Dortmund with the same type of play since he arrived. There's no adaptation, no new concept, only new players and the rest of them more adapted to his ideas.
So to Albanian7, #12, RedQueen and all the people who keep insisting Pep has aligned to his players and he's adapting to them I'd like to say this: Stop writing BS. Read a little, inform yourselves, make informed opinions. You are watching something extremely interesting going on but your hurt pride is so far up your asses your eyes are blocked.
In short, stop writing BS; it is getting boring.