The person who has set foot in the English soil, breaking numerous records, conquering the toughest league, and establishing a benchmark for achievement in, which is deemed to be the most competitive footballing environment around the world, The Premier League and he is, who pundits believe to be one of the best managers in world football, Josep “Pep“ Guardiola Sala aka Pep Guardiola. The visionary player, regarded once as one of the best players of his generation and a creative and technically gifted midfielder joined La Masia, Barcelona’s youth academy at the tender age of 13 and continued playing there for six years and later spent the majority of his career with Barcelona, forming a part of Johan Cruyff’s, Dream team that won the club’s first European Championship in 1992 and four successive La Liga titles, then later played for Brescia and Roma in Italy.
Johan Cruyff, himself was a Dutch professional football player winning the Ballon d’Or three times and the most famous exponent of the football philosophy. In the 1970s, Dutch football rose from near obscurity to become a powerhouse in the sport in which he led the Netherlands to the final of the 1974 FIFA World Cup and received the Golden Ball as a player of the tournament despite losing to the almighty, German team lead by legendary, Franz Beckenbauer. Considered to be one of the most influential figures in football history his style of play and his football philosophy has influenced managers and players, including Sir Alex Ferguson, Arsène Wenger, Pep Guardiola, Frank Rijkaard, Michael Laudrup. Ajax and Barcelona are among the clubs that have developed youth academies based on Cruyff’s coaching methods which had laid the foundations for the revival of Ajax’s international successes in the 1990s and Barcelona still practices till date.
Being the fulcrum of Johan Cruyff’s, Dream team during playing days, adopted more or less the similar style of play with a greater focus on possession and aggressive pressing style during a managerial career, and substituted Andres Iniesta to that pivot position during his successful managerial days at Barcelona and made Lionel Messi, the greatest footballer ever to conquer the football pitch taking the best out of him. Later on, his Barcelona team won 14 trophies in just 4 years including the treble at his first season and this team is also considered by some in the sport to be the greatest team of all time. In the year 2013-14 season, he was appointed as a manager for Bayern Munich where he won seven trophies during his tenure at winning the domestic league all three seasons he was there, including two domestic titles until the end of 2015-16 season. For the 2016-17 season, he was appointed as manager for Manchester City, making him the highest-paid coach of around eye-watering £16m.
This is starting where my blog begins taking some shape towards the heading, and the point where Pep’s criticism surrounding Premier league starts. When it was announced in February 2016 that he would become the manager of Manchester City, the discourse continued. Though he was coming to the competitive Premier League, it was still understood as Pep taking yet another easy job. The city is backed by innumerable funds and the squad was hailed as one of the best in the world. People murmured that Pep might not be able to ‘do it’ on that non-existent, rainy cold night in Stoke since Stoke is a special, primitive, and daunting place that is considered cannot be replicated in Germany and Spain. Even if he did, members of the football sphere murmured he’d have to change his style and become a pragmatist, for there is no room for any of this ‘passing the ball’ nonsense, possession and aggressive pressing in the elite Premier League. The answer to all these during his first tenure at City was maybe he failed since he finished the season with no trophies – the only time he has finished a season without a trophy and also stated mid-season that the coaching role at City “might be his last team” as manager and stated not winning a trophy, of the four available to City, constituted a “failure”.It took him another year to prove criticisms wrong, that not only he can do it, but do in such a devastating fashion, that no one has ever seen in the league before, breaking numerous records and opposition’s heart.
The just-ended season, he went on to win numerous records throughout the season, including most points (100), most wins (32), most away wins (16), most goals (106), most consecutive league wins (18), highest goal difference (+79) and biggest winning points margin (19) with the other that has not to strike in my mind. Guardiola is commonly seen as a follower of the tiki-taka style; that style of play which led Spain to win the Euro 2008 and 2012 as well as World cup 2010, by football commentators, but he denies it by describing possession and quick passing of the ball as simply a means of overloading opponents and creating space for scoring opportunities has led the team to flourish and achieve its aims. Spending over £300m throughout two seasons he has been taunted for buying the league, but the in-depth squad analysis shows that his team has been created around the same key players, who were inherited from the previous manager. The only change is the replacement of dead woods with, who want to achieve and win the titles. The criticism of spending £200m on defense, greater than the annual defense budget of many countries gained wide headlines but the harsh truth is, lots and lots of clubs have spent money on their teams up and down the football pyramid, still, it often doesn’t go as thought and the players do not fit the bill. The latest two record-breaking signings, have failed to provide as anticipated, since things don’t go according to the algorithms, but Pep has been brilliant here too not finding the best player, but finding the one that adapts and fits his bill along with the requirement of modern football and his style of play.
With the sharp increase in point from seventy-eight last season to whooping a hundred points within a time-lapse of one year, and the point difference of seven to nineteen between the first and second position team proves to a certain extent that this season has been exceptional for the champions. Manchester United too, had an amazing season coming from the sixth position(69 points) to the second position(81 points), along with Liverpool reaching the European finals after eleven years, and Salah winning the PFA Player of the year, against the pivot of a title-winning team, Kevin De Bryune. Chelsea won FA cup and their manager is under the threat of losing his job, while Arsenal came under the hands of a new coach, Everton having a vacant position and West Ham appointing the PL winner coach as their new coach for a new season, pointing that changes in all of these team are inevitable for sure. Tottenham having younger and world-class players and one of the most sought managers is certainly the one to watch for. These scenarios were important since it clearly points out that every team will emerge with new tactics increasing their level of performance, making the upcoming days tougher and league more competitive. Many believed that Pep now will divert toward winning the European championship, but his next season will too be focused on winning the league and continuing with the team having increased level of motivation and high team spirit, his mission for stepping on English soil and trying to win everything around the globe, can be fruitful the next season, but there’re many teams out there who will definitely try to stop him from winning two in a row which brings him down to, changing the tactics and of course squad with a player or two and maintaining the dominance of city in the league.
-UTSAV LUITEL(livinglikenomads)
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