More than a match for Pep

F.C. Barcelona drawing Bayern Munich in the Champions League’s first semi-final must have been particularly interesting for Pep Guardiola. Much more than just his old club versus his next challenge, the match might be seen as his team – the team he created – against the potential winners; his team, eventual champions, clearly showing the work he’s got to do in his next post; or, perhaps worst, whoever wins being beaten in the final by a better team in Europe.

Pep’s challenge should be an interesting one whatever the outcome and his time at Barcelona throws up some obvious questions and difficulties. First, what status will Pep have arriving at Bayern? He comes after winning everything with Barça. He also comes after Jupp Heynckes has won the league and maybe the Champions League to boot and still he’ll be shown the door whatever. Remember Pep’s first outing as a Barcelona coach? A defeat to newly-promoted Numancia. His second game was a draw to Racing Santander and some, certainly a lot more than would admit it today, were calling for his head. If a similar start occurred at Bayern, the response from the crowd, players and management would be interesting to say the least.

Second, we know Pep is learning German, but how well he’ll get on with the language is a major issue. There are people that say that football is a universal language and that may be true to some extent, but his ability to communicate in German is far more poignant than the trifling metalinguistic side dish it might be presented as. Pep’s ability to philosophise in Catalan and Spanish made everyone want to listen to him, in Italian he’s much the same and to a lesser extent in English. German will be his fifth language, maybe Pep is simply Pep in any language, who knows. It is though his way with words which inspires players, such as at half-time against Shakhtar Donesk in the European Super Cup and as Gerard Piqué said, ‘he doesn’t just tell you what to do, he explains why you should do it’.

Third, and perhaps most importantly, did Pep learn from his mistakes at Barcelona? Pep’s biggest error was also his strength: tactical innovation. The false nine is now so infamously linked with Barcelona that in Brazil it’s called ‘the Catalan way’, but despite the undoubted success he had, Pep did make mistakes and this invariably came with the signings he made. The Ukrainian Dmytro Chygrynskiy failed to be the player Pep thought he could be, that of great vision with his long-range passing ability able to spring attacks from the back, but he never settled and was eventually sold back to Shakhtar Donesk after being used as a political pawn by the then newly-elected Sandro Rosell. Ibra’s time at Barcelona was a lot more public and his arrival meant the end of Samuel Eto’o and his goals. Zlatan Ibrahimovic , the self-proclaimed best player in the world, is a name everyone else would have in their starting eleven and his goal-scoring record speaks for itself. Pep brought in Zlatan as a Plan B, worried that teams had figured out how to combat Plan A. Zlatan and Guardiola never got on and the former very publicly left the club and has never been shy in criticising Pep as a manager, if not as a person, too. The third signing of questionable judgement is perhaps the most contentious: Cesc Fàbregas. Cesc shines when either Messi or Iniesta aren’t on the pitch. Too often when all three are playing Cesc is left with no space in which to play and he’s forced to play the type of game that stifles his own talents.