‘While we attack, the idea is to always keep your position, always being in the place you have to be. There is dynamism, mobility, but the position has always got to be filled by someone. So if we lose the ball it will be difficult for the rival to get us on the counter-attack – if we attack in order it becomes easier to then hunt down the opposite player with the ball when we lose possession.’
He gave a different edge to the defensive side of the game and that is where Barça became strong and attractive: losing the ball but then, within five seconds, trying to win it back. The principle is simple and comes from as far back as Van Gaal: after losing the ball there are five seconds of pressure to win it back; if it isn’t recovered, the defensive phase would begin and players should quickly drop back.
‘The better we attack, the better we defend.’
At a time of regression in the football world, when the majority of coaches deployed their teams using a double-pivot (4-2-3-1), Guardiola went for a novel approach – a system with a midfielder and two wingers, a choice that allowed him to discover first Pedro and then Busquets, as well as freeing up Messi.
In his first season, Guardiola radically altered concepts such as starting moves from the defence, using the centre backs as creators of moves; he gave the team greater depth with the constant incorporation of the wingers; he increased the rhythm of the movement off the ball; he worked tirelessly on creating space via the constant movement of players; he developed the concepts of numerical and positional superiority to the maximum level. He ultimately knew how to manage the concepts of time and space with such ease and fluidity that many observers were under the impression that what the team was doing was easy, when, in reality, there is nothing more difficult in the modern game.
‘Discover constantly where the free man is and through passing, passing, passing, work the ball into forward positions.’
The high technical quality of Barcelona’s players enabled them to make passes that other teams simply could not even attempt; Xavi, Iniesta, Messi could receive the ball and pass or move out of the tightest of corners. But Guardiola revolutionised football because he used a Cruyff idea and made it a method: always accumulate more players than your rival right from the start of a move to gain the initiative. So, having three players near the ball if the other team have two, or four players if they have three. This formula of numerical superiority doesn’t guarantee anything, because in the end everything depends on the ability, precision and concentration of the ‘artists’, taking advantage of space and making the right decisions, but there will always be an unmarked player and, therefore, a safe ‘pass line’ that can be used. In this way, football becomes a sport with a ball and spaces.
As time went on, Pep’s first-team squad was increasingly in a position to go out on to the pitch with a clear idea of what the game was going to be like, the characteristics of the rivals both individually and as a group, and what had to be done to beat them. Yet within that meticulous preparation there co-existed a high degree of expression, always bearing in mind that this is football, that players must think in tenths of a second and that there should be some freedom to show on the pitch, to do things that weren’t planned off it.
‘The players need to know that they mustn’t be scared of trying, nor of losing the ball because that is what football is like. Messi knows that he can always make moves because he knows that he has ten players behind him to help him out if necessary. When both the defender and the forward feel important, we are with a winning team.’
‘He went through all the mechanisms that bring the game plan closer to the rival’s goal,’ explains Martí Perarnau in his exceptional analysis of Barcelona, The Champion’s Path (Senda de Campeones). ‘Xavi, Iniesta and Messi began that stage with the orders of staying close to the area. Xavi didn’t sit very deep so his participation with Messi on the right, Eto’o in the middle and Iniesta on the other side took place often. Little by little, the plan changed because one of the pillars of Pep’s methods is based on the evolution of the process. Guardiola has never believed in absolute truths, which gives him flexibility when it comes to interpreting life. So Xavi moved into a deeper position with the intention of bringing back his direct opponent, distancing them from their centre backs and, in that way, creating more space for Messi in the back of the midfield.’
‘To avoid losing the ball and being caught on the counter-attack, the concept of the “third man” is useful: throw the ball long and in front of him in a wide area. You avoid risks. Cruyff used to tell me, “when you have the ball, the first thing you have to do is look who is further away from you. He probably has some space in front of him. Normally play to the man closer to you or available, but if the first thing you can do is to play long, play long. That way you avoid counter-attacks.”’
Barcelona willingly took the risk of allowing too much free space at the back of the defence and counteracted it with careful passing, attention in the marking and pressure. Guardiola included a deep-lying midfield player who relieved the pressure on the defence; providing an outlet in possession and protection for the centre backs when defending, particularly if the back line is stretched when the full backs are advanced. It’s a similar role to the one Guardiola used to play in the Dream Team, shared by Keita and Busquets in Guardiola’s first season, but it became one that Busquets effectively made his own.
‘The right attitude is the most important thing when defending. We can talk about a thousand concepts but what unites a team, what helps players defend, is the right attitude. If you want to, you can run for your team-mate because doing that he would improve; it is not about making your team-mate better, but making yourself better.’
To the man in the street, the mention of Barcelona was always synonymous with attacking football, and one of the great misconceptions about Pep’s Barcelona was that their football was entirely focused on scoring at the expense of defending. But Guardiola’s thinking would surprise many. For example, when Barça failed to score, the first thing he looked at was how his side were defending. Again, counter-intuitive and in defiance of conventional wisdom. So, for example, Abidal explains that before he arrived at Barcelona, every time he was called into action on the pitch, as a defender he’d been taught to focus on winning the ball. As soon as he arrived at Barcelona, he was taught to think one step ahead about what he could do with it once he’d got hold of it. ‘Now, every time I get the ball I know what I should do because I have learnt to understand the game.’
There is a final tactical insight that is fascinating.
‘One of the best things that FC Barcelona do is run with the ball to provoke or tease, not to dribble.’
A trick to test an opponent, to pull them out of position to create space, leads them where you want them. In a chat with Wayne Rooney, the Manchester United forward told me that he watched Xavi doing that often: ‘He waits for one of us to get close to make the pass.’
André Villas-Boas is fascinated by it, too. ‘There are more spaces in football than people think. Even if you play against a deep-lying team, you immediately get half of the pitch. You can provoke the opponent with the ball, provoke him to move forward or sideways and open up a space. But many players can’t understand the game. They can’t think about or read the game. Things have become too easy for football players: high salaries, a good life, with a maximum of five hours’ work a day and so they can’t concentrate, can’t think about the game.
‘Barcelona’s players are completely the opposite,’ continues the former Chelsea coach, ‘Their players are permanently thinking about the game, about their movement.
‘Guardiola has talked about it: the centre backs provoke the opponent, invite them forward, then, if the opponent applies quick pressure, the ball goes to the other central defender and this one makes a vertical pass – not to the midfielders, who have their back turned to the ball, but to those moving between lines, Andrés Iniesta or Lionel Messi, or even directly to the striker. Then they play the second ball
with short lay-offs, either to the wingers who have cut inside or the midfielders, who now have the game in front of them. They have an enormous capacity not to lose the ball, to do things with an unbelievable precision. But Barça’s 4-3-3 wouldn’t work in England, because of the higher risk of losing the ball.’
The possibility of making it work in England is something that Pep Guardiola often wondered about. He has asked at least two Premier League players if they could start a move as his players did at Barcelona, despite the risk of losing possession close to their own goal. Does the Premiership, he asked, have the quality of footballers with the confidence and understanding of the game necessary to play that way? ‘It depends on the team,’ he was told. ‘And not all sets of fans would accept that style.’
As a coach, a teacher, Guardiola believes that when one of his pupils truly understands why they are required to act in a specific way, they believe more in what they are being asked to do. It also means that this increases their capacity to take the initiative, or question what they’ve been told to do, in a more responsible way when the need arises.
This is how one of his pupils, Gerard Piqué, put it: ‘The coach makes us understand football. He doesn’t just give us orders, he also explains why. That makes you a better player, since you know the reasons behind the instructions. That way everything has a meaning.’ While at FC Barcelona, Guardiola introduced a new approach to coaching and learning; he paid a lot of attention to detail. Piqué goes further: ‘He has absolute conviction in what he believes and the team has taken on a rich football manual, from a tactical point of view, with pride.’ On the field of play, in the heat of the action, it enabled Guardiola’s Barcelona to switch formations or positions as many as five or six times in the same game. When players understand why, it is easy to react to what is being shouted from the touchline in the heat of battle.
However, Guardiola also drilled patience into his sides, because, despite that ability to get his team to react, he and his players also had enough faith in their strategy to know when to avoid a knee-jerk reaction to a tough passage of play or an opposition goal. In his own inimitable way, Charly Rexach has a peculiar analogy: ‘sometimes there are games where in the sixth or seventh minute you say “that plan is not working”. But it is like preparing a plate of beans, some are hard, some perfectly tender, badly placed. Then you move the dish and the beans start falling into place gradually. Patience. Football is the same. You see the game and you see that a player isn’t working. And you say, “relax, give it time to fall into place.”’
Evolution, as opposed to revolution, is a word we’ve used many times so far. Because, for all of Pep Guardiola’s innovation, he was also very careful not to start out by tearing down all that had gone before. Many of the foundations for success were there already, and he knew that a process of gradual adjustment was necessary, of fine-tuning, coaxing the best out of what was frequently already in place. Step by step, he introduced mechanisms and alternatives, subtle adjustments and repairs to what Cruyff had set in motion a generation or so earlier. Pep was very careful to preserve the model and its spirit (pressure, position, combination, go out to win every game) but evolving and expanding its possibilities and potential to previously unimaginable extremes.
But new things have certainly been created on the pitch since his appearance on the scene. Villas-Boas compares Pep Guardiola’s Barça to the celebrated chef Ferran Adrià: but rather than gastronomic experimentation, we are witnessing molecular football. Their recipe for success is innovation: they defend with three at the back in an era when everyone has signed up to the back four doctrine; they pioneer diminutive players in the centre of midfield when the rest of the world has tilted towards the pace and power principle in the engine room. What others might perceive as weaknesses, Barcelona have provided as solutions: tiny midfielders mean you cannot win the ball, so you make sure you always have possession.
Frequently the logic might appear counter-intuitive. For example, according to widespread conventional logic, without a six-foot-four powerhouse striker you can’t score from headers. Barcelona turned that theory on its head: so the wingers still provide crosses, but it’s the positioning and timing of the attacker that makes up for their lack of physical presence.
And the player on the receiving end of a cross may not even be a striker, because Barcelona frequently play without one. And then there’s the added ingredient of a goalkeeper who touches the ball with his feet as often as a centre back – and frequently more often than an opposing midfielder. In fact, you might describe Valdés as a centre back who occasionally picks the ball up.
Yet Barcelona’s most outstanding innovation has perhaps less to do with their constant breaking of convention, or even the creation and selection of such wonderful players with the technique and vision to make it work – or even the realisation that beautiful football is such because it is effective, not vice versa – but, rather, the fact that they have found a way to use the spaces on a pitch that seem to be almost impossible to beat or counteract. Yes, Pep was beaten by Chelsea and Real Madrid in different ways in his last season; but in the years Pep was in charge Barcelona have the highest ratio of victories in crucial games in history. And not by chance.
Iniesta tells us that Pep was always explaining things to him about his positioning on the field. ‘He’d correct me, help me to improve, he’d tell me to enjoy what I do, have fun and love this profession and this club.’ Xavi Hernández insists that Pep ‘is always two or three moves ahead of the rest’. Javier Mascherano will always be grateful to Messi ‘for having recommended me and to Pep for making me see that football can be played another way’. It must be easy to train and compete if all the players had this level of analysis, humility and passion for what they do. A credit to their profession.
And all of them, no matter how many times they won, carried around one commandment: ‘I am in a huge club even in the hard times. I try not to betray the club’s principles nor the idea of team play nor the legacy of my predecessors.’
An away trip to newly promoted Numancia provided the opening game of the 2008–9 La Liga season.
The tactical chat at the hotel two hours before the journey to the stadium confirmed there were no surprises and all the big names were in the line-up: Víctor Valdés, Dani Alvés, Puyol, Márquez, Abidal; Yaya Touré, Xavi, Iniesta; Messi, Henry and Eto’o.
The instructions were clear and simple: open up the pitch. Numancia will defend deep. Circulate the ball quickly. Be patient.
On the way to the tiny Los Pajaritos stadium (capacity just 9,025), Coldplay’s ‘Viva la Vida’ blared from the speakers on the team bus. That song, a favourite of Pep’s, would become the soundtrack to the rest of the season – the anthem for Guardiola’s era, even. When that song played, the players knew the moment had arrived. It was a warning. The call to action.
The last rituals took place after the warm-up but by then Pep had disappeared from the players’ view. His preparations were over.
Both teams came out on to the pitch. The new La Liga campaign had started.
On the bench, Guardiola gesticulated, appearing angry. Tense. He’d sit down, stand up again. Anxious. He couldn’t sit or stand still. More instructions. Fists in the air, arms wide. He transmitted and exuded pure passion and energy. That is Pep, as a player and as a manager. Even as a spectator!
He had not promised titles. Rather, that each game would be treated as a final and that every minute of every game had equal importance. He doesn’t understand or accept a group that doesn’t shout, hug, give their all. All of that was noticeable in the first Liga game of the season.
He even smacked Dani Alvés on the back of his neck after a quick instruction. Alvés turned round bewildered and surprised. It was only a gesture to connect with them, of appreciation. ‘But one day they will turn round and smack you back,’ Estiarte warns him, laughing.
What Pep was doing, right from the beginning, was establishing a camaraderie, forging a bond
, an unspoken code between football people. The players are made of skin and bone and they too like this contact. Even if it is a slap. Pep touches constantly, hugs, pushes them, to motivate them, to keep them on their toes, to make them feel loved. And his experience as a footballer allows him to decide when to do it or when not to do it.
Barcelona attacked through the centre far too much, their movements funnelled into a congested area in front of goal. Too narrow. But one element was a sign of things to come: they had almost all the possession and the chances. Twenty shots on goal from Barcelona, three from Numancia, one of them a goal from Mario, a defensive mistake that left him unmarked at the far post.
Barcelona lost.
1-0.
Beaten by a modest club with an annual budget of €14.4 million compared to the €380 million of FC Barcelona. The shock result of the weekend. Of the month. Of the season, even.
At the end, Guardiola set his doubts, disappointment and frustration to one side and approached the rival coach, Sergio Kresick, to shake his hand and congratulate him on his success.
‘When we lost that first game in Soria, we weren’t in a good mood in the dressing room,’ Iniesta recalls. ‘But Pep appeared straight away to control everything, to help us to accept the result.’
The pre-season had given the players their hunger back, they knew the path they must take, the reasoning and challenges. They were receptive – well, most of them – and they started to understand what Pep wanted of them. But they had lost their first league game to a side that everyone thought they should have thrashed. Straight after the game, Guardiola made the effort to get it into the players’ heads that they needn’t change anything because of the defeat. They had made mistakes and these were pointed out to them in the immediate aftermath, but they should also maintain a very clear idea about where they were going. That August evening at Los Pajaritos, el mister, as coaches are known in Spain, told his players something that he has repeated several times since.
Pep Guardiola: Another Way of Winning: The Biography Page 15