Guardiola's Barcelona or Zidane's Madrid: Picking one from these two legendary teams

Playing style and backups

Barcelona

Barcelona, under Guardiola, revolutionised the game

The Barcelona team of that era were known for the tiki-taka approach that revolutionised football. They not only won, but they won with style that defined that period of football. Their playing style helped Spain build their successes and many teams tried to emulate the way Barcelona paid.

In terms of backups, Pep Guardiola wasn’t entirely a believer of rotations. As a result, the Blaugranas didn’t have much strength in depth but yet managed to carve out a winning unit that dominated football for a long period.

Real Madrid

Zidane is slowly but surely carving an identity of his own on the Real squad

For the first year under Zidane, the Blancos might have won consistently won games but struggled to find an identity. Almost always, the Galacticos won games without any coherence in their playing style.

However, that was fixed once Isco was incorporated to the starting XI at the expense of the injured Gareth Bale. The 4-3-1-2 with Isco in the hole gave the team an instant balance that helped them secure wins with style.

In terms of bench strength, Madrid perhaps have the best group of backups ever. The likes of Mateo Kovacic, Marco Asensio, Dani Ceballos, James Rodriguez, Lucas Vazquez, Alvaro Morata and Nacho would have been starters at any other club – which has become apparent with Morata and James’ moves – but were mere backups at the capital club.