Pep Guardiola : Top 5 moves that define his career

A pep-talk from …Pep.

Ever since he took over as manager of Barcelona in 2009, Joseph ‘Pep’ Guardiola became an instrumental force in raising Barcelona to the status of one of the deadliest, fearsome and classy teams in the world stage.

Here are some of the moves that have defined Guardiola’s stay in Barcelona till date.

• Messi-to-False-Nine strategy – Undoubtedly the best football player in the world, Lionel Messi became to Barca what cheese is to pizza- inseparable. His talents on the field were cleverly put to use by Guardiola in the False Nine strategy, which resulted in an unusually high number of goals for the Catalan giants. The plan is as follows. Once the game begins, Messi often vacates the usual striker position by dropping deep – hence becoming a ‘false-9′. From this position he is liberated, free from the shackles of having to remain up-front, and in doing so, becoming tougher to mark by the centre-back. As he drops deep finding space, he puts the opposition in a dilemma- do the centre-backs step out to mark him, and in doing so leave space in behind for the wide forwards to run into diagonally? Or does a central-midfielder pick him up, thus risking being outnumbered in the traditional midfield areas? The positions Messi now takes up compliment his abilities perfectly and gets the best out of his attacking attributes. From this position he has more space to turn, pick a pass, or run and dribble at the opposition, able to both create and score, the fulcrum of the attack. As a consequence of this strategy, Barcelona has now become far more dangerous than what they used to be, and Messi recently had the honour of celebrating his 200^th goal for the team in all competitions.

Messi receiving the ball in False 9 position, leaving the markers dead

• Discovery Of Pedro and Sergio Busquets – In his very first season as manager, he promoted Pedro, Sergio Busquets and Jeffren Suarez from the reserve bench to the first team squad. His well-defined work ethics and personal attachment to the players did wonders to way the above threesome blossomed. While Suarez moved on, Busquets as a defensive midfielder and Pedro as an attacking winger have become major contributors in Barcelona’s success. Here he showed to the world what an eye for talent he has.

Pedro (L) and Busquets (R) celebrate

• The 3-4-3 formation – Guardiola recently employed the 3-4-3 formation, an arrangement where complete football was the name of the game. In this particular formation, the ball-playing midfielders like Iniesta and Xavi would be placed at the back of the midfield line. Under former manager Frank Rijkaard, Barcelona were known for a 4–3–3 with plenty of flair with Ronaldinho being the centre point of Rijkaard’s time there. Under Guardiola they have become more disciplined with a greater focus on possession and a far more disciplined and aggressive pressing style. The present formation involves full backs (particularly Daniel Alves) pushing high up down their respective sides while relying on the accurate passing of Xavi Hernández and Andrés Iniesta to retain possession whilst employing an extraordinarily aggressive pressing style without the ball.

• Xavi and Iniesta – Rarely does talk of outstanding midfielders take place without the mention of Xavi Hernandez and Andres Iniesta. The position of responsibility given to them by Pep made them more mature and far more composed than the rest in the world. The players themselves have a very high opinion of Guardiola. Said Iniesta in a recent interview,

“We are delighted with him and sincerely believe he is fundamental for this team to function”

Xavi (L) and Iniesta (R), the classy playmakers

• Picking a fight with Zlatan- Some of you may not agree with this, but he did a favour to Barcelona by picking a fight with Swedish striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic, who in all fairness was known for staying in the forward line, seldom falling back in the face of a counter attack, contrary to what Messi does today. No doubt he scored many goals for Barcelona but considering the kind of football they play, Zlatan was better off playing in a league were standing in the front line throughout the match would pay any dividend.

Good riddance

Guardiola has transformed Barcelona to a club football superpower. He has led them to three straight La Liga crowns as well as securing the UEFA Champions League twice in three seasons. It, therefore comes as no surprise when talks of him having second thoughts about renewing his contract as manager are rife, the entire Catalan fan-base is waiting with baited breath for a final decision from the man himself. The Barca bosses are trying everything in their power to keep him in the club. Said Sandro Rosell, the president of Barcelona,

“We are doing everything possible for Guardiola to continue, for him, the door of our office is always open and the contract is ready. He can choose to sign for a year, two, three of four. Or even if he wants, he can sign for one year with an option for another one, or an option for two more.

The contract is on the table for him to feel happy and comfortable. Hope he will say ‘yes’ and that he stays with us.”

Hoping for such moments in the future as well