Oh come on now, the approach to matches is pretty much the same in every Bayern match nowadays regardless of formation. Aim to dominate the ball and so on and so on(basically the barca approach). That team was fantastic because they could play in a way that isn't aimed at dominating the ball and still remain clearly the most dominant side on the football pitch. That's something this Bayern team will never have under this current possession obsessed manager which made them able to pretty make a mockery of any team they faced in that season. The team pretty much played the same style throughout the season but made certain adjustments depending on the opposition. vs arsenal away for example Bayern played not to dominate the ball and that's when kroos was fit. Peps team last season probably didn't lose the possession battle once throughout the season. This level of game management is what leads to all that success and differentiates it with the relative failure of last season.
Pep Guardiola's Bayern
- Thread starter Raoul
- Start date
-
In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik (@Rood) is joined by CEO Duncan Drasdo and Financial Director Andy Green from the Manchester United Supporters Trust for a special episode on all things behind the scenes at Old Trafford including a brief history of MUST and their aims today, views on INEOS and Sir Jim Ratcliffe so far, and the Old Trafford regeneration.
- Status
@Blackwidow is right last season the system were similar and the philosophy very close the difference was that under Heynckes the team used to play a direct football against big teams in order to stab them and played a very patient game based on possession against weaker teams in order to suffocate them.Under Guardiola it as been the opposite, patient against big teams and aggressive against weak teams.
But this season it's an all possesion game with brutal vertical passes, it's a bit boring against all the teams. When last season it was every entertaining to watch Bayern play against "normal" teams.
The way Guardiola is playing today is very close to what Van Gaal likes, possession and brutal change of pace.
That's simply not true. Either you don't watch us regularly or you just see what you want to see.
tell me a match since pep took over that bayern didn't dominate the ball?
That wasn't any different when Heynckes was manager though, with the exception of the games against Barca and back then Barca was still the best possession team in the world, so it wasn't surprising that we were forced to alter our tactics. The approach to games has been very versatile under Guardiola. For example, our only win in a league game against Dortmund in the past 4 years happened when Guardiola played Martinez as a number 10 and used longballs over the midfield to bypass Dortmund's pressing. I wouldn't call that the 'Barca approach' at all.
Had less ball possession than the other team - none.
But had different approach to the match - e.g. playing a lot long vertical balls - some.
But the question is wrong. The only matches Bayern did not have the ball more than the opponent in the Heynckes area was against Barcelona - and that is the only team that will take the ball against Bayern.
They will always dominate the possession, they are way to good at recovering the ball. Unless they play a team like Paris (last season) or Barcelona.
I don't dislike Pep's style at all but it's just a fact that I become kind of bored if the attacks lead to nothing. Relentless success can be a tad boring in all walks of life, to be fair.
Like most have said, I don't think anyone in their right mind is questioning the success of the method/s. It clearly produces fantastic football in it's own way. It's just no where near as dramatic in most cases. On the other hand, from a tactician's point of view, I'm sure it's fascinating.
Like most have said, I don't think anyone in their right mind is questioning the success of the method/s. It clearly produces fantastic football in it's own way. It's just no where near as dramatic in most cases. On the other hand, from a tactician's point of view, I'm sure it's fascinating.
Of course you will also find these people especially on a Manchester United forum. They still hate him for beating us in two CL finals just like they hate Barca and Messi for it.
It was different. Heynckes' team rarely if ever had 70% of the ball in matches while Peps one does it more regularly. 700 passes are a new thing for bayern even though their football has was possession based. Jupp's team had 42% of the ball vs arsenal away in that season, 49% vs Lille!, bayern dominated the ball away under pep. Bayern had 37% of the ball home vs barca, promise you that simply wouldn't happen with this team. Pep's team has center backs holding a very high line while jupp didn't. that makes all the difference. Even in the match with Martinez as the 10 bayern had 63% of the ball.
Its Pep's barca tactics with technically inferior players which lead to a rather embarrassing 5-1 agg loss vs Madrid last season. bayern averaged 54% possession in the CL knockout stages in 12-13, and 69 in 13-14. 60% in the group stages in 12-13 while 69 13-14. There's only one other team that posts such possession stats and that's barca (2nd to bayern last season mind).
During the era LvG-Heynckes you could divide all our matches in two different stages: being ahead vs not being ahead (sounds trivial, but it isnt). With the introduction of possession based football, we became almost unbeatable once we were ahead, but often struggled to score the first goal, because we had no idea how to do it. We often relied on individual brilliance or luck to get ahead. That was down to the style van gaal implemented.
Heynckes changed and improved the team quite a bit and our build-up got a lot better with kroos as #10, but the basic principle was the same.
That was one reason why we were still heavily relying on Ribery. In Jupp´s second season he was absolute worldclass and would have been a legit winner of the ballon de ore; he was able to unlock defences all by himself, which was necessary.
If you look closely at the cl-campaign you´ll see that we scored many goals very early through setpieces, deflections or big feckups. Especially in the Cl knockout phase it was almost unreal how things went our way.
Arsenal: 6/7minute, very weird bumpy cross to the edge of the box + dropkick by kroos. 7 Arsenal defender just standing around.
Juventus: 1minute. shot alaba from 35 meter; buffon just fecks up.
barca: 23minutes. The ball gets crossed a second time into the box after Barca cant clear a corner; Dante heads to Müller, who scores. The ref ignores dante´s foul (leaning on Alves). 45minute: corner => goals. We were by no means a great team after setpieces, but in exactly the right moment things went our way.
When things didnt go our way (e.g. against Bate or Valencia) things looked very different. We had enough luck where we needed it and were using that perfectly. THat said, things could have turned out differently without this fortunate first goals.
Thats one of the biggest things that changed/improved with Pep. We are way better in scoring the first goal and rely less on luck/individual brilliance.
Heynckes changed and improved the team quite a bit and our build-up got a lot better with kroos as #10, but the basic principle was the same.
That was one reason why we were still heavily relying on Ribery. In Jupp´s second season he was absolute worldclass and would have been a legit winner of the ballon de ore; he was able to unlock defences all by himself, which was necessary.
If you look closely at the cl-campaign you´ll see that we scored many goals very early through setpieces, deflections or big feckups. Especially in the Cl knockout phase it was almost unreal how things went our way.
Arsenal: 6/7minute, very weird bumpy cross to the edge of the box + dropkick by kroos. 7 Arsenal defender just standing around.
Juventus: 1minute. shot alaba from 35 meter; buffon just fecks up.
barca: 23minutes. The ball gets crossed a second time into the box after Barca cant clear a corner; Dante heads to Müller, who scores. The ref ignores dante´s foul (leaning on Alves). 45minute: corner => goals. We were by no means a great team after setpieces, but in exactly the right moment things went our way.
When things didnt go our way (e.g. against Bate or Valencia) things looked very different. We had enough luck where we needed it and were using that perfectly. THat said, things could have turned out differently without this fortunate first goals.
Thats one of the biggest things that changed/improved with Pep. We are way better in scoring the first goal and rely less on luck/individual brilliance.
Last edited:
I'm more and more convinced that RooneyLegend just reads up on games instead of actually watching them.
he obviously doesn watch them based on his conclusions
It's how many here form their posts and opinions on teams other than Manchester United.
I loved watching Barcelona in the first few years under Guardiola. It was mesmerising and on a collective technical level no one had ever seen before.
It got boring after a few years though.
It got boring after a few years though.
Its not ironic at all. Van Gaal clearly differentiates between what he calls sterile possession and productive possession based attacking football, which is not as apparent in the tiki-taka system.
What is 'tiki taka'? No such thing.
During the 2010/11 season at Bayern München, Louis van Gaal's team displayed one of the direst, non-productive possession football approaches I've ever seen in my 30 years as a football fan. Even the worst Pep Guardiola game was much more fun to watch, than the majority of those crappy performances. LvG was much more of a stubborn dogmatist than Pep, who has shown a wide variety of tactical approaches during his tenure at Bayern.
I am not totally sure about what you are trying to say, because Guardiola also differentiate sterility and productivity, and Van Gaal and Guardiola both use possession for the same reason, Defense.
You use the term "possession based attacking football" but the possession is a defensive mechanism in both managers views. And they use brutal verticality in attack, what bother people is the fact that Guardiola is not bother if the transition phase take a long time.
It's fascinating how many people actually believe that. I'm pretty sure that the 'as long as we have the ball, the other team can't score' approach is the biggest part of van Gaal's legacy in modern football and the biggest difference to Cruyff's ideas and the one influence in Guardiola's ideas that I actually dislike. Van Gaal's teams had just as much possession as Guardiola's, but the main difference is that Guardiola wants the majority of that possession to be in the final third, while van Gaal is happy to keep the ball deeper in even less threatening areas on the pitch. The world cup 2014 was the clear exception in his career and the development at United so far looks a lot like he again wants to establish his 'philosophy' of possession based defending and tiring opponents through chasing shadows in midfield. Van Gaal's career so far was much more about safety first in attack than anything Guardiola used, he also uses less pressing and doesn't expect his team to outrun the opponent as much as Guardiola expects from his players which leads to even less quick transitions and a more static build-up.
I don't mind if someone dislikes that kind of football, but the way van Gaal's tactics are praised on the Caf as the way more fun version of Guardiola's tactics is hilarious.
Tiki Taka bores the hell out of me, sure 1 goal every 2 matches might be world class one touch passing but that's not worth waiting 180 minutes for. Bayern like Dortmund were the most exciting teams in years to watch in 12/13, counter attacking genius and brilliant play from every inch of the park, almost every time either of them won the ball it was an instant attack or chance on goal! The problem with Dortmund is they keep losing their players which Bayern gained two of their most important players in that 12/13 season so the fact that they haven't improved their attacking football with them is amazing. Pep walked in and killed the excitement of Bayern's attack almost instantly.
I'm pretty sure LVG believes in a more direct style of play than Pep. He preaches ball possession in order to stretch the opposition and then encourages quick switches of play to exploit the area that has alot of space. If you watch the Ajax sides of the past, they played at a high tempo and another thing.. he likes dribblers, wingers.. that is the difference between the dutch approach to the game, they do like their wingers in that 4-3-3.
Most of the sides LVG has produced have been very entertaining to watch aside from Holland who I thought were boring.
From a neutral's point of view, I dislike watching Bayern under Pep thus far. Dress it up as much as you want about how you're actually better than under Jupp because you done so and so in the league, but Bayern are always expected to win the League, I don't really rate a manager because he's managed to win the Bundesliga. He will be solely judged on the Champions League and I thought you looked more threatening under Jupp.
There is definitely less risk in this Bayern side since Pep took over and for me, losing possession is a good thing once in a while as it allows you to exploit the opposition when you win it back as they are disorganised. Dominating possession means you're constantly having to break down a well set defence and if you're encouraging a predictable pattern of play when you're attacking, you're going to be easy to defend against. Anarchy is good sometimes, Pep needs to embrace that side of the game and not be too overbearing.
Anyway he is such a young manager and judging him this early in the season is ridiculous, he's still learning about the game as weird as it sounds... by end of the season, he might make a lot of naysayers look incredibly stupid.
I've never said anything like that. I actually called the treble winning season once in a lifetime, never to be repeated again, alltime great stuff. The expectation that we could keep that level longterm was always silly, no matter who the manager was the following season.
I'm sorry, but that's plain stupid, incredibly ignorant and disrespectful to lots of great teams.
I actually agree with everything else apart from the part about van Gaal's teams from the past. But I wrote my opinion on that before, so we have to agree to disagree there.
I agree with you on that point, to expect that again was unrealistic. I do think there is an expectation though to at least be competitive in Europe and be able to go face teams like Madrid and be their equal in terms of style/performance level, which wasn't the case last year and I saw alot of CL games in which you were quite poor and for me personally, I related it to the tactics employed as I felt the team looked abit stifled.
Do you not agree that Bayern are always expected to win Bundesliga in the way that Madrid/Barca are expected to win La Liga? it is no reflection on the quality of the league, I'm not criticising the quality - just stating that Bayern expect league titles.
Furthermore will winning the Bundesliga with a squad that contains so many world cup winners, expectations of Germans is at such a high... would going out of the Champions League in a similar manner once again, i.e. a thrashing - are you saying it would not have an impact on Pep's ability to keep his job?
Last edited:
If pep wins another double and reaches the semifinal of the CL, sure he can continue. Its also a bit over-the-top to suggest that we werent competitive in the CL last year. We reached the semi-final and lost against the winner of the competition. If that indicates, that you are not competitive, than only 2-3 teams are.....its a bit silly.
People read too much into that semi-final vs real, same as they read too much into the one vs Barca one year earlier, because they just look at the scoreline.
People read too much into that semi-final vs real, same as they read too much into the one vs Barca one year earlier, because they just look at the scoreline.
I disagree with the notion that the tactics were the sole reason for the embarassing performance in the return leg against Real, the players are at fault as well. After all, conceding two goals through setpieces thanks to embarrassing individual mistakes killed the tie early, long before tactics really mattered. I actually think that Guardiola made bigger mistakes in man-management than with his tactics and was partly at fault for the significant drop in form. The team that dominated and embarrassed pretty much everyone in the Bundesliga turned into a boring, less effective and actually beatable team at the beginning of march. That's why I disagree that you can judge the manager solely on CL games. If you ignore everything that happens around those few games, there's no chance that you can form a reasonable opinion and you just end up using stupid stereotypes. I criticised Guardiola's tactics as well, but it's still only part of the story and in my opinion a smaller part than most critics believe.
Of course, he's expected to win the league and not winning it would be considered a failure. But how you win the league and how you perform still matters, big time. Again, I highlighted the 'He will solely be judged on the Champions League' part for a reason. The fact that we won 3-0 in Dortmund in the first half of last season is incredibly important for example, Heynckes never managed to beat Dortmund in the league. It's worth highlighting and shows how his tactics can actually work against opponents, that always caused Heynckes major problems. As dominant as we were in 2013, we could have easily lost the CL final against Dortmund, they were by far our most dangerous opponent. If we don't face them in the CL but beat them in the league, it matters. If you look closer at the final in 2013, you can see how Heynckes got his tactics completely wrong and individuals changing their roles during the game turned it in our favour. Schweinsteiger and Ribery clearly deserve a lot of credit for that, which also was pointed out by Sammer. That shouldn't take anything away from Heynckes of course, he deserves all the praise he gets for what he did in those two years and I rate him a lot, always have, even during his disappointing years. Ignoring all that is in my opinion stupid though, and definitely ignorant.
Last edited:
Tactics of course can never be the sole reason, but I guess from watching the last days of his reign at Barca then watching his first year at Bayern, in addition to the way Spain have played at international level.. it does give the impression that Pep's philosophy on the game needs a little tweak in that a well-oiled counter-attacking side can destroy a team that over-emphasizes sterile possession.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that with the squad at his disposal, quite a few of the top managers in the game would be able to win Bundesliga.. but the expectation of Pep is higher. He is considered to be one of the all time greats even at this tender age, hence why just the Bundesliga as ignorant as it sounds.. won't be seen by many as all that of an achievement because others would be capable of it too. Furthermore having taken two of Dortmund's stars, it further devalues the Bundesliga achievement if you were to win it this year in the eyes of some.
I wouldn't expect him to win the CL every season, but I do expect him to produce exhilarating football with the players at his disposal and produce sparkling performances against European heavyweights. Going out 2-3 on aggregate etc is fine against a Barca/Real, but I don't think another thrashing would be acceptable with the squad he has - bear in mind your run to the semis, you played Arsenal who are not winners by any stretch and a awful United side. Real was the first proper test you had, so it is hard to judge. Anyway we will see, it is a long season ahead and you look far more defensively resolute with the signings you have made and I'm a fan of Lewandowski.. I expect you to do well and for Pep to prove some naysayers wrong.
Heynckes also never faced a Dortmund side as vulnerable and weak, though. I do get what you are trying to say here and actually agree to a large extend, but this angle of reasoning does not hold that much ground in my eyes given the circumstances of the games you mentioned.
We had lost the complete rest of our first back line in a matter of ten days just a few weeks ago, which forced us to sign the free agent Manuel Friedrich, who never clicked with the rest of the defensive formation until the winter break. This together with the clear understandable inexperience of Durm as LB, the struggling Bender due to a lot of disruptions and a Sahin who was forced to play every game led to something which impacted our play style immensively: a collapse of our (counter)pressing system. Without this core part of our play style, we were simply a way smaller threat to Bayern than usual. You guys did deservedly beat a team (mostly because of the stronger bench) with the name Borussia Dortmund, but not one that played like Borussia Dortmund.
This becomes even more appearant if you compare that game to the CL final. We created problems for Heynckes´ side with the exact same tool, which was missing vs. Guardiola in the before mentioned match. It was not even our usual pressing back then. It was an extreme version of it, something which was later called "amok pressing", because of how risky and aggressive it was. We went at a pace in the first 30 minutes, which we could have never held up over the full length of the game. We had to score there and we didn´t, which would later cost us. The equalizer around the 70 minute mark by Gündogan should have given us an additional boost, but instead the players simply reached their physical limts and were in the end outlasted by their opponents. It should tell a lot about the way Klopp respected that Bayern side if he felt himself being forced into taking such a gamble.
I'd argue that Guardiola also had to make significant changes and react to our injury problems though, maybe not to the extend Dortmund had to, but still, overall both line-ups from that game look still decent enough and both started players not fully fit at the time. I also don't think your explanation for the loss takes anything away from Guardiola's tactical versatility in both this game and also the cup final, which countered your strengths way better than anything Heynckes ever tried in games against Dortmund.
I also think it's a bit of stretch to say, that the huge respect towards Bayern was the reason Klopp went with a bit of a gung-ho approach in the CL final. It was at the time simply the best way to get at our weakness and it almost worked.
Who was missing at that time besides Badstuber, Schweinsteiger and Ribery? I mean Guardiola basically brought on the victory with Mario Götze (first goal) and Thiago Alcantara (assist for the second), so the problems were surely not that dramatic. We on the other hand were lacking any sort of structure and understanding in the defensive formation back then, which had major consequenses for the whole play style. It is not like you beat us when we were in a even remotely decent form. We were in general really poor in November and December, which was also evident in the losses vs. Leverkusen, Wolfsburg and Berlin and the very lucky draw vs. Hoffenheim. The only games we really performed were the last two CL group stage matches, which were also the most important fixtures and the ones we concentrated on the most. There was not much to counter for Guardiola in that game, because we were lacking the core strength, which makes us dangerous for you, in the first place.
The cup final is a different story, but there negating our approach had the downside of sacraficing most of your cutting edge, which resulted in an overall pretty dire stalemate in the regular time, where we had by far the biggest chance to win (a scene I won´t get into here, because we could argue about that for days).
Depends on what you call 'dramatic', several key players missing, quite a few other players missing pre-season through injuries and nowhere near 100%. I wrote that Dortmund's injuries were worse and what team had more injuries wasn't the point. If you disagree that Pep's tactics played a huge role in how those games played out or believe that Heynckes' tactics against Dortmund were similarly good, versatile and fitted towards Dortmund's strength, fair enough, but the injury records at that time isn't what I was talking about, I agree that they played a role in the outcome of the games though. And at least in the cup final we were equally fecked as Dortmund, if not more.
Last edited:
From today's training session. Bucket ball. Groups of three compete against each other, have to keep the ball in the air, then put it into the bucket (when it falls down they have to start again) and that a couple of times.
Agree 100% with you on this, the 2009-2011 Barcelona was something special to watch, afterwards it got very dull very quickly.
I don't see Pep as a manager whose teams are greater than the sum of their parts. His teams so far have had great parts, mind you, and have thus been among the best. I only see him getting 100% out of them, though, where the truly legendary managers get 110%. For the entire duration of his managerial career (excluding his time with Barcelona's youth side), he has been working with the best squad in the world, which I think causes people to overrate him quite a bit.
It doesn't mean he's not a great manager (people always seem incapable of comprehending that you can think he's very good while still finding him overrated) but I have yet to see him do anything outstanding. He has done adequately, as expected, with the best squad in the world across two clubs. They haven't been greater than the sum of their parts, however; and in Bayern's case, they were until he took over. Now they're merely 100%.
It doesn't mean he's not a great manager (people always seem incapable of comprehending that you can think he's very good while still finding him overrated) but I have yet to see him do anything outstanding. He has done adequately, as expected, with the best squad in the world across two clubs. They haven't been greater than the sum of their parts, however; and in Bayern's case, they were until he took over. Now they're merely 100%.
It is true that at Barcelona he had great players, but I do not think that any other manager could have gotten them to have played the way in which they did (in such a consistent, ruthless and dominant fashion by keeping the ball so well and having the opposition spend most of the match in their own half defending and changing their game-plan to stand a chance while Barcelona kept the ball so well and calmly under immense pressure). If Mourinho and Ferguson (who I rate as better managers/winners than Guardiola) were in charge of Barcelona I believe they still would have won but not in the same style and I do not think that Barcelona would have been near as memorable or as historic as they are if either of those two were in charge.
As a former player at the club, Guardiola understood the philosophy of Barcelona perfectly and was able to get the team to play that way and all of the players respected him as he was a club legend and they knew that he understood the club and what the fans wanted. I do not think that Mourinho or Ferguson would have been able to have had Barcelona playing in that manner as it is not really their philosophy or style of play. I suppose you could also say that Ferguson can have teams play at a high level and maintain them playing at that level for a longer time, and that the way Guardiola has his teams play is at a higher level with a greater peak than Fergusons teams but they will not maintain the level for longer than three or four years and then he will either have to leave or replenish the squad.
Our resident Bayern fans (aka HSV haters) are very quiet this evening.......
Hamburg played well. All players were motivated and concentrated for 90mins. They were missing quality on the offensive end, but had a tidy defence. That was the best performance in a very long time. If they play like this every match, they wont have anything to do with relegation.
bayern played dull and pep changed a bit too much, but its not a big deal in a game like this. In hindsight we are always smarter.
The draw was well deserved. The only question after this match is, if Hamburg is building on this performance or if they go back to their alter-ego.
bayern played dull and pep changed a bit too much, but its not a big deal in a game like this. In hindsight we are always smarter.
The draw was well deserved. The only question after this match is, if Hamburg is building on this performance or if they go back to their alter-ego.
We just used the Bundesliga thread to moan and cry and blame and hang our heads in shame.
I thought this thread here is just for some users to drop by occasionally, tell us that everything was so much better with Heynckes in charge, so that we can start defending Pep again. Surprisingly no one did that yesterday.
- Status