Pep Confidential (31 page)

Manel Estiarte was also amused. ‘Leave them to it. They need to sort their heads out. They need it mentally and anything that’s good for you mentally must be good for your legs.’

Later, Thiago explained why it had been important for him to join his team-mates in their impromptu running session. ‘I came here to become German, to toughen up and become more resilient.’

The coach is pleased with his signing. ‘Thiago has a huge heart. He may not yet be fully fit but he just gobbles up the pitch. Javi, too. He’s not in perfect shape because he couldn’t do a proper pre-season, but he’s managing everything I ask him to do.’

The tiredness was still evident the following day when Bayern played Eintracht Braunschweig, winning 2-0. The players were clearly enjoying being back with their families after a few days away and that evening the Allianz Arena’s players’ restaurant looked more like a crèche, given the number of kids who had come along to spend time with their dads. Even Guardiola’s parents had decided to join the family in Munich for a few days. Their son ate with them but continued to talk football, this time focusing on goals conceded. ‘You see, we’ve played 14 games and we’ve only conceded seven goals. It’s brilliant. Just seven. That makes one goal every two games. That’s what I like best about what we’re doing.’

By 10 o’clock on Sunday morning he was already planning the DFB-Pokal match against Augsburg the following Wednesday. ‘It’s absolutely vital. If we get through this round and beat Bremen on Saturday in the league, by Christmas we’ll be in much better shape than I could have hoped for. We’ll still be alive in all three competitions. I just want to get to the start of the winter break still seven points ahead. Dortmund and Leverkusen are playing on Saturday, so let’s hope Leverkusen win. Hoeness reckons a draw would be better but, for my money, Dortmund are the more dangerous of the two.’

Bayern have managed to retain the league title only once in the last 10 years, in season 2005-06. Pep wants to change this and is determined to bring success and consistency to the club. For the first time this season he voiced his intentions – up until now it has been his assistants who have talked about this. ‘The objective this year is to win the Bundesliga. It’s a much tougher league here than people think. For example, yesterday Braunschweig didn’t even open up when they were losing 2-0. Their striker spent more time marking our attacking midfielder than trying to score. He never stopped running. Often it’s easier against the big sides because they don’t park the bus, or at least do so less, and they play with pride. They try to demonstrate their power and potential. The centre-forward for a big club doesn’t try to kill the game like this.’

This took the conversation on to Real Madrid: ‘Madrid are playing brilliantly. They have three terrific players at the front and Xabi Alonso is there to support them. But if you play them you know that Cristiano Ronaldo won’t go deep to defend and that gives you options. He’ll try to stay high up and be ready to get behind your back when the ball is played through.’

Inevitably we got on to the Champions League: ‘Forget about it, forget about it. We need to think about the Bundesliga. Nobody’s won the Champions League twice in a row.’ He zipped up his anorak and said: ‘I’m going down to the pitch. I want to visualise tomorrow’s exercises.’

Since it was a rest day, only the injured players were working. Lorenzo Buenaventura and Domènec Torrent were on pitch No.1, putting out the cones and the markings for the next day’s tactical exercises. Everyone knows it inside out, having done it so many times already, but Guardiola had one of his brainwaves, one of his special intuitions. ‘I had an idea last night and I want to go down to the pitch to visualise the exercise. I want to see it clearly in my head and work out the best way to do it on Tuesday. If it goes well I may go with three at the back and one of the full-backs high up – but I need to see if we can do it well first.’

And so he dedicated an hour of his day off to running up and down the pitch, the one with the four painted lines, working out if he could convey his ideas well enough so that his men would understand how to play three at the back and still bring the ball out effectively, the way he imagined. As he worked with Torrent and Buenaventura, two of Pep’s basic characteristics were in evidence: intuition and hard work. The most imaginative tactical ideas cannot be implemented effectively unless you practise them repeatedly on the pitch.

On December 1, Pep was in the second phase of a five-stage process. Stage one – the idea – had come to him the day before and he was now at stage two – double checking how to implement it. The following day he would practise it with the players and by Wednesday morning would have decided whether to use it in the game, depending on what had happened in training. All being well we would then see the culmination of the process – stage five – on the pitch in Augsburg.

‘Augsburg is a final,’ he said.

It’s midday on December 2, a bright, freezing Munich Monday and Pep is showing all the signs of a high-pressure week.

‘Augsburg is a final,’ he repeats. ‘We’ll play without a safety net, full-on for the 90 minutes. But if we win we’ll be in the quarter-finals and then those guys [the players] will see that the final is within their grasp, only two matches away and that’s when they’ll be unstoppable.’

Ribéry has trained as if his life depended on it – 90 minutes under the guidance of Thomas Wilhelmi, the recuperation coach who has programmed a session of short, explosive exercises to be repeated over and over. His face is showing his exhaustion after such a heavy session but he’s delighted with his fitness levels. ‘I want a word with Pep,’ Ribéry tells Estiarte. ‘And I think that he wants to talk to me, too.’

Ribéry is still out of breath and he chokes out the words as he puffs and pants. He has hardly taken a break in the whole 90 minutes – sprints followed by jumping exercises, quick turns and drills which push him up against a marker who will liberally use elbows in the Frenchman’s ribs to see whether he’s fully fit or not.

‘I’m fine, Manel, I’m fine. I can play. I must talk to Pep and I know he wants to talk to me,’ he says again. ‘Don’t worry Franck,’ Estiarte responds, ‘I’ll tell Pep and he’ll have a word when he gets back from the other training pitch.’

Bayern had beaten Dortmund without Ribéry, something which would have been considered Mission Impossible at the start of the season. Then they’d had a good win in Moscow. Robben and Götze are both playing well and Ribéry doesn’t want to miss any more games: ‘Tell him I want to talk to him. I’m fine Manel. I’m good to go.’

Augsburg is a final and Thiago has also come down to Säbener Strasse. After three months out, he has played three games in a week and by Sunday he couldn’t move. He’s come down to do a bit of stretching, some Pilates moves and a few recovery exercises. He wants to be on top form for Wednesday. ‘Augsburg is a final,’ he says. ‘Everything in the 90 minutes, a one-off opportunity – it’s a final for us.’

At this rate, Guardiola will have nothing to do in terms of motivating his men. They all understand the importance of the game. Fredi Binder, the head physio, approaches Estiarte.

‘Manel, Ribéry wants to talk to Pep.’

‘I know, I know,’ Estiarte says again.

‘He’s in great shape and has no problems at all,’ says Binder. ‘The only pain he’s felt is when we gave him a muscle-relaxing injection a couple of days ago. Wilhelmi really hammered him in the ribs and he’s in perfect shape. Remember – he wants to talk to Pep.’

Pep arrives to review the layout of the pitch for tomorrow and Estiarte tells him about Ribéry: ‘I know Manel, I know. The whole club has told me that Franck wants to talk to me. I want to talk to him, too. I want to see how he is. I’d be delighted to have him playing against Augsburg. The only thing is that Franck is not the kind of guy you can put on the bench. He needs to start. I need to see him and decide then. Augsburg is a final, Manel, a final. It’s almost a final.’

39

‘EXCELLENCE IS LIKE A BUBBLE. YOU CAN LOOK FOR IT, BUT IT ONLY APPEARS FROM TIME TO TIME.’

Munich, December 5, 2013

RIBÉRY RETURNED TO the team for the Augsburg game, but Pep was to lose Robben that same day. The Dutch player has been in sublime form and in the third minute of the match scored his 13th goal of the season, thereby equalling his total for all of season 2012/13. He has also matched his total assists for last season, with 10.

Robben’s career at Bayern, as well as at Chelsea and Real Madrid, had been marred by repeated injuries. His most productive season was 2009-10, his first in Munich, when he managed 37 games, with 23 goals and eight assists. Now, at the beginning of December, he has 20 games, 13 goals and 10 assists and looks set for an outstanding season. And all of this at the age of 30.

Then, 15 minutes into the match, a hard tackle by goalkeeper Marwin Hitz cuts short 2013 for Robben, leaving him with a badly damaged knee joint. He would not be back until January 24. ‘It’s a huge loss,’ said Guardiola. ‘He was playing exceptionally well.’

Injury prevention has become a central part of Robben’s regime. The bad experiences down the years have taught him to look after himself and he has introduced a daily regime of a 30-minute personal exercise plan focusing on strength, balance and core work to protect his back muscles as well as his abductors and hamstrings. This is followed by a post-training 30-minute routine of joint mobility work and stretching. This preventative work is the key to achieving and maintaining consistent fitness levels for the player.

The DFB-Pokal match in Augsburg was just as intense as Guardiola had predicted, although he decided against employing the tactic of bringing the ball out from the back using three men, given that the practice drills the previous day hadn’t gone that well. Assuming that this rival would press aggressively and high, he opted for Thiago in the
pivote
role, thereby prioritising Bayern’s ability to circulate the ball fluidly.

In the space of only five months, Pep had used six organising midfielders: Lahm, Schweinsteiger, Kroos, Javi Martínez, Thiago and Kirchhoff, which gives you some idea of the impact injuries had had on the team.

In the team talk in the hotel Pep asked his defenders and midfielders to aggressively attack Augsburg’s first line of pressure. He wanted them to avoid shifting the ball from side to side, the dreaded U shape, and instructed them to use possession daringly. In the event, his men were not able to comply fully with his instructions, although Robben’s goal gifted them an early advantage. Whilst the opposition pressed relentlessly, Ribéry managed a full 30 minutes and Müller lived up to everyone’s expectations by delivering a
Müller
: one of those scruffy kinds of goals, almost an accident, which only he seems capable of producing. On this occasion, the goal seemed to come off some part of his back.

Guardiola was still dissatisfied. ‘We’re not playing well, not at all. We’re getting good results and I’m happy with the players, but we’re not playing as well as we should be. I need all my men back and then we need to start improving. I want to understand exactly what this team requires in order to realise their potential because so far we haven’t played brilliantly.’

At the moment Paul Breitner is more optimistic than anyone else. ‘I actually expected the players to take far longer to understand Guardiola’s ideas – far, far longer. But they’re taking it all in, no problem. Okay, at the moment we’re not playing as brilliantly as we did a few weeks ago in Manchester and Leverkusen, but you don’t succeed in the German league or the Champions League by playing brilliantly. Victory comes through hard work. And this team personifies both qualities: they play brilliant football and they know what hard work means. Look at yesterday’s game in Augsburg and the one in Moscow or any of our matches over the last few weeks. Hard graft, that’s the thing that matters, much more than brilliance. If you have a team of artisans who know how to work hard and who understand that you’ll have moments of superb football and other times when it’s just a matter of slogging away, well that’s the perfect combination. That’s what makes the difference. That is what defines the character of a team and this Bayern, under this coach, has enormous character. There’s no doubt in my mind that we are going to do great things in the next three, four, five years.’

As always after a game, Guardiola is totally fired up. On the one hand what he’s seen in the last match has generated a wave of new ideas which are surging around in his head. On the other hand he needs to start dissecting his next opponent and working out the best way to attack, defend and win the game.

‘It’s costing a lot for our
pivote
to break through the offensive pressing line if the rival strings five guys across the middle of the pitch. That’s why I put Thiago at
pivote
for half an hour, even though it’s not his main speciality. As a player he’s brave and daring in his thinking – even if this means he can be caught losing possession. Now I’m going to spend time talking things through with Javi, working out how to break through this opposition line of five men in the middle of the pitch via inside channels, but also about how to give the impression of overloading one side of our move forward, only to then switch to the other, now under-defended wing. If you can do that, you disrupt the rival and make them turn and run back. Then you’ve achieved your objective. What’s more, I’ll tell you this: instead of the defenders moving the ball about in that damned U shape, I’d much rather they tried a long, diagonal pass because if the ball is lost like that it’s much easier to win it back.’

Guardiola is well aware that he is demanding a lot from whoever is in the midfield. ‘I know, I know, there are very few players in the world with the ability to break the line of pressing with an inside pass. Busquets, Xabi Alonso, Lahm – look what Lahm did for our first goal in Dortmund. He was superb. He fooled his marker, dragged him out of position and broke their pressing line by sending the ball to the opposite side of the pitch. Højbjerg is also very good at it, but obviously he’s still very young. And I’ll tell you something else: I was good at it, too. Why do you think I lasted so long at Barça? It wasn’t for my speed, or my muscle power, or my headers, or my goals, obviously.’ And he bursts out laughing.