Pep Confidential (37 page)

February will be Bayern’s month of consolidation. January’s good impressions not only translate into victories and a devastating gap at the top of the Bundesliga, but also allow them to shift their focus to the Champions League, something that Guardiola had wanted to avoid until they were guaranteed the league title. But it is unavoidable and the players are now very conscious of it. They fly through training sessions. They have had a taste of victory in the Champions League and have no intention of letting the ultimate European prize slip through their fingers.

Watching a positional play training exercise is like watching a recital of ball control by Thiago, who manages to open up space every time he controls a pass. This is the traditional drill which is practised in a rectangle of 20 x 12 metres where it is 7 v 7 plus five players who always switch to assist the team with the ball. Only the chosen few – Thiago, Lahm, Schweini and Kroos – are allowed two touches on the ball. Everyone else gets only one. Pep ceaselessly corrects. It doesn’t matter if it’s Kroos, Robben, Schweinsteiger.

‘Tac, tac, tac, pass, look, move the other way, keep the ball, take up the right position.’

The team radiates a sense of security. It seems that Bayern, for the first time since Pep took over, has reached that intangible state where they feel completely shielded against the whims and caprices of bad luck. Pep has provided them with a safety net that gives them a deep sense of security and the belief that they can achieve anything. Memories of the good times in Barcelona flood back, the days when the Catalan team felt wrapped up in an aura of invincibility.

At the end of the last training session before they meet Arsenal in London in the last 16 of the Champions League, I ask Thiago Alcántara about this sensation.

‘You’re absolutely right,’ says Thiago. ‘I was thinking about it last night and that’s exactly what I’m feeling: a sense of security. The team feels secure and capable of just about anything. I had the same feeling last summer in the Under-21 Euros. The Spain team believed that we would win and that the only team capable of beating us was ourselves. And we won.’

There was one person left to talk to about what Bayern was going through. Someone who never takes the pressure off, who never relaxes. Matthias Sammer, the club’s sports director. ‘We’re in good form. We’re strong, fast, focused and hungry. We want to win. But we need to do more. We are Bayern. We have to give our utmost in every training session and in every match. That’s the only way to achieve excellence, to reach that elite level only reserved for the few true greats. This is a historic opportunity. We are Bayern and we need to make the most of this opportunity. We mustn’t stop now.’

48

‘JUST AS WELL WE HAD MANU. WITHOUT THAT HAND I DON’T KNOW WHERE WE’D BE.’

London, February 19, 2014

IT’S 5
PM
IN London and the players have just had something to eat under the palm trees of the Landmark Hotel’s Winter Garden, a stone’s throw from Regent’s Park. Pep is waiting for them in one of the hotel’s meeting rooms. He’s about to deliver the pre-match talk for the Arsenal-Bayern match, the away leg of the Champions League last 16. There’s been a major change in the line-up. Javi Martínez will be the solo
pivote
, Lahm returns to right-back and Rafinha is benched. After announcing the team, the coach explains his plan for the game against Arsène Wenger’s side: ‘Lads, we all have experience of this kind of game. We’ve all played in Champions League knockout rounds and you know what they’re like and what they mean. You know how intense they are. Intense, complicated, aggressive and dangerous. I’m going to give you some very precise instructions.’

Pep stops for a moment. It’s a theatrical pause. ‘This is what I want: for the first 10 or 12 minutes I want you to kill the game, and shatter Arsenal’s confidence in the process. They’ll come out all guns blazing, ready to attack. I want you kill the game dead. Keep passing the ball. For once, I want you to do exactly what I hate most, the thing I’ve told you is total shit.
Tiquitaca
. I apologise, but today I want you to do precisely that, just for a while. Pass the ball aimlessly. Pass it for the sake of it. You’ll be bored and you’ll feel like it’s a pointless exercise, but it does have a purpose. We want to keep the ball and bore the pants off Arsenal, keep them from taking the ball off us. They’ll soon see that all their aggression is pointless because they won’t come in striking distance of the ball.

‘You won’t need me to tell you when to move on. After 10 minutes, when you can see that they’re running out of gas, they’re getting bored and losing heart, when you see that they’re not chasing the ball as aggressively, gentlemen, that’s when I want you to start the real game. That’s when we stop the
tiquitaca
and start to play our football. That’s when we go for the jugular.’

In the event, his men do everything but follow his instructions and the start of the match bears no resemblance to Guardiola’s instructions. Within the first 10 minutes Bayern lose possession six times, hoof long balls into the Arsenal half and gift them possession. But hadn’t they agreed to hijack the ball? Why were they giving it away?

For the first 10 minutes, which feel like a lifetime to Guardiola, Arsenal toss Bayern about like a rag doll. Happily for Bayern, Manuel Neuer – once again – plays a blinder. Not only does he save a Mesut Özil penalty and several other shots, but he works to calm his team-mates, yelling at them to follow the coach’s instructions. Neuer saves them and soothes them at the same time but it’s a nervous 10 minutes for Guardiola, who is struggling to understand how players of this calibre are booting long balls instead of protecting the possession as he has demanded. Nor is his decision to put Javi Martínez in the fulcrum of the team working: the Spaniard adds muscle in the centre of the camp, but loses control. Why have the team completely failed to follow his instructions?

‘Because it’s football,’ Pep explains the next day, now much calmer. ‘Because we’re men, not robots. Because we want to get it right but sometimes we don’t know how, we just mess up. Because training is relaxed and a game is very tense. Because our opponents are also talented despite the fact that people often criticise the other team. Because that’s football, my friend.’

Those moments when his team lost control seemed like an eternity to the coach. In the post-match press conference he talks about ‘20 minutes of hell’ although the next day, having looked at the video, he realises that it had lasted just seven minutes, not 20.

‘Yes, but it felt like an eternity. If it hadn’t been for Manu … fuck, you can’t afford to give away even five minutes in the Champions League!’

After Neuer saved the penalty, Bayern took control of the match and the ball. Thiago came into his own and the team began to make chances. A long, high ball from Kroos to Robben caused Wojciech Szczęsny to foul the Dutchman and the goalkeeper was immediately sent off. Alaba hit the post and by half-time it was 0-0 despite the 17 crosses Bayern had launched into the Arsenal box.

Everything changed in the second half. One substitution was enough: Rafinha for Boateng, Martínez to centre-half, Lahm to
pivote
and Thiago left wing. The change was devastating. Lahm dominated the ball and Arsenal, one man down, saw all hope snuffed out.

Kroos, more than anyone, had an outstanding second half – 152 passes with 97% accuracy, and swept in a Lahm pass for the crucial opening goal, before Müller headed a second late on. If anyone still had doubts about the player, his majestic performance in this game marked him out as a world star. Guardiola had drawn on previously-learned lessons. Against 10 men while with Barça he had used too many strikers against banked defences, with nine men defending their area. He made sure not to repeat the error here in the Emirates Stadium.

Opting to populate midfield high up the pitch, he used the trick of drawing defenders to one side of the field then suddenly switching play to the other touchline. Kroos got it perfectly and spent the rest of the night sending Arsenal scurrying from one side to the other to the extent that Arsenal managed only just over 20% possession and a mere 30 passes in the second half, compared to Bayern’s 550 (their 95% accuracy was a Champions League record).

Lahm’s ability to predict the next move, Kroos’ exhibition of first-class football and Pizarro’s rapid understanding of exactly what was required all played a decisive role in Bayern’s 2-0 victory, just as Pep’s reading of the situation, based on previous bitter experience against 10-man teams who parked the bus, had intended. Bayern left England with another Champions League win, a very good omen, but nobody could persuade Pep to relax after the shock of those early minutes.

‘It seemed to last an eternity. Just as well we had Manu. Without that hand I don’t know where we’d be in the Champions League right now.’

49

‘LAHM BRINGS THIS TEAM TO LIFE.’

Munich, March 8, 2014

THE LEAGUE IS already effectively won. The only question is where and when. Bayern are 20 points ahead of Borussia Dortmund and even a breathtaking performance from Wolfsburg in their match against the Munich team fails to halt the champions, who have been amassing goals and victories in equal measure. Everyone’s in a very good mood.

In the Friday training session, the day before the Wolfsburg match, the assistant coach, Tiger Gerland, disallowed a goal for being offside in the ‘double area’ training game. Such is the level of competitiveness that several players, amongst them Ribéry, rounded on Gerland. Although it was all good humoured, there was a serious side to their complaints. These guys don’t like to lose, even in training. The dissent lasted all of 60 seconds, until Ribéry produced an outstanding goal, which he then followed with triumphant celebrations and a laughing, affectionate, two-fingered salute in Gerland’s direction. The joke, however, was not to end here. Guardiola himself decided to join in the fun and surprise his men. Saying nothing, he finished training and flew with the team to Wolfsburg. After dinner he gave his obligatory tactical talk, including a video, which, to the players’ amazement, was immediately followed by footage of the disallowed goal from training. And not just that. Carles Planchart had edited in several replays, showing where the nominal offside line would have been, so that it was now clear that the goal had in fact been completely legal! As all hell broke loose, half the team jumped to Gerland’s defence and the other half shouted abuse. That night when they went to bed, everyone was still chuckling at the joke.

On Saturday, Bayern beat Wolfsburg 6-1 in a match which is actually much tougher than the score suggests. Pep’s choice for the starting line-up serves to highlight the difficulties he has had this season because, for the first time since October 26, 2013, both Robben and Ribéry are starters. It has been 19 weeks, 133 days and 22 matches since the last time (against Hertha Berlín in Munich) – statistics which go some way to convey the sheer volume of injuries the squad has suffered.

The problems caused by the injury toll have been dealt with by, amongst other measures, the fluidity of their game in midfield, with their best performances coming when Lahm, Kroos and Thiago play together. Thiago’s presence has freed up Toni Kroos, who seems less self-conscious and more willing to take risks. Kroos is already carving out a place for himself in the pecking order, something which Mario Götze has yet to achieve, perhaps because of his natural timidity. Pep has repeatedly urged him to stamp his personality on the team. But, of course, head and shoulders above them all stands Philipp Lahm. ‘Philipp is a machine,’ says Pep. ‘He gets the ball and he does whatever he wants with it. He takes it wherever he wants it to go and always in the right direction.’

Sitting beside Pep at the post-match dinner, which is when he offers his most detailed and extended analysis, Manel Estiarte puts it like this: ‘He doesn’t lose the ball. He turns and drives the team. He’s an astonishing player. Lahm brings this team to life.’

It’s impossible to fully understand Bayern’s triumphant league campaign without taking account of Lahm’s role in the position of
pivote
. His place in the club’s history was secured once and for all on August 30, 2013, in Prague. A day that is still fresh in Pep’s memory. ‘If we win anything this season it will be down to what I did with Lahm.’ And there is a footnote to the player’s story. In the Nürnberg derby in February, Lahm gets a goal, his first league goal in 95 matches (the last time he scored was three years before, in February 2011).

What Lahm has achieved this season is all the more impressive because it has been so difficult for a player who is not, in theory, a specialist in midfield. Nobody knows this better than his agent, Roman Grill. ‘Philipp obviously brings a great deal to the defensive organisation, but also the fluidity of the team’s play. Even as a dedicated full-back he already had this gift of seeing a team-mate and giving the ball to him in just the right way at just the right time and it was a huge boon then. When he plays as an organising midfielder, this gift of his stands out even more. Across the board Javi Martínez is the strongest aerially, Schweinsteiger’s positional sense is very good, but if you add every facet together then Philipp is probably the most complete in this
pivote
role.’

Grill also agrees that the trio of Lahm, Kroos and Thiago has brought greater fluidity to Bayern’s game: ‘Watching Bayern play, it seems to me that they perform better when those three very technically gifted players are in the midfield. The team is much better at holding on to the ball, not losing it. It has meant a quantum leap in the quality of Bayern’s performance: an inverted triangle with just the one organising midfielder at its base.’

All the same, and despite the top performances when this trio are in harness, Pep wants to add refinements in the middle of the pitch. Some are tactical, such as placing the two full-backs high up, tight to the attacking midfielders. Grill is impressed by that. ‘Pep’s idea of putting the full-backs high and inside, to flank the creative midfielders in a line of four stands out. It has been both intelligent and strategic. But it has also been the product of how he understands his own players. It has been done with one aim and it’s very clear what he’s going for. He wants control in the middle of the pitch and for that he needs superiority either in ball possession or the number of players there. He can therefore only attack down the wings, with one man on each touchline. For that he’s got Robben and Ribéry and that’s enough. Pep has had to be clear and smart in his understanding of his players. Does he try to exert influence on Robben and Ribéry and alter their basic game? That’s a very complicated process and he’s put the two full-backs inside because he has understood that the two wide front men weren’t going to be willing to give him what he wants. His tactic has ended up not only giving Bayern superiority in the middle of the pitch, thanks to Rafinha and Alaba, but also allowing the two creative midfielders in that line of four, usually Thiago or Götze, to push up in a higher attacking position, meaning that he’s got superiority in the middle and more players attacking the danger zone around the opposition penalty box. It’s a winning, intelligent, aggressive tactic which I must applaud.’