Pep Guardiola And The Beautiful Game...

The Overlap Newsletter #14

Hello and welcome to the most recent edition of The Overlap Newsletter! Football is back and underway and it was a Manchester derby in the Community Shield final on Saturday. Manchester City were able to avenge their FA Cup defeat to Manchester United, beating them 7-6 on penalties to win the Shield. The EFL season is underway and we are just two days away from the return of the Premier League, with Manchester United Facing Fulham on Friday, kick off 8pm. Listen to the latest edition of It Was What It Was following the link below, as Jonathan Wilson and Rob Draper take an in-depth look at Pep Guardiola’s journey to becoming a football legend. Catch up on the latest episode of Stick To Football on The Overlap Youtube channel as we bring you a pre-season special and the fan debate is back!

Quiz Question…

Who is the Premier League’s youngest ever permanent manager?

Answer to follow at the end of the Newsletter…

By Rob Draper, co-host It Was What It Was

Only the accountants can stop Pep Guardiola, it seems, with news that Manchester City’s hearing over 115 alleged rule breaches will begin next month coinciding with the start of the Premier League season this Friday.

But were it not for that threat of a points deduction or relegation, no-one would seriously be betting against City winning their fifth successive title, a procession of victories we had always assumed would be impossible in the ultra competitive Premier League.

He makes it all look so easy and spawns emulators all over the world, everyone wanting their own Diet Pep, as Enzo Maresca at Chelsea can testify. Guardiola’s biggest rival this season will be another former assistant, Mikel Arteta, now at Arsenal.

Everyone wants to invert their full backs, have defenders step into midfield, press hard and high and pass out from their goalkeeper. It isn’t just teams in League One and League Two now attempting to do things that not long ago would have been seen as sacrilege. Guardiola’s impact on the game has been global, an alumni of players now making their mark, with Xabi Alonso the best coach in the Bundesliga. Vincent Kompany gets the Bayern job because of him, not his Burnley record. And Xavi will no doubt be back soon having won La Liga in 2023 with Barça.

Yet none of this was inevitable. When he was appointed Barcelona coach in 2008, it was a huge gamble by president Joan Laporta. The preceding year, when he was in charge of Barcelona’s B team, is a period we examine in detail in this week’s It Was What It Was and it only gave limited clues that a genius was in gestation. That they were spotted by the likes of Txiki Begiristain and Laporta is to their credit.

Coaching in what was effectively non-league football at stadia deep into rural, mountainous Catalonia was an eye opener for a legendary player. Playing on artificial pitches or grounds with surfaces so rutted and narrow they didn’t exactly lend themselves to Johan Cruyff’s vision of the beautiful game, was a severe test for a young Guardiola. Indeed, he even had a couple of days when he actually questioned whether his passing football principles would have to be abandoned, a moment of doubt Jonathan Wilson and I dig into more deeply on the podcast.

The coaches he looked to as mentors, such as Juanma Lillo and Marcelo Bielsa, were far from being natural born winners. They were chosen because they adhered to principles of play he wanted to emulate rather than their trophy count, so you could be forgiven thinking that Guardiola would become just another quixotic dreamer/loser rather than the most-ruthless serial winner of all time.

Without him, Cruyff’s football and ideals might have remained an important chapter in football history, but one that was slowly being forgotten and relevant only in the annals. Instead, because of Guardiola’s success, everyone wants to pass from the back, stretch the pitch and play the ball forward. Had you suggested this to Guardiola when he had accumulated just four points from his first three games with Barça’s B team, he would have been stupefied. Back then he looked like a vanity appointment, ill suited to the modern game.

It is doubtful anyone else, Jürgen Klopp aside, would have achieved this level of dominance, even with the riches he has been afforded. “We were consistently one of the best teams the Premier League has ever seen,” said Liverpool’s former data guru Ian Graham last week, speaking of Klopp’s sides between 2018-2022. “It’s just sickening that it coincided with the best club side of all time. Manchester City don’t even have Lionel Messi and they’re easily the best club of all time. It’s a criminally underrated team.”

It’s quite the statement from a man who wouldn’t say anything without a raft of data to back it up. Real Madrid from the 1950s and 60s, Liverpool from the 1970s and 1980s and AC Milan from the 1980s and 1990s might have an argument with him. But the fact that Barcelona 2007 – 2010 would also be in the conversation gives you a clue as to who the dominant personality in world football is.

This might be his last Premier League season. He might not even be given the chance to defend another title, if he wins it and if he stays. There might be a huge asterisk placed next to some of City’s achievements. But Guardiola has changed not just English football for good, but the game itself.

Stick To Football Fan Debate - Behind The Scenes

The Tactics Board

By HTO

You Asked, Gary Answered…

Favourite meal?

Steak pudding, chip, peas and gravy

Quiz Answer:

Fabian Hurzeler (31)