The most interesting part of watching his City team yesterday was trying to figure out his formation/tactics. They were extremely boring and LVG like otherwise.
Clichy and Sagna as playmakers
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Nik (@Rood) and Imran (@Annihilate Now!) discuss United's fantastic win away against Athletic Club in the semi-final of the Europa League.
They also pick out the positives of United's 4-3 loss away at Brentford, and Nik reviews a day out at Old Trafford watching Manchester United Women qualify for the Champions League.
Beilsa's sides did not keep 80% possession. They played high tempo football which aimed at transitioning from defense to attack as quickly as possible. He had the personnel to play the way he did guardiola doesn't.
Guardiola's formation puts a lot of pressure on his players to always keep the ball and make no mistakes in possession esp near the wings. City defenders and midfielders (barring Silva De Bruyne nolito) are not great passers so mistakes are bound to happen. If they play This way week in and week out they are not going to win anything this season.
Guardiola's formation puts a lot of pressure on his players to always keep the ball and make no mistakes in possession esp near the wings. City defenders and midfielders (barring Silva De Bruyne nolito) are not great passers so mistakes are bound to happen. If they play This way week in and week out they are not going to win anything this season.
There's always this section who nod on everything their coaches serve, I won't argue with that. About appreciation his tactical flexibility, you should check the reaction census during their important CL games under Pep, almost everyone has nervy (not assuring) post talking about what kind of weird tactic Pep would serve. The post match may be knee jerk but pre game should well indicate this "majority" while those blind faith hide until a good result. Sound familiar?
That's not the original point. A poster said Pep tried to renovate the game with "underlapping"/ narrow full backs, which other pointed out is not original that Bielsa, and LVG did. What Pep did is trying to blend old different tactical plays to his taste. This is not like creating something new.
And yes, ultra possession style is the innovation of LVG. Before him, even Cryuff believed in statistic that an individual player only possesses the ball average 3 minutes per game and only looked to make best use of that time. LVG created a philosophy to up that possession stat and was an odd "defensive" coach within the Dutch total football community. Pep picked that up from LVG and with the players at his disposal were able to blend that into his football. Toward his last years at Bayern Pep compromised and played more long ball and less possession similar to Henriquez Barcelona. His recent interview as Man City manager with Noel Gallagher, he opened the worm can by saying something along the line that he wants to bring back his preferred ultra possession and passing game at City instead of compromising.
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Since when is that nutter Beilsa a benchmark for sensible tactics? It's a worrying sign if your team starts resembling his.
Formation =/= tactics.
I know.
So why did you bring it up?
Someone else did, on the previous pages.
What's a reaction census and how do I check it?
Anyway, "almost everyone was nervy about Pep's weird tactics" is the same exaggeration I criticized in your first post. Fair enough if you have this opinion about Guardiola, but you shouldn't try to paint the picture that every sane person was & has to be in line with you. Fan reaction in particular is really not a reliable indicator of the value of a football coach's work.
Plus your argument concerning fan reaction works the other way around, too: There's always a large group of football fans who automatically dismiss everything that they have not seen yet (a prominent and telling example being zonal defense and the back four in the 90s in Germany). That's the faction that loves to call a coach "stupid", "crazy", "irresponsible" etc. without even bothering to try to understand what the idea behind a specific change might be.
I did. I brought up his formation. Not his tactics.
Tactics?
First half wasn't the best - loads of possession while not doing much with it but we were much better after the break. Looked a lot more threatening and it was pretty entertaining to watch. Sunderland's goal came out of the blue when we were looking very comfortable.
I'm surprised so many on here seem to be writing Guardiola's style of football off in this league after a single game. It's going to take a bit of time to fully impose his brand of football on the players but I thought there was evidence that it was already starting to come together yesterday.
The original point was " many Bayern fans still to this day confused about his tactical experiment". You pinned it around say "not so few" = quite many (?) appreciate his tactical work. I pointed out the reaction before important CL fixture, which there is almost none who was confident of his tactics.
If you talk about hindsight, then even Moyes had credit for his less boring tactic than LVG's, during his United tenure some people appreciate. My point was again the confusion about Pep's tactical experiment which is with no hindsight relating before game. Before you go with no tactic is 100% assuring, then remind yourself of SAF's later years vs Wenger when even Arsenal fan conceded defeat before game whenever both teams met.
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No. F-o-r-m-a-t-i-o-n.
Yeah feel the same about it being tiresome. The ones writing it off (not saying you are) after 1 game are annoying too.
Making overlapping runs is part of formation? In any case I was just saying if your team or tactics start resembling those of that nutter you might wanna start reconsidering.
Not overlapping. Underlapping. Yes it is part of the formation/system. Tactics are how the team plays during the different phases of the game.
Also Bielsa is not a nutter. Just like LvG is not a nutter. They just have ideas that many people find unconventional. But unconventional =/= wrong. Many of Guardiola's ideas came from people like them. And he's been extremely successful.
The confusion always happened with his away tactics in the final stages of the CL. He was really innovative in his Bundesliga matches - risky in the setup in Cup matches when it was only one match like starting with 5 offensives away in Wolfsburg (and what a game this was) - but he usually put his conservative 4-3-3 with 3 real midfielders up for the away matches in the CL. It showed to be defensively not better than a setup with more offensives but never rewarding with goals for Bayern.
It will be interesting to see what Ancelotti will do.
@BobbyManc - Views on Sagna's horrific defending for the Sunderland goal?
I don't understand comments like this. Is discussion about experimentation frowned upon?
If he wants his "fullbacks" to play that way then he shouldn't play orthodox full backs, in my view. Fernandinho would be much better in that right-sided role for example.
Whatever dude. We have different definitions of what falls under tactics. Why are you being so pedantic? Did you not get the point I was making the first time?
Yes I did. And I also disagree with it. Read the rest of that post you quoted.
Is that you Pablo?
Bielsa has been a huge influence on Pep and it's not done him any harm so far.
Could have just replied that initially instead of the pointless discussion about terminology.
I don't rate Beilsa highly, as opposed to LvG or Pep, sorry.
No idea what your slabbering about, but nice to see you avoid the question!
Pep's huge surprises in this league won't be against the likes of us, chelsea, pool, arse and the likes which he will be well prepared for, but against teams like Stoke, West Ham, Southampton, Everton etc.
"Que? Why u not bend over backwards for my might, vision and el'puritism?"
"Que? Why u not bend over backwards for my might, vision and el'puritism?"
Ricardo Rodriguez would be perfect for them I think.
Its not pointless because there is a clear distinction between tactics and formation.
It's not a problem not rating him. But calling him a nutter and saying "It's a worrying sign if your team starts resembling his" is wrong because Guardiola's use of formation resembles Bielsa yet he's very successful.
It is exactly this kind of "weak" teams that are suitable for him to have real life testing of his tinkering.
RR is as pacey as a rheumatic snail, though. No surprise he's still at Wolfsburg
To each his own dude. Pep's approach is based on Cruyff's philosophy, not Beilsa's. The two champions leagues he has won came playing Cruyff's system. (Don't go off on any of those terms, I'm not interested in having a discussion on what they mean to you.)
You have some obsession with Zabaleta, all because I said right now Sagna is a better option than him. You tried to claim Zabaleta was better last season, then when I told you that certainly wasn't the case, you changed the argument by totally misinterpreting what I said. There's no point answering your question seriously as it will just lead to another pointless debate with you, which you seem quite desperate for.
I will because you still have no idea what you are talking about. This thread is about formations and positions of players on the pitch. Yet you keep going on about tactics and philosophy. Guardiola and Cruyff's philosophy is based on possession. Bielsa is based on quick transition and directness. But the use of formation overlaps plenty. Bielsa uses 343,433,4213. Just like the Dutch.
And tactics/formations don't win you games. Players do. It's foolish to decide this tactic/formation is better based on trophies won.
Just agree to disagree dude. I made my point pretty clearly and with all due respect, I'm not looking for your clarification on it. I don't think you have an idea about what I'm talking about either if you think Cruyff's philosophy was only about keeping possession (can you point out which of Cruyff's team kept possession as much as Pep's Barca and in which season?).
But anyway, it's not up for debate, not from my side at least. To me the flaws in Beilsa's tactics are pretty obvious.
Cruyff's team don't even keep as much possession as LvG's team. Doesn't mean it wasn't based on possession. Just like while Bielsa focuses on transition, he still kept plenty of possession.
Your problem with Bielsa is with his tactics. Not formations. Because the formations he uses have been used by others to win plenty of trophies.
He's pretty open about being a huge fan of Bielsa and taking a lot from his teams in fairness. He's learned from Cruyff but definitely from Bielsa too.
Can you be precise? Which exact season are we talking about?
Just stop, please.
None of us can say for sure of course but tactically especially in his first three years when he won the two CLs and what was his peak of his management career (so far) it was all Cruyff.
Dunno about all Cruyff, but mostly Cruyff I'd agree. Also don't think either of us are that interested in a proper discussion here, my post was just a throwaway comment.
Same here.
Some guy got hung up on a word for no reason. Weird.Why are you lying? I clearly said Sagna was better last season be default. You seem to struggle to read correctly or grasp the discussion at hand. Sagna was woeful again yesterday, especially at the goal, Zabaleta should have started like I said.