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After spending a better part of the year battling eyelashes at the biggest clubs in Europe, Pep Guardiola has finally made a decision. The most successful manager in Barcelona history heads to Germany, after choosing Bayern Munich as his next challenge, rejecting the more lucrative offers that came his way. But despite his tremendous success, you have to say Guardiola is relatively an inexperienced manager.
Guardiola critics will say (and he has many) that his success at Barcelona cannot be measured along the same level as that of Sir Alex Ferguson or Jose Mourinho. With the amount of world class players present in the side and following a philosophy ingrained in them from a very young age, the argument that almost anyone could have won with that side cannot be fully scoffed at. Being a part of the Barcelona youth setup and first team in his years as a player, he was asked to head a side whose philosophy coincided to his own to a large extend. La Masia has been producing world beaters for years under the guidelines and ideology set forth by Johan Cruyff and being a part of the same system; no one knows this better than Guardiola himself. His appointment came just about the time that all the hard work was starting bear fruit at Barcelona.
To say he was just a cog in the well oiled machine at Barcelona would be going too far. A perfectionist who is not afraid to take bold decisions, he has made his own little improvements to the Bareclona philosophy. His induction of the high pressing game along with the importance given to the off the ball movements and player switching has added a extra dimension to Barcelona’s game which resolve around possession based and tactically brushed up total football started by the Dutch. His decision to off load Ronaldinho and Deco (who were holding Messi back according to the rumors) was a bold and drastic action showing his mentality and courage to take decisions.
If ever a small flaw was found in his arsenal during his sheltered time at Barcelona, it was in his transfer dealings. While he has made successful transfers like Alves and Villa, who were both high profile and big money moves costing 23 and 40 million euros respectively, his list of failed transfers outweighs the successful ones. Alexander Hleb, Martin Caceres, Dmytro Chygrynskiy, Keirrison and Zlatan Ibrahimovic (who came in for 66 million euros and Samuel Eto’o going the other way for 20 million euros) are all part of the unsuccessful recruits. Ibrahimovic transfer and the consequent saga can be considered to be one of the biggest transfer mistakes in the recent times but the enormous success of the club has overshadowed it to a large extend
Being a young and relatively new manager and never having dealt with issues like financial restraints, fan antagonism, bad refereeing and form fluctuations that are common place for managers at almost all the clubs, it is yet to be seen how he reacts to these issues. The real strength and character of the manager is how he reacts during adverse conditions, something Guardiola is yet to face.
Once the initial shock of his decision had died down, it is quite easy to understand why Guardiola chose Bayern Munich. Bayern is without a doubt, the most successful team in Germany and elite in the European circles. Like Barcelona, Bayern also has a tremendous youth system, financial resources and is a few levels above most of the teams in the domestic league. They are also, quite possibly, the only big team that will exert the least pressure on his shoulders. Money is not a big issue at Bayern being the most supported team in Germany and fourth most profitable team in the world. With the well run and fan oriented league and an array of wonderfully talented players in its rank, Bayern Munich (who leads the league by an impressive 15 points) is a very smart selection by Guardiola.
While there is little doubt that Bayern Munich has captured the most sought after name in world football, how well he fits and delivers for them remains to be seen. Even though Bayern Munich does have an immensely talented squad, the application of the tiki-taka philosophy into the already established players seem to be a hard task. Will he adapt a new method that will be the next revolution or just continue on the path set by his predecessors? Either way with the spotlight shining on him, Guardiola has a tough task of proving himself to his doubters ahead of him.
