More than 90 Minutes by Alejandro Pérez

Author:Alejandro Pérez
Language: deu
Format: epub
Publisher: Meyer & Meyer
Published: 2017-11-15T00:00:00+00:00

GUARDIOLA’S LAST SEASON—THE WRONG WAY

Pep realized that something needed to change, but his choice of what wasn’t a happy one. In his last season he immersed himself more in the task of strengthening the team’s central play with many midfielders with similar characteristics and few forwards. Guardiola showed his most stubborn side, Barça drew too many games and ended up handing the league to Real Madrid in 2012.

Fàbregas arrived, and that only served to slow down the wonderful progress Thiago Alcántara had made the previous season, when he emerged as the natural replacement for Xavi. That summer in the preseason Bayern tournament, Thiago had given a footballing recital and shown that he was ready to take on an increasingly leading role, but the signing of Fàbregas stopped the natural course of his development to the point that he ended up leaving the Camp Nou. The biggest contradiction in all this is that it was Guardiola himself who ended up rescuing him at Bayern.

Let’s begin the review with the second league game of the season against Real Sociedad at the Anoeta, where Guardiola used Keita, Thiago Alcántara, Xavi, and Fàbregas in midfield, while Alexis and Pedro were the only forwards. Iniesta, Messi, and Villa were left on the bench, possibly being kept back for the first game in the group stage of the Champions League against AC Milan.

This league game was much more important, and the points on offer had more significance than a possible failure to win against the Italian side. Barça drew 2-2, and when he was asked about those three players being left out, Guardiola said, “ It’s a good lesson for the future. I make the decisions, and I thought it was best.” 28

But it seems that the lesson wasn’t really learned because, two games later, in another very difficult away game at Valencia—a game where only going with your best weapons will do—he again only played two forwards, Pedro and Messi, and he overpopulated the midfield with Keita, Busquets, Xavi, and Fàbregas. This showed that Guardiola wasn’t going to give up so easily and would go to great lengths to prove that his idea could work.

Barça drew 2-2 again, and what’s more, when they were losing 2-1 Guardiola only replaced Pedro with Villa. In other words, he didn’t opt for going back to the 4–3–3 which had worked so well for him in the three previous seasons. He continued to use Cesc as a kind of free central midfielder who tried to make “surprise” runs from deep both in slow build-ups and swift counterattacks, but his contribution didn’t make up for the absence of another natural forward.

Pep and the team had the misfortune of this being one of Messi’s worst games in his career. The Argentinian assisted for both goals and played a tremendous pass for Villa which put him through on the keeper, but he made countless mistakes with simple passes and in the end did more wrong than right.

Barça’s play was completely static, lacking

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