Innholdsfortegnelse for Issue 5 i World Soccer Presents

Football is abounding with “what if” moments. What if a volcano hadn’t erupted and Robert Lewandowski had joined Blackburn Rovers in 2010? What if Lionel Messi had agreed to join Internazionale in 2006? What if Pep Guardiola had given up on football as a youngster? Pep was a timid 11-year-old from Santpedor, a small village 70km from the Catalan capital, when Barcelona offered him a place at their La Masia academy after a successful third trial. However, after seeing their son struggle with the stresses of the trips to the big city, and understanding the demands of living away from home at a young age, his parents decided to reject the club’s proposal. It was then that a young Pep decided that if Barca didn’t come back with another offer,…

The 2008-09 La Liga title race effectively came to an end one sunny bank holiday weekend in Madrid at the start of May as Barcelona, champions for the 19th time, wrapped up one of the most brilliant campaigns in their history, in which they have scored more goals than ever before, and left Real Madrid empty-handed in second place. No real surprise there. But what was a shock was that it took so long, that there was even a title race at all, that Real Madrid versus Barcelona on May 2, 2009, ended up really mattering. It might have ended in humiliation for Juande Ramos’ side, but it is to their enormous credit that the season even stretched to May. When Barca beat Real 2-0 at Camp Nou in December,…

It was billed as the biggest club match in history: Barcelona versus Real Madrid – two teams boasting 13 world champions between them and the last two winners of the World Player of the Year award, as well as the three favourites to win the prize in 2010. Two teams boasting the world’s best players, Cristiano Ronaldo and Leo Messi, plus Pep Guardiola and Jose Mourinho, the men who have won trebles in the last two years. Never before had a club match brought together so much talent. And, for once, it lived up to its billing. On one side, at least. While Barcelona were sublime, Real Madrid, as one columnist complained, were “ridiculous”. Barcelona tore Real apart. Mourinho had insisted before the match that the Clasico would not decide…

Due to soon embark on a sell-out tour of Premier League venues as the new manager of Manchester City, Pep Guardiola is widely regarded as the planet’s best coach and was an object of desire for every leading club in Europe before his appointment at the Etihad. Yet in Germany, where he has just seen out his third and final season in charge of Bayern Munich, not everyone is quite so sure. What counts at Bayern are the biggest prizes. And while Guardiola achieved domestic dominance – three Bundesliga titles, including two domestic doubles – he failed to deliver in the Champions League having been unable to prevent the Bavarians tasting bitter semi-final defeats against Real Madrid, Barcelona and Atletico Madrid. At least one triumph in the Champions League would…

There are two ways in which to assess Manchester City’s 2017-18 Premier League triumph. One is to marvel at the wonderful football played by Pep Guardiola’s side; the other is to lament the lack of a title race created by their sheer dominance. City were streets ahead of everybody else. They finished on 100 points, 19 ahead of second-placed Manchester United. They remained unbeaten in the league until mid-January and could have confirmed the title in early April at home to rivals United, only to suffer a shock home defeat. Instead, their title was confirmed a week later when United surprisingly lost to West Bromwich Albion. City spent heavily on defenders last summer (£132 million alone on full-backs Benjamin Mendy, Kyle Walker and Danilo), but it was the team’s attacking…

14 Manchester City have now produced the two best winning runs in Premier League history. They sealed the 2018-19 title with an incredible streak of 14 consecutive victories, having won18 in a row the season before. 100 They’ve registered the most points in a single Premier League campaign as well. Their haul of 98 in 2018-19 was only bettered by their amazing 100-point season in 2017-18. 32 Pep Guardiola’s side managed to record 32 victories in each of the last two seasons – a Premier League record for a single campaign. 4 The Manchester giants have now won four Premier League titles in total – only rivals Manchester United on13 and Chelsea with five have won it on more occasions. 2 Title glory in 2018-19 ensured Manchester City were the…

Before Pep Guardiola took charge of Barcelona in 2008, nobody believed it was possible to play elite European football in the way you might play a five-a-side game: holding possession, dragging the opposition around the pitch, trying to work openings. Thirteen years on, his approach is so accepted as a standard way of playing that there has been a counter-revolution. And now, in the season just finished, a synthesis seems to have emerged, led by Guardiola himself. After the years when the game, at the highest level, was about retaining possession, Jurgen Klopp and the German school came to the fore by regaining it. But this season, Guardiola’s Manchester City won the league and Thomas Tuchel’s Chelsea won the Champions League with a form of football that balanced pressing and…

Barcelona’s motto describes them as “more than a club”. They were certainly more of a team than outgoing holders Manchester United in Rome’s Stadio Olimpico, where the eternal city provided an indisputably finite outcome to the 2008-09 Champions League campaign. The showdown between the two most entertaining and positive teams in Europe had been happily hyped but reality fell below the dream; that was largely down to United who, once they went behind, never looked capable of making a match of it. Barcelona claimed a surprisingly decisive victory over a disjointed United and, in so doing, secured a third European crown – after 1992 and 2006 – and left the world and English champions thoroughly outplayed. The Catalans thus became the first Spanish club ever to achieve a title treble…

For Real Madrid, the best thing about 2009 was that it did, eventually, draw to a close. For Barcelona, that could be their only complaint. Their task now is to dominate in another year too, to ensure that this is not a one-off, to build a lasting legacy. The cliché says getting to the top is one thing, staying there is even harder; that the second season is even more difficult than the first. For Barcelona, doing it all again is, as coach Pep Guardiola warned, impossible. But that is what they must attempt. When Liverpool won the league, manager Bob Paisley, shuffling along in his carpet slippers, used to hand out the medals from an old shoebox, unceremoniously and in private. Barcelona paraded theirs before a packed Camp Nou,…

Barcelona celebrated winning the 2010-11 Spanish league title, their third in a row under Pep Guardiola, by throwing peppers into the stands. Boxes of them were lined up along the touchline at Camp Nou and they were sent sailing into the seats packed with cheering supporters. Some of Guardiola’s players and staff even wore T-shirts with cartoon peppers in Barcelona’s colours on the back, above the slogan: “The value of having values.” The value in question was a simple one and so was the message: in Catalonia peppers have always been a metaphor for “balls”, for “guts”. Barca’s third consecutive title was one defined by their spirit as much as their skill. In the end, they wrapped up the title with three weeks to spare, thanks to a 1-1 draw…

50 PEP, WHO? His full name is Josep Guardiola Sala, with “Pep” a shortened form of Josep. However, when he’s at home among his family, Guardiola actually prefers to be called “Jose” – like a well-known managerial rival… 49 FRIEND OR FOE? Jose Mourinho was painted by the Spanish media as Guardiola’s arch-enemy when they were in charge of Real Madrid and Barcelona respectively, but in early 2021 the Manchester City coach said they had a “good relationship”. 48 MOST MEETINGS Guardiola has indeed faced Mourinho more times as manager than anyone else – 25 times, in fact by the end of the 2020-21 season. He’s won12 of those head-to-heads and lost seven, with the other six meetings ending as draws. 47 KLOPP KRYPTONITE Of all the managers he’s faced…

How did you manage to land Pep Guardiola as Bayern Munich’s next head coach? “Two years ago we had a tournament in Munich, with Barcelona, Milan and Internacional. In one of the pauses, when Barcelona were not playing, Pep Guardiola was in our VIP restaurant, and Kalle (Karl-Heinz) Rummenigge and I sat down with him and had coffee together. We discussed everything in the world and then he said: ‘I have to go down to my team now.’ But then he turned and said to us: ‘I could imagine working one day for Bayern Munich.’ That was two years ago and it was always at the back of our minds. So when we had to think about a successor to Jupp Heynckes we remembered those words and Kalle went to…

As Bayern Munich coach extraordinaire Pep Guardiola will surely confirm, even winning a championship title is sometimes not enough in the pressurised environs of the Bavarian masters. When Bayern clinched the Bundesliga title in April 2015, the 25th championship in the club’s history, there was much for the Spaniard to be satisfied with. His team were victorious in 24 of their 30 games up until that point and had only twice tasted defeat. Their intoxicating brew of collective harmony, fluidity, imagination, defensive rigour and utter consistency had proved far too potent for most of the league. And taking into account the 11 players they had on World Cup duty in Brazil, their energy and hunger was, at times, remarkable. The statistics and the raft of Bundesliga records tell their own…

Perhaps Pep Guardiola’s greatest quality as a manager is his willingness to change his side’s style and formation according to circumstances and the opposition. He established a model of play at Barcelona – hard pressing and possession-based, rooted in the quick passing and mutual understanding fostered over years at La Masia – but then showed at Bayern Munich that he was willing to amend that. And that’s one of the reasons why his arrival in England is so fascinating. Not only will there have to be tweaks to deal with the challenges presented by the Premier League, the volume of games will make it harder for him to make those changes between matches. In the 2015-16 season, City played 59 games in all competitions while Bayern Munich played 53, but…

There is a mounting sense in England this season that Manchester City are simply too good. The problem is not merely that they are a club of staggering resources, it is that they have deployed those resources supremely well. There was much mockery when City spoke of their desire to be more “holistic” when they sacked Roberto Mancini in 2013, but they are a gleaming example of what happens when everything at a club works in harmony, when players are bought to suit a manager’s philosophy. Their victory over Manchester United in November fitted the pattern of all five league derbies since Pep Guardiola and Jose Mourinho arrived in Manchester in that the result didn’t reflect City’s dominance. Nonetheless, it contained some startling passages of play. It is extraordinary, for…

When Manchester City drew 1-1 with West Bromwich Albion on December 15, 2020, it seemed possible that this was, against an admittedly high bar, the worst side Pep Guardiola had ever managed. They seemed sluggish and unimaginative, the snap that had once characterised their press entirely absent. Two months later they were top of the Premier League having won every game they’d played since that draw, and the talk was of a possible quadruple. Which suggests, perhaps, how easy it is to be lured into snap judgements, to be sucked in by football’s habitual narrative that when a slide begins it can be halted only by the sacrifice of the manager. But that’s not to say the worries about City in the early part of the season were unjustified. They…

Pep Guardiola, Lionel Messi and Barcelona were the clear winners of World Soccer’s 2009 Awards, triumphing in three out of four categories, including the World Player of the Year award. Messi is the first Argentinian to win World Soccer’s World Player award since Diego Maradona in 1986. However, it was his performances for Barcelona, notably in the Champions League final victory over Manchester United in Rome, which sealed his victory. Messi was the clear winner, ahead of his team-mates Andres Iniesta and Xavi. By finishing one, two and three in the Player of the Year voting, Messi, Iniesta and Xavi emulated the1988 feat of Milan trio Marco van Basten, Ruud Gullit and Frank Rijkaard. Barcelona dominate this year’s awards. They won a staggering 75 per cent of the vote in…

Ladislav Kubala, Luis Suarez, Joan Segarra, Marti Verges, Eulogio Martinez, Sandor Kocsis, Evaristo de Macedo…these were the men who laid the foundations in the1950s of Barcelona’s rich European Cup heritage which continues to be fulfilled by coach Pep Guardiola and players Carles Puyol, Xavi, Andres Iniesta, David Villa, Pedro and, of course, Leo Messi. Here is football irony. In the early 1950s, just before the new dawn broke over the original Champions Cup, Barcelona wanted to sign Argentinian Alfredo Di Stefano, but he went to Real Madrid and history tells a legendary tale of what happened next. Now Barcelona have found – and kept – an Argentinian from whom they draw inspirational, European-commanding pride. Messi’s magnificent12th goal in 13 Champions League matches this season inspired brilliant Barca to a 3-1…

More tempting than Chelsea. More persuasive than Manchester City. Ahead of Milan and Paris Saint-Germain in the attractiveness stakes. Bayern Munich’s under-the-radar operation to appoint much-coveted ex-Barcelona coach Pep Guardiola as their team leader was not only one of the biggest and boldest recruitment coups of recent times, but it was also a stunning statement of intent: an unmistakable signal that the powers that be on the upper floors of Bayern HQ on Sabener Strasse have their eyes trained on new peaks to conquer. Thanks to Guardiola’s exceptional track record at Barca (two Champions Leagues, three La Liga titles and two Club World Cups in just four seasons), the widely held assumption was that he would follow the money on resuming his career at the end of his12-month New York…

Pep Guardiola’s first campaign at the Bayern Munich controls was an odyssey of critical extremes. He was canonised as his word-perfect side claimed the Club World Cup and utterly dominated the Bundesliga title race; excommunicated following the 5-0 Champions League semi-final defeat to Real Madrid; and then finally restored to his saintly pedestal with a 2-0 extra-time victory over Borussia Dortmund in the German Cup final to secure the club’s tenth domestic double. No coach ever needed victory in the domestic cup more than Guardiola. With his reputation badly damaged by the Real debacle – and pundits queuing up to slam the ineffectiveness of his cherished possession game, a lack of Plan B and the constant first Xl rotation – his only chance of outrunning the posse was to lift…

Like a dog tenaciously hanging onto a bone, Pep Guardiola’s critics will never let him forget his failure to deliver the Champions League to Bayern Munich and the three consecutive semi-final defeats. But by no stretch of the imagination was 2015-16 an annus horribilis for the Catalan coach. For virtually the entire season, Bayern’s panache-laced football was a thing of beauty. And on the home front, they could do no wrong, claiming yet another domestic double and making history as the first German side to win four consecutive Bundesliga titles. The Bayern tale of the top-flight tape says it all. Victorious in 28 of their 34 league games, they lost just twice and set a clutch of new records, including best start to a campaign (ten wins) and total goals…

Jose Mourinho claimed he was “the happy one” on arriving at Manchester United in the summer of 2016; a manager at ease with himself and the job he had always craved. But the mood is very different now. Mourinho often appears tetchy and distracted, quick to throw verbal grenades at critics such as United legend Paul Scholes and to stoke up a needless feud with Chelsea counterpart Antonio Conte. Why? It’s very simple. Mourinho is being spectacularly upstaged by the scintillating style and success of the Manchester City team fashioned by Pep Guardiola. The man with the aura in English football is Guardiola. The man fretting in the shadows is Mourinho. And he loathes it. The moment that symbolised it was his claim that the £300 million he spent in…

Manchester City made history by becoming the first team in England to win a domestic treble of Premier League, FA Cup and League Cup. But despite the exciting football played by Pep Guardiola’s team, City’s middle-eastern owners have struggled to overcome accusations of “sportswashing” and “reputation laundering”. Like their Qatari counterparts at Paris Saint-Germain, City’s Emirati owners have been accused of using their vast wealth to distort the competitive balance of the Premier League. Sheikh Mansour’s investment in City has now passed £1.3 billion since 2008 and City have again attracted the attentions of UEFA’s Financial Fair Play watchdog. The other side of the very expensive coin is that Abu Dhabi’s millions have produced a football team coached by Guardiola that has played some mesmerising football, culminating in a 6-0…