Pep Confidential (21 page)

At midday, before hearing the dreadful news, Pep was in a crucial press conference. It had turned into one of the longest of the season and focused almost entirely on tactics. Speaking about Thiago’s operation, Pep said: ‘We’ve lost a hugely important player, someone who could make a huge difference to us.’ Anxious to temper people’s enthusiasm about the team’s Bundesliga record-breaking 81% possession, he insisted: ‘We are looking to maintain unity and avoid being hurt on the counter-attack.’

The coach also had praise for the German league. ‘It’s been such a great surprise. The stadia are phenomenal, we have easy access to the referees and the atmosphere is sensational, despite the rivalries that exist.’

Guardiola takes the opportunity to enthuse about both Mario Mandžukić – ‘He’s a hugely important player to us, a fighter who has a strong character and is very honest’ – and David Alaba, whom he says ‘is as good as a young Abidal. He’s going to be great. In fact, he’s already great’.

He also ensures that he points out the progress his men have made in terms of preventing opposition counter-attacks. ‘My players have understood it perfectly and we only conceded one counter-attack on Saturday.’

Pep then spends five minutes detailing how he wants his team to play. He presents the journalists with a concise summary of the concepts he talked about on Saturday night over his dinner with friends and on Sunday morning with the squad. The conference is taking place in Säbener Strasse’s small press centre, which is an annex attached to the Bayern staff canteen. This has been a public declaration of intent.

By 4pm the players are on the training pitch kicking balls about whilst they wait for the session to start. Neither Pep not Højbjerg is there but they come out 20 minutes later just after Lorenzo Buenaventura has started the warm-up. Pep will be very serious throughout this session. He can’t help but think about his friend and assistant at Barcelona, Vilanova and Abidal, who was close to signing for Bayern at the end of June. Pep had wanted him when Barcelona let the player go, but Hoeness and Rummenigge were concerned about why the Catalan club hadn’t wanted to renew his contract. Pep was convinced that Abidal would have reinforced the team as a full-back and central defender, mentored Alaba in his quest for perfection and served as an example of forbearance and excellence in the dressing room. He didn’t hesitate when the Monaco manager Claudio Ranieri got in touch for some advice. ‘Sign him up. You won’t regret it!’ By October Ranieri had made a follow-up call to thank him. Abidal was already a regular starter at Monaco.

In training this Monday Pep trains obsessively on how to bring the ball out from the back. ‘Freiburg will press high and close us down and it’s a warning we’ve to freshen up our movements, our ideas,’ he explains.

He’ll do this every four or five games. He puts the keeper, the back four and the midfield on the pitch and walks them through the kind of movements he wants them to make automatic. He repeats this over and again so that they take it in fully. At Barcelona not two weeks went by without him doing exactly this. Here at Bayern it will be almost the same. Every 15 days, in detail, as if they were preparing for an exam.

Elsewhere on the pitch seven players have taken it upon themselves to practise taking penalties. Alaba, the first-choice taker, isn’t with them. He’s doing defensive work with Pep. Last Saturday Alaba missed a penalty against Nürnberg with the score at 0-0. When asked about it in the press conference Pep gave his backing to the Austrian full-back. ‘He’s good at it, as are Müller, Kroos and Schweinsteiger. Alaba will continue to take penalties.’ In fact, Guardiola hadn’t even bothered to appoint an official penalty taker. It’s the kind of thing he usually leaves to the players to sort out. That’s why they’ve decided to organise this practice session, in case the European Super Cup ends up with penalties.

Bayern have not forgotten what happened in May 2012, when Roberto di Matteo’s Chelsea lifted the Champions League trophy in the Allianz Arena after winning the penalty shoot-out 4-3. That night the Munich team took the first penalty and Lahm, Mario Gómez and Neuer all scored. Ivica Olic and Bastian Schweinsteiger then missed and the memory still haunts the Bavarian team. Today, seven of them are working hard to perfect their technique.

Tom Starke is in goal since Neuer has joined Alaba to work on defensive organisation with Pep. One after the other they shoot at goal: Müller, Kroos, Robben, Shaqiri, Pizarro, Schweinsteiger and Götze. Ribéry, who never practises penalties or direct free-kicks, isn’t part of the group. Neither is Mandžukić. The ball keeps hitting its target. Each player takes six penalties and all 42 shots end up in the net. Schweinsteiger jokes: ‘Okay, okay, well done lads. A perfect score. But just remember, we’re not under pressure now. Let’s just see how we all do when there’s some real pressure!’

Javi Martínez hasn’t even come with them to Freiburg. His groin pain has become so bad that the doctors have agreed with the player and his coach that immediate surgery is necessary. What with Thiago’s operation and now this, things are getting complicated. Pep is left with no midfielders.

Freiburg in Breisgau is a charming town with cobbled alleyways and paved streets which can be lethal for the unsuspecting traveller dragging luggage on wheels. The little alleys are so narrow that you almost have to turn sideways to get down them and they boast an open system of gutters called the
bächle
, which was once used as an irrigation system. Freiburg Cathedral’s bell tower is 116 metres tall and houses 19 bells, all of which are rung throughout the day at a quarter past the hour, half past, on the hour and so on. It is a fitting tribute to the musical traditions of this former French town, once part of the Habsburg Empire, and the resulting din reaches its glorious apotheosis in a crescendo of noise between 6 and 7am. It catches me unawares and, rather dismayed, I realise too late why a set of earplugs had been left on my bedside table last night.

Close to the Dreisarn River, half hidden by the lush vegetation of the town which sits at the edge of Germany’s Black Forest, the Mage Solar stadium is small but passionate, a seething cauldron stuffed to the brim with 24,000 fans. They are waiting for Bayern.

Guardiola, true to his word, has left six of his main starters on the bench: Lahm, Alaba, Boateng, Ribéry, Robben and Mandžukić are all sitting beside Starke. Freiburg press very high, just as Pep anticipated, and try to provoke Bayern into messing up as they bring the ball out from the back.

Bayern dominate the game, with Shaqiri scoring first. They are vastly superior to Freiburg and have 17 chances on the opposition’s goal, which is well defended by the formidable Oliver Baumann. Guardiola’s strategy seems to be working well until the 80th minute, when everything goes wrong. Firstly Schweinsteiger sprains his ankle and then Freiburg equalise on the counter-attack. Two bad knocks. Once again, with only three days to go before a final, a key member of the team has been injured. They lose two vital points which, at this stage of the season and given Borussia Dortmund’s relentless start, feels like a blow.

Guardiola seems a bit down when he talks to the press. The two points they’ve lost have hurt him but he is happy with the game his team has played. ‘We weren’t passive out there and controlled and defended effectively. We played well and I don’t have any comment or criticism of my men. These things happen in football. You just have to deal with it.’

The local team’s coach, Christian Streich, offers his own opinion at the door of the dressing room: ‘I’ll tell you something. Bayern were like something out of a movie today. A movie. And I’ll tell you something else. They are far and away the favourite to win the Bundesliga this year. No doubt about it. They may have lost two points, but they played fabulous football. They played with us the way
they
wanted to, playing out terrifically from the back. If we had to play 10 games against this Bayern side, and look at the number of players who weren’t playing today, we’d draw one and lose the other nine. They are a winning machine and my players are absolutely destroyed, exhausted. This is going to be an amazing campaign for Bayern. What Guardiola does is exceptional. All that he has achieved at only 42. It’s tremendous.’

However, Streich’s words of praise do nothing to calm Guardiola. He’s just encountered his German Numancia – the team that beat him as he began his first league campaign with Barça. He gets on the bus and sees Schweinsteiger. It definitely looks like the player won’t be fit for the Super Cup. Pep has no midfielders.

‘We’ll be going to Prague to compete to the maximum. We have three days to rest and that will do us. I have only one plan for the Chelsea game: play well, control the counter-attacks and attack, attack, attack,’ explains the coach, standing at the front of the bus.

Then, he has a discussion with Sammer. It’s 9pm and the pair have just decided to make an urgent call to Munich.

‘Doctor, you’ll have to delay Javi Martínez’s operation. We’ll need him in Prague.’

26

‘LADS, I DON’T KNOW HOW TO TAKE PENALTIES. I’VE NEVER TAKEN ONE IN MY LIFE. BUT HERE’S THE BEST PENALTY TAKER IN THE WORLD.’

Prague, August 30, 2013

IT’S A FEVERISH, tense, agonising final. Bayern equalise 51 seconds after the official 120 minutes have been played. Swedish referee Jonas Eriksson has added one minute for stoppages, and there are nine seconds to go before Guardiola’s team loses its second final in a month when a player who only three days ago was booked in for surgery, scores for Bayern. Once again, they’re going head-to-head with Chelsea in a penalty shoot-out, and everyone’s thoughts turn to the Allianz Arena, one year ago. That day the English team beat Bayern in the Champions League final, in a penalty shoot-out. This could be payback time but, given the option, Guardiola wouldn’t have wished for penalties. In the last four weeks the men from Munich have scored only three of the five penalties they have taken.

On the way back from Freiburg, Guardiola realises that Schweinsteiger will miss the European Super Cup. His ankle is terribly swollen and they’re going to have to postpone Javi Martínez’s groin surgery. Thiago had surgery yesterday and the combination of injuries and the fact that Mario Götze has had very little training means that Pep will be forced to put Thomas Müller in the centre of the field as an attacking midfielder again. Given the results of this experiment so far, he had promised himself never to repeat this strategy, but there is nobody else he can use. He decides that Toni Kroos will be the organising midfielder, with captain Lahm on hand to protect him as a No.8. Pep draws up his final line-up with great reluctance. Having Kroos as
pivote
is a real problem, particularly against Mourinho, the expert in making his teams get in behind a
pivote
via speedy counter-attacks.

Bayern’s line-up tonight reads like this: Neuer; Rafinha, Boateng, Dante, Alaba; Kroos, Lahm, Müller; Robben, Mandžukić and Ribéry.

This final will be the 16th time Guardiola and Mourinho have met and the balance of victories up till now is in Pep’s favour. He has won seven of the games against Mourinho’s three, with five draws. They know each other inside out. When Guardiola was captain at Barça, Mourinho was assistant coach. They shared a dressing room, training sessions, confidences and knowledge. Years later they would fight it out in unforgettable tactical battles. There are no secrets between these two men. Mourinho knows that Pep wants his team to get the ball and come out attacking. Guardiola knows that Mourinho will start with his team in banks of defence, just waiting to pounce on a lost or loose ball and inflict deadly damage.

In this latest tussle between a team that likes to dominate the ball and one that wants to control the space, Chelsea come out on top. All it takes is a threat in the shape of Fernando Torres for Kroos to lose his position. Then Eden Hazard gets away from Rafinha and Bayern’s defensive organisation crumbles. Chelsea attack aggressively and score the first goal whilst the Munich defenders look on passively.

Thirty minutes into the match something happens that will affect Bayern’s entire season. Kroos continues to suffer every time Chelsea play the ball behind him, because turning quickly and then defending isn’t his greatest attribute. Assistant coach Domènec Torrent turns to Pep and says: ‘Why don’t we try Lahm as
pivote
?’

Guardiola hesitates for the time it takes him to take a sip of water, then he leaps to his feet and, almost running on to the pitch, shouts at Kroos: ‘Toni! You, No.8. You, No.8 and Philipp, No.6!’

This moment, switching the two, marks the start of Philipp Lahm’s metamorphosis into a midfielder.

Lahm started playing for Bayern aged 11, having come from FT Gern and, during his time in the youth categories, trained under Hermann Gerland, who was assistant coach under Jupp Heynckes and stayed on to work for Guardiola. He had used Lahm in a variety of positions: from right-back to winger and even occasionally in midfield, when he was coached by Roman Grill, who is now his agent. When Ottmar Hitzfeld promoted Lahm into the first team at 19, the full-back positions were filled by the likes of Willy Sagnol and Bixente Lizarazu, so Gerland took it upon himself to persuade Felix Magath, then Stuttgart’s coach, to take Lahm on loan. Once there, he shone at left-back. Ten years later, Guardiola started to use him as a midfielder and now, in the middle of the European Super Cup final, whilst losing, puts him into the intricate position of
pivote
– the linchpin of the team.

Months later, towards the end of November, Guardiola will recall this moment: ‘It was Domè’s (Torrent) suggestion that made all the difference. If we win something this season, that will be the reason. I’m completely serious. If we win anything this season it will be thanks to that decision to move Lahm. All the other pieces fell into place the minute we put him in central midfield.’

Very slowly Bayern begin to dominate. Pep not only puts Lahm in midfield, but moves Rafinha higher up the pitch, and the team starts to attack using a 3-3-1-3 formation. Rafinha helps tighten things up in midfield, aiding Lahm, which frees Kroos to play creatively and Müller to play off the strikers. After half-time Ribéry scores with a fierce shot – a chance created by Kroos’s excellent build-up work.