Pep Confidential (50 page)

MP: ‘Are you surprised that you have scored the most goals and provided the most assists this season? Has that got something to do with this new style of game?’

AR: ‘I think so, yes. There was a stage at which Pep told me not to obsess about getting goals. He said that if I just got on with playing the goals would come anyway. And that’s exactly what happened. If you just focus on playing, looking for spaces, holding on to the ball and working with your team-mates then you almost always get a goal in the end. I think that in every single game I’ve ended up with chances to score. If you have the ball a lot and make sure that you’re in the midst of the action, then you’ll always get chances to score.’

MP: ‘The team played very well in February and March but started to mess up in April. Was it just one of those things or were there specific reasons? Was winning the league so early a problem?’

AR: ‘It wasn’t just because we won the league too early, but it’s hard to explain what else caused it. I still struggle to understand how we could win the league with such style and then come a cropper here. It felt like we were getting worse and worse every week. It was the combination of lots of factors. A football team is complex and at the same time, pretty fragile. Look at the injuries we suffered in April, for example. But it will take me a bit of time to reflect on everything and work out what happened to cause it.’

MP: ‘The team seems to be back in top form, from the evidence of this week’s training.’

AR: ‘Yes, I think that too. We have a good chance of winning the Cup tomorrow despite what people think. Getting your head right is the most important thing and we are all completely focused.’

MP: ‘Pep says that this football represents a bit of a culture clash in Germany. Do you think it will ever really catch on here?’

AR: ‘Undoubtedly. Everyone recognised how well we played in the league and gave Pep the credit he was due. But football is about results and no matter how much we achieved this year, the minute we started losing, the praise dried up and suddenly we were rubbish. But of course that wasn’t the case at all. We have played superb football with this system and have achieved great things. Next season we must, and we will, play even better. We’ve started down the right road and I’m looking forward to starting it all over again next season.’

MP: ‘The team will be even better because you have adapted to this new system.’

AR: ‘Exactly. The first year under a new coach with a different style is the toughest. And this year we’ve won three trophies, broken all the Bundesliga records, made it to the Champions League semi-finals and are going out to win the Cup tomorrow. That’s an incredible tally for our first year. And we players know that we can make even more improvements next year because we understand everything so much better now.’

66

BLOOM IN THE GLOW OF HAPPINESS

Berlin, May 17, 2014

IT WAS THE last training session of the season in Berlin’s Olympiastadion and, as he jumped for the ball, David Alaba clashed with Ribéry, injuring himself in the abdomen. Alaba would not make the final. One more major loss for the team.

After dinner, Guardiola called Rafinha and asked him: ‘Rafa, can you play on the left?’

The Brazilian’s reply was firm. ‘Pep, you know I’ll play anywhere you tell me to.’

It meant the coach already had a replacement for Alaba, but this move meant that he would need to play the full-backs more open than he had planned to. Now all he had to do was find a replacement for Rafinha on the right, but he decided to give his chosen stand-in an untroubled night’s sleep.

On Saturday morning just after breakfast he shares the news with Højbjerg. He’s going to start the game, not as a midfielder, but at right-back instead. The youngster tells the coach that he’s happy to play wherever the team needs him.

Berlin is transformed. Thousands of
Borussers
have flooded the capital in a sea of yellow within which you can distinguish only the odd flash of red. The odds seem stacked in Dortmund’s favour, and media opinion firmly is behind the in-form team.

Pep has his line-up and his game plan ready. The team he will field represents a declaration of intent for next season. He has picked the men who are most committed to his playing philosophy (injured players aside) and today’s strategy will take them through one more stage in the constant tactical evolution which the Catalan has instituted and which he is determined will be an unassailable part of the DNA of his era.

Pep hums a line from the German national anthem, ‘
Blüh’im Glanze dieses Glückes
(Bloom in the glow of happiness)’. It’s 8pm, it’s raining in Berlin and there is so much more at stake right now than simply the DFB-Pokal. After their cataclysmic failure against Real Madrid, Guardiola has made one key change that goes way beyond mere tactics. It is a strategic decision that he has been working on for a long time. Reflecting on the team’s strengths, Pep has concluded that they are at their best when they bring the ball out with a three-man backline; when they ensure that at least one full-back has the athletic ability and stamina to get up and down the line all game, but at the same time monitor the inside channel next to him; when they use a controlling central midfield
pivote
whose key task is to control opposition counter-attacks and who can drop back to play with the centre-halves if needs be; with a centre-forward capable of pushing the opposition back four backwards and a second striker/attacking midfielder who knows how to play in space but can also stay linked to the movements of the centre-forwards.

In preparation for the match he had noted these five principles on his whiteboard and developed his game strategy from there. Now, days later, the plan is in place, recreated out on the grass just before kick-off: a basic 3-6-1 which will become a 5-4-1 when they’re defending and a 3-4-3 for the attack.

In the final Højbjerg plays right-back, Rafinha on the left, Lahm and Kroos are the two
pivotes
. Götze starts wide left, Müller wide right. Meanwhile Robben is the highest point of that forward pressing triangle. When Bayern have the ball he’s free to follow his instincts. Without it, Götze and Müller must try to choke Dortmund, with Lahm and Kroos in behind that first wave of pressure. Most unusually of all, Bayern will play more conservatively, they will wait for Dortmund, and will play the back line far deeper than has been normal all season. They don’t want to gift Klopp’s team any space.

Yellow dominates the Olympiastadion, as do the songs and cheers of the Dortmund support. But from the start Klopp and his men are disconcerted by this all-new Bayern. This isn’t the audacious side which would throw itself into bold attack, leaving itself stripped down to bare essentials at the back. Suddenly there’s a role reversal. And even before anyone can make sense of this change, Müller has nearly scored, the ball deflecting off the face of the goalkeeper, Weidenfeller, and Robben has had a second chance after a long and accurate ball from Lahm.

Dortmund are at a loss. Normally, they are expert at setting traps. They allow the opposition to bring the ball forward quite happily, like a cat tempting Bayern with a tasty chunk of cheese in its paws, but when they reach a certain point the predator will react with lightning speed and tear its prey to pieces. Today, however, the mouse seems to be a good deal smarter. It has changed its routine. Guardiola stakes it all on massive superiority in the middle of the pitch. He leaves three fixed centre-halves at the back and places six of his team in midfield. In the face of this surprise Dortmund cannot find a response. The pressure they try to exert with their strikers has no effect, given the huge numerical superiority Bayern exerts in midfield. The consequence is that Pep’s team has fewer attacks than normal, but almost all of them are far more dangerous.

Pep opts for less attack but more control. Robben is alone up front but he manages to tie up three defenders – both centre-halves and one full-back. When Müller is free to help him they make a formidable duo. When that happens, two Bayern forwards tie up all four Dortmund defenders, meaning that Pep’s five midfielders always get the better of Dortmund’s four in the centre of the pitch.

Lahm is designed to be the key in this final. He will help the back three play the ball out and will put pressure on Sahin every time Weidenfeller rolls the ball to him to re-start Dortmund’s play. Those two tasks give the Bayern captain a 70-metre area to cover – his afternoon must be full of effort. But eight minutes in he takes a heavy knock on his left calf. After quarter of an hour he needs medical attention. Five minutes later, he is noticeably limping and after 28 minutes the calf muscle betrays him. It’s a huge loss and looks decisive. No Lahm, no Thiago, no Schweinsteiger, no Alaba – and without Lahm, Pep’s plan to dominate midfield is in jeopardy.

There are very few options on the bench but Pep goes for Ribéry, who has been struggling for weeks with serious back problems which have also affected his leg muscles.

Pep’s next decision is surprising but it will, in the end, become the key to winning. Ribéry won’t play as a winger but, instead, in the double
pivote
with Kroos. It’s an unheard of idea, improvised on the go, under the pressure of a growing injury crisis. But it will demolish Dortmund, who take at least half an hour to come to terms with it. Until this point the Bayern play hasn’t shone brilliantly, but it has been effective. Not one dangerous Dortmund counter-attack.

Despite Neuer still looking a little insecure when he kicks the ball, Bayern manage to continue imposing their plan thanks to the cleverly spaced-out positions which Martínez, Kroos and Ribéry all adopt when they begin to bring the ball out. The three of them form a fulcrum to support the wide guys, with Højbjerg growing in confidence minute by minute, and Bayern begin to operate with fluidity and simplicity. Martínez shows the tactical intelligence and defensive concentration he is famous for; Ribéry gives a formidable display in this totally new position – it seems contradictory that such an anarchic wide player can offer calm, intelligent defensive organisation in midfield. Kroos adds Lahm’s workload to his own.

An hour in, after Müller has another big chance created by Robben and Ribéry, the Dortmund coach makes his first tactical change. Oliver Kirch comes on for Mjitaryán and the two teams are now man-for-man in midfield. Guardiola swaps Ribéry with Götze – meaning the German is now side-by-side with Kroos in the double
pivote
. Pep wants Ribéry nearer the Dortmund goal, but it’s at the loss of the positive effect the Frenchman was having in the middle of the Bayern midfield.

Hummels gets his head to a wide free-kick and sends the ball beyond Neuer. It looks in by the time Dante clears it, but the referee doesn’t give the goal. Extra time arrives without a goal, but Dortmund have managed only two efforts on target – including the Hummels header. Bayern have played with intelligence and have had five efforts on goal, even while robbing Dortmund of their main weapon, the counter.

During the extra-time team talk, out on the pitch, Pep merely reminds his players they are entering a stage where their minds, not their legs, are in charge. The emphasis is on concentration, confidence and determination. He just gives one instruction: ‘Look for Mario [Götze]. Give him the ball between the lines.’

Ribéry is on his last legs. The pain in his back is unbearable and Pep and Robben discuss their options. ‘Pep asked me if I could keep going,’ the Dutchman tells me the next morning, ‘and I said yes. I could see that Franck [Ribéry] couldn’t go on any longer and Højbjerg had taken a kick to his calf. We had to keep going as best we could.’

Extra time may be, as Pep suggested, a question of mental strength rather than physical stamina and certainly, on this occasion, many of his men have nothing left in their legs. And things are about to get much worse. No sooner have they trotted on to the pitch to finish this epic battle than Kroos makes his first mistake of the night, allowing Aubameyang to get away a low, hard shot. Neuer slips on the wet grass and dislocates his right shoulder. He remains in the game, but will spend the next 30 minutes having ice applied for the pain.

Next, it’s the turn of Kroos to get a kick on his calf, which leaves him limping for the rest of the match, Müller gets cramp in his hamstrings and Højbjerg has to be substituted for Van Buyten. Despite all this, Bayern somehow continue to bring the ball out from the back without too much difficulty thanks to the brilliant connection between Martínez and Kroos, and Dortmund still don’t manage to mount a good counter-attack.

Pizarro is waiting on the touchline, about to replace Ribéry, when the goal arrives. Boateng switches flanks with a long ball, Ribéry gets it, holds it and lays it off to Robben, who has sprinted towards the penalty spot and shoots. Weidenfeller palms it out in the direction of Grosskreutz, but Boateng has pushed up and quickly robs the Dortmund defender. He crosses and there’s Robben again, ahead of everyone, to land the definitive blow.

Guardiola’s euphoria lasts about two seconds and then his thoughts turn to making the Ribéry substitution, because he is now noticeably limping. The last quarter of an hour is taken up by increasingly desperate Dortmund attacks, but they manage only one good effort, by Reus, and two more good chances on the counter.

Müller seals it in the 122nd minute thanks to a steal by Rafinha, Robben’s insatiable running, a clever pass by Pizarro and Müller’s own shrewd movement to escape Schmelzer and Weidenfeller before scoring.

Bayern have won the double – the league and Cup titles – becoming only the second team in history to have done so immediately after a treble-winning year (PSV Eindhoven did it in 1987/8 and 1988/9). The men from Munich have won their fourth piece of silverware of the season, having contested six competitions, and for Guardiola it’s his 18th trophy out of a possible 25 in his five seasons as a top-flight coach (14 out of 19 with Barcelona and four out of six with Bayern).