I also saw managers from whithin get an opportunity and completely fail. No wonder. It’s hard as f*ck even for some highly experienced managers, let alone beginners. Although yeah, Barca have a certain way of doing things. Perhaps they exaggerate sometimes with that ideology, too much for their own good.
I think it takes more than a silver spoon for someone like Pep to takeover from Barca B and do the things he did. Basically tell Deco, Ronaldinho and Eto’o (stayed for another year and then left, Ibra was a crap move, Barca have the tendency to make some weird transfer moves) that they can leave.
So what, he’s guilty that he played all his life for Barca and Cruyff taught him everything? We can’t give him credit for what he did and is doing because of his path?
Cases like him are very rare. First it was that he couldn’t do it outside Barca. Then it was that he can’t adapt. Then it’s this CL thing. Some other time, it will be something else. We do it with the best in the job everywhere, especially if they don’t come across universally likeable (yeah, Pep isn’t that, although I’m fine with him) like Klopp (okay, great character, great coach, but there are others as well).
I honestly think sometimes people don’t appreciate what they’re seeing in front of their eyes while it’s happening, but it takes years and decades before admitting someone was damn good.
You have to have certain qualities to have the success he has had, of course. Nobody can, or should deny that. Do I think his capability is the reason for that success, no I do not. He would have been really, really crap not to have been able to make a real good fist of it with the players he had coming through making him not so reliant on the likes of Deco and Ronaldinho. He was not faced with the hard choices of an aging team that he still had to rely on.
He went to Bayern and had a loaded hand there as well and he’s come to Man City and had the opportunity to manage with all the cheats on. He follows the easiest path to success and he’s achieved it but I’m not falling down all over myself to acknowledge how brilliant he is.
I think his capability is the main reason why he got the chance, did amazinly, continued attracting top jobs and continued doing amazing with them. More than any other manager of recent years. Yeah, tools and money were/are an important factor as well. He’s not a footballing god, but I think he’s brilliant yeah. No issues if there aren’t much people who share that opinion. We’re just fans.
People make the mistake of thinking football manager is one job, regardless of the club. The truth is that managing a team like Barca or City, where it is more about tactics and ego management, is very different to dragging a team through the lower leagues. Pep could not bring a lower league team through the ranks, but then I don’t think Sean Dyche could manage City.
Where I think there are rightly questions about Guardiola is that he is essentially insulated from mistakes, and the nature of City is such that there is always a quick and easy solution to a player struggling, an injury, a loss of form, a hole in the team. When the job has become, as it has for Guardiola at City, go and get the best player and drill them in the tactics, then his ability as a coach, a problem solver or a motivator is always going to be up for discussion. We don’t know if he can do those things (in contrast with Klopp for example) because he never has to.
No worries, mate! I wanted to add my two cents to the debate as well but I thought I’d only be repeating myself, so that’s exactly what I’m going to do. My opinion is that he’s an innovator, a quality coach of the very highest order, a master developer of top talent and an excellent tactician but otherwise a snide and despicable troll who had the chance to work with literally the best players of all time, either by inheriting or by buying them.
To put it this way, my belief is that he wouldn’t have won the title had he inherited the Liverpool team in 2015, whereas I think that Klopp would have won at least one PL had he inherited Man City team in 2016, simply because FSG wouldn’t have been able to afford the kind of signings he routinely made at Man City. Until he takes over at a club like Dortmund, Atletico Madrid or even Milan and wins the domestic league or Champions League with them even once on their current respective budgets, I don’t think my opinion will change. It’s a simplistic view, obviously, but one that suits me in his case.
That said, I’m not taking away any success he’s had so far. He certainly worked hard enough to earn the privilege to coach the best Barcelona team in their history and took it from there but I’m probably too embittered by what Klopp and Rafa had to go through at Liverpool in terms of finances and inherited sets of players (and throughout their careers for the most part). Not to mention the greats of our rivals like Ferguson and Wenger… I am thankful to him that he managed to prevent Man United from winning two CLs, though, I really couldn’t have stood adding these trophies to a stack of arguments that my Man United-supporting mates used to troll me with.
Probably not, but we need to recognize that the job is different depending on the level at which you are operating. It’s simply a different job and as ill suited as Pep is to working with substandard players to make them 6th, Moyes, as we’ve seen, is just as ill equipped to take elite players and make them perform.
And therein lies the heart of the matter. We were bad but we were not lower table, we were fractured but by no means a complete right off. We made the right purchases, kept the right players and trusted them and Klopp had a hand in all of that and the result was a CL and PL win. Pep would in all likelihood have done that whole Klopp would probably have at least had a PL and some cups had he gone to City.
Guardiola is definitely a great coach. His forte is working with the best players, imposing his tactics to harness them in the way he wants them to play, and then picking up trophies.
What we will never know, say, from his work at Man City, is how he would have fared with a level playing field, with, say, 3-4 more teams at the top.
For me I don’t rate him perhaps as highly as I should, simply because the competitive advantage he enjoys in his work makes it hard to assess how good he is.
Pep himself says he’d struggle at lower clubs as the technical ability and game intelligence his systems needs to work is top top level expensive.
He basically had his old Barca management team at City years before him laying the groundwork for him, so until he wins the champions league he’s not as good as Klopp, nor can he be considered “great”.
I hope not. Mrs CDO has spent the last umpteen years telling me (each time Citoil crash out of the UCL that she doesn’t like the competition. It’d be a real pity if they went and won it. She’d be gutted.
Let’s hope that PSG beat Citoil and Mrs CDO doesn’t have to celebrate something she dislikes.
I think there’s a fundamental difference between City and other clubs who have/had a chronic grip on their respective league. United, Milan, Juventus, and Bayern had/have a winning mentality, a never say die attitude. The very ethos of the club, players, manager was built around a rather cynical view on losing. It’s not a surprise that they never had a leader who could intimidate (Keane) or inspire (Gerrard), because such character simply doesn’t fit in with their culture.
I wanted to add my two cents to the debate as well but I thought I’d only be repeating myself, so that’s exactly what I’m going to do. My opinion is that he’s an innovator, a quality coach of the very highest order, a master developer of top talent and an excellent tactician but otherwise a snide and despicable troll who had the chance to work with literally the best players of all time, either by inheriting or by buying them.
