Re: Pep Guardiola appreciation thread

[VivaStPauli]

Yeah sure.

I laid out my theory earlier that our board might even have conned Götze into signing by telling him the Wunschspieler fairy tale.

And I 100% agree with that theory.

I'd just add that if Götze had performed in a way that was screaming for a starting place, he'd have one, special dream signing or not.

True. Though you could also argue that Pep could make more of an effort to give Götze the feeling he's being trusted and supported, though on the other hand why do that if you can just replace him.

And I'd really take the opportunity to ask your judgement, whether you think Götze would have had it easier to succeed under Jupp and his system.

Only as soon as Kroos left, who had Götzes position locked down under Jupp.

Also, we both know the elephant in the room so I'd like to post a video for contemplation, of Bayern against a certain 'Eintracht', starring a certain 'Thiago'

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2mglk3_baymun-einfra_sport

Well... Err... You shut up!

[Winter is Coming]

Für den ehemaligen Schweizer Nationaltrainer ist der katalanische Coach der Hauptgrund des aktuellen Höhenfluges des FC Bayern. "Er ist der Baumeister, der Architekt des Erfolgs. Er hat dem Team sein Konzept vermittelt. Dass Bayern so dominant auftritt wie im Moment hat nichts mit Investitionen zu tun, sonst müssten die englischen Teams auch besser in der Champions League auftreten. Das hat viel mit Guardiola zu tun und wie er über Dominanz, Spielsystem und Schnelligkeit denkt. Da steckt viel akribische Arbeit dahinter und das ist das Werk von Guardiola.

Got this translation from bayern forum one of the German can translate better if it isn't correct.

For the former Swiss national team trainer, the Catalan coach is the main reason for FC Bayern’s current form. “He is the master builder, the architect of the success. He has delivered his concept to the team. Bayern’s appearing so dominant at present is not related to any investments – otherwise English teams would perform much better in the Champions League. It has a lot to do with Guardiola and how he thinks about dominance, tactics and tempo. There is a lot of meticulous work behind it, and that is the work of Guardiola.”

[halamadrid2]

It's the same every season. Pep's Bayern starts the league and cups brilliantly, are lauded as some unbeatable side, come February and beyond they start scraping by in the league, get beat in the cup and fails at the last hurdle before the final against teams they are tipped to beat

Maybe having Douglas will change that but I doubt it. The jury is out on Pep, his Bayern gets humiliated again in the semis and I believe he'll leave before the outspoken Bayern legends and the media drive him out themselves

[Lucifer]

He wasn't exactly humiliated by Barca imo. They had gud first leg upto that robotic midget came all guns blazing. They had very gud second leg too. What he did wrong was push for the away goal in first leg that lead to conceding the third goal. He should have taken 2-0 and the way they played second leg anything could have been possible. But again as they say hindsight is 20 20.

[Winter is Coming]

Considering they lost 5-3 and didn't have Alaba, Robbery, Martinez and Lewa with a broken jaw or whatever I'd hardly say that was a humiliation.

While we could've extend our lead if not for Neuer and some poor finishing at Camp Nou they could've surely made us into the Shakhtar/Porto that season in Munich, if it wasn't for ter Stegen and some poor finishing as well.

[free_cat]

It's the same every season. Pep's Bayern starts the league and cups brilliantly, are lauded as some unbeatable side, come February and beyond they start scraping by in the league, get beat in the cup and fails at the last hurdle before the final against teams they are tipped to beat

Maybe having Douglas will change that but I doubt it. The jury is out on Pep, his Bayern gets humiliated again in the semis and I believe he'll leave before the outspoken Bayern legends and the media drive him out themselves

Pep's Barça used to finish very strongly, but at Bayern he hasn't managed that, maybe cause of bad luck (injuries) or maybe he hasn't adapted to the winter break. We'll see this season, but with the deeper squad they've got, and if Robben and Ribbery come back, they can aspire to everything TBH.

[Hapless_Hans]

Pep is the best coach out there and he should stop being a diva and EXTEND already.

[The Franchise]

If he ends up coaching Bayern for more seasons than Barca, I have a problem with that.

[BarrileteCosmico]

Pep is the best coach out there and he should stop being a diva and EXTEND already.

Ah this brings back some nice memories... well, memories anyways.

If he ends up coaching Bayern for more seasons than Barca, I have a problem with that.

Why? It's obvious that he left because he didn't have a good relationship with Rossell and his team, he doesn't seem to have this with the current Bayern board.

[The Franchise]

Dont care, thats just my feelings on the matter.

His time with Barca is his time with Barca, if thats the most he could do then I dont hold against him.

But I just cant understand how being loved the world over at Barca is harder than being questioned constantly at Bayern.

[Hapless_Hans]

He's not questioned constantly though lol. Noone who has a say at Bayern has ever questioned him, on the contrary they're showering him with praise every opportunity they get.
As they should.

Let's be honest. Where would he go? It won't get better anywhere else.

[BarrileteCosmico]

Dont care, thats just my feelings on the matter.

His time with Barca is his time with Barca, if thats the most he could do then I dont hold against him.

But I just cant understand how being loved the world over at Barca is harder than being questioned constantly at Bayern.

I think he is being questioned by armchair fans but not by people he actually has to work with on a daily basis.

He's not questioned constantly though lol. Noone who has a say at Bayern has ever questioned him, on the contrary they're showering him with praise every opportunity they get.
As they should.

Let's be honest. Where would he go? It won't get better anywhere else.

He could go to City, they already have half of the Barca board from Pep's time.

[Adit]

Fergie offered him United job but he rejected. He isn't going to coach city , he is v looking forward to having messi again so that he could stop getting humiliated in semis.

[Hapless_Hans]

BC, you really think he'd have a better and more fruitful work environment at City? A team better suited to coaching? A less noisy media environment and annoying publc fuzz?
Even if Txiki what's his face is there, you think he should trust in them more than in Sammer and Reschke to make transfers?
Pretty sure Pep knows what he has at Bayern.

[The Franchise]

He's not questioned constantly though lol. Noone who has a say at Bayern has ever questioned him, on the contrary they're showering him with praise every opportunity they get.
As they should.

Let's be honest. Where would he go? It won't get better anywhere else.

Not talking about at Bayern, im talking generally. If he was questioned constantly by Bayern he would already be gone.

I am not talking about fans either BC. I am talking media, and retired Bayern players.

[Hapless_Hans]

He's not questioned constantly though lol. Noone who has a say at Bayern has ever questioned him, on the contrary they're showering him with praise every opportunity they get.
As they should.

Let's be honest. Where would he go? It won't get better anywhere else.

Not talking about at Bayern, im talking generally. If he was questioned constantly by Bayern he would already be gone.

I am not talking about fans either BC. I am talking media, and retired Bayern players.

Media and ex-players, yeah well.

The media are opportunistic, generally with Bayern. They don't get much reason to critisize these days, so any dropped point is news. At the same time, Pep was fawned over pretty embarassingly too by the German media.
And usually our way of playing is praised. Because we're *bleep* awesome most of the time.

Ex-players.
Matthäus usually lauds Pep (not that he's taken very seriously), Beckenbauer talks some senile stuff which can be complimentary or not depending on daily form, but most importantly which noone takes seriously since about 10 years.

If Pep is seriously worried, or troubled, by Stefan Effenberg talking shit then I can't help him
It's not like he won't get stuff like that anywhere.

[jibers]

He's easily the bets coach for me. Bayern is the perfect environment for him tbh, the epl is a joke and I think he's smart enough to see that. At barca he was forced to be more than a coach roo many times and he felt the players stopped listening to him then add that Sandro was a prick, the environment was not suitable.

In Germany there is a culture of being extremely professional. The only clowas criticising him are the people that have no affect on Bayern. Everyone involved with the club wants him to stay. The expectation gap at Bayern now is just ridiculous. Bayern have won 5 cls in the room history and they lost 2 cl finals before pep and some daft people think there is some sort of pre ordained right to win it.

Expectations need to be tempered and people need to come back to reality.

[Hapless_Hans]

Oh and for some reason Didi Hamann has it in for Pep, though Hamann is not a pundit in Germany so much as in England, so there you go.
Guess he's butthurt his prediction that Pep would be City coach by now didn't exactly happen.

[Great Leader Sprucenuce]

Didi Hamann is an absolute moron anyway, he consistently validates his moron status on Sky.

[Hapless_Hans]

In Germany he's nowadays mostly associated with his Alcoholism.

Just as the last time Effenberg really was in the news was last year when he was implicated by a transsexual Munich prostitute on trial who claimed he had forced her into oral sex without paying lol.

So it's not like the AUTHORITATIVE voices are critizising Pep lol.

[The Franchise]

I feel we are going a little more in depth than needed for my comments.

All I am saying is, at Barca noone would dare say a single bad word about Pep. Not openly. You just cant and have no reason to, the way he wants his football is how everyone is happy with.

There are not former players coming and saying anything even remotely negative and I dont recall articals questioning when he will win the CL. It is almost a unrealistic level of praise which is a combination of how great he is, his years as a former player and his pro Catalan independence stance. He is and was unquestioned, thats the only way to put it. A coach couldnt ask for less criticism.

At Bayern he doesnt have that. What he has is a normal situation where some former players question what he does, question his methods and the media build a narrative that he was to win the CL or he has failed. Its relatively normal, noone is suggesting otherwise.

All I am saying is, this is a man who "had enough" and needed a break. As a Barca fan and inspiring coach, I couldnt fathom a situation where the Barca situation brings on a need for a break after x amount of years, but the Bayern situation I can continue for longer.

And in the end, he obviously should do what he wants. But as Barca fan, it would sit quite uncomfortably with me if by the end he coached Bayern before years than Barca. Whatever the reasons.

[dostoevsky]

At Bayern however he doesn't have to put up with Mourinho being in the league and mouthing off at him every other week. I'm not suggesting that Mourinho drove him out of Barcelona by any means, however the media circus in those years was insane, sharing the league with such a vicious, aggressive egomaniac obsessed with besting you. Even when you beat him, he still mouths off. Coaching at Bayern by comparison is like attending a tea party, there's actual respect between the managers.

It's always possible that he returns to Barcelona eventually however, he might end up coaching longer there overall.

[dostoevsky]

Also part of me wants to see Pep renew because I love the way he plays football and at Bayern he has such a talented squad to work with that I can always tune in and be assured of entertainment, but I also don't want him to continue the dominance of the Bayern machine.

Spoiler:

[The Franchise]

At Bayern however he doesn't have to put up with Mourinho being in the league and mouthing off at him every other week. I'm not suggesting that Mourinho drove him out of Barcelona by any means, however the media circus in those years was insane, sharing the league with such a vicious, aggressive egomaniac obsessed with besting you. Even when you beat him, he still mouths off. Coaching at Bayern by comparison is like attending a tea party, there's actual respect between the managers.

It's always possible that he returns to Barcelona eventually however, he might end up coaching longer there overall.

That is true, that side of it is much easier at Bayern.

He could return to Barca, but as I said before I think for his sake, it would be better for him when the entire core of the team is gone. Messi, Pique, Iniesta and Alves. Maybe Busquets, but he is so easily to fit into a Pep team it wouldnt be an issue.

[Kaladin]

At Bayern however he doesn't have to put up with Mourinho being in the league and mouthing off at him every other week. I'm not suggesting that Mourinho drove him out of Barcelona by any means, however the media circus in those years was insane, sharing the league with such a vicious, aggressive egomaniac obsessed with besting you. Even when you beat him, he still mouths off. Coaching at Bayern by comparison is like attending a tea party, there's actual respect between the managers.

It's always possible that he returns to Barcelona eventually however, he might end up coaching longer there overall.

Good point, Mou always provoked Pep until he finally cracked, there was conference where he just exploded lol ("Mou is a f*cking genius" or something along those lines )

Spoiler:

[Hapless_Hans]

I feel we are going a little more in depth than needed for my comments.

All I am saying is, at Barca noone would dare say a single bad word about Pep. Not openly. You just cant and have no reason to, the way he wants his football is how everyone is happy with.

There are not former players coming and saying anything even remotely negative and I dont recall articals questioning when he will win the CL. It is almost a unrealistic level of praise which is a combination of how great he is, his years as a former player and his pro Catalan independence stance. He is and was unquestioned, thats the only way to put it. A coach couldnt ask for less criticism.

At Bayern he doesnt have that. What he has is a normal situation where some former players question what he does, question his methods and the media build a narrative that he was to win the CL or he has failed. Its relatively normal, noone is suggesting otherwise.

All I am saying is, this is a man who "had enough" and needed a break. As a Barca fan and inspiring coach, I couldnt fathom a situation where the Barca situation brings on a need for a break after x amount of years, but the Bayern situation I can continue for longer.

And in the end, he obviously should do what he wants. But as Barca fan, it would sit quite uncomfortably with me if by the end he coached Bayern before years than Barca. Whatever the reasons.

I think maybe it's simple.

First of all, he's a workaholic, by all accounts bordering on obsession, so maybe he just needs a break after a few years. Maybe his amount of committment to the job carries with it that he's not able to do it over many years without a break.

The other thing: the strain on him, when he has enough etc., surely should have more to do with inside going-ons in the club, then what some volatile editorial say after a loss.

And there, maybe the 'lesser' role at Bayern is actually more convenient, or less stressful, for him?

I can quote a passage from this book by Marti Perarnau, Herr Pep/Pep Confidential, though of course I wouldn't be sure it's the whole story. It might be telling still

The way Bayern support him is remarkable. Pep is less in charge than he was at Barcelona. Here he’s just the coach, but instead of making him feel uncomfortable, this ‘lesser’ role has been a liberation. His friend, Xavier Sala i Martín, puts it like this: ‘The burnout factor for Pep in Munich is less than at Barcelona because there he had to step into roles which shouldn’t really have been his, due to the lack of leadership there. There were moments when he seemed almost to be the president of Catalunya, the coach of FC Barcelona and the club spokesman. He had to fight accusations of doping, battle Mourinho and deal with UEFA. His work in Munich is much more normal.’

There's more to that effect in the book, which is tbh a Pep-Bayern wankfest though.

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