Pep Guardiola's defensive revolution.. Josko Gvardiol completes Manchester City's missing episode!
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Manchester City's pursuit of Josko Gvardiol confirms Catalan coach Pep Guardiola's shift towards relying on defenders rather than forwards.
Josco Gvardiol's teammates were calling him "little Pep," because of his name resemblance to Pep Guardiola's name. The Croatian is now close to joining Guardiola at Manchester City on a £100 million deal from Leipzig, making him the most expensive defender in history.
Gvardiol has the qualities Guardiola wants in defenders, and
The Croatian, who was one of the best defenders at the 2022 World Cup and has produced two outstanding seasons in the Bundesliga, is expected to make Manchester City's treble-winning defence stronger and tougher.
Refreshed with tremendous strength
Gvardiol has one capacity that Guardiola always asks of his defenders, the technical ability that gives the player confidence while possessing the ball. He has something that has become a more important requirement for the coach, an amazing physical strength.
His strength is very difficult for opponents to overcome, and enables him to rush hard forward to start attacks, as he did repeatedly during Croatia's semi-final qualification in Qatar.
He also showed his strength in the first leg between Leipzig and Manchester City in the Champions League, scoring his side's equaliser with a powerful header. That night, he also overtook Haaland in an exciting physical battle, maximizing the Norwegian for just one shot. Haaland retaliated in the second leg, scoring five goals in his team's 7-0 win.
Distinguished Talent
Gvardiol's calm on the ball, and his sound decision-making is what sets him apart from other defenders.
Besides his ability to use his left foot, which allows him to start attacks smoothly after recovering the ball, enabling him to head to left-back position during games, or even on the left side, of midfield. This makes him impressive for Guardiola given his new vision for his team.
From a wary observer to a maniac at left-back.
The Catalan coach, he's always been a fan of right-back and attacking left-back. His strong Barcelona team relied heavily on running, crosses for Dani Alves
But City's gameplay changed with Haaland's arrival, and the presence of a central striker led them to lose control of possession, as opposed to when they played with a mock striker, making them more vulnerable to counter-attacks.
Guadriola might exploit Gvardiol in his new configuration.
Ake and Akanji excel as full-backs
Those changes prompted Guardiola to prioritize old defenders such as Nathan Ake, who had switched from central defender, to left-back after the World Cup, eventually choosing him instead of Cancelo.
When Ake suffered two injuries in the final three months of the season, Guardiola did the same with Manuel Akanji. Besides Stones who excelled at playing as defensive quarterbacks.
Doors closed for Bayern Munich and Real Madrid
When Guardiola began the experience of playing with four central defenders in March, it caused Kyle Walker to be removed for a short time, and the manager expressed doubts about the England defender's ability to play as a left-back.
But as the team strengthened and improved in the new format and progressed towards a treble, Guardiola seemed more enthusiastic about his old defenders.
In six FA Cup games, they conceded only one goal, and in the elimination stages of the Champions League, they conceded only three goals in seven games, beating Real Madrid 4-0, Bayern Munich 3-0, and Leipzig 7-0 in the games in their stadium.
"The greatest talent of football."
When Manchester City secured the Premier League title, Guardiola emphasized Ake's influence, saying the Dutchman "gave me the push I didn't have in the past." He praised his defence more immediately after City's Champions League win in Istanbul after a strong performance against Inter. "Being a good defender, I consider you the greatest talent in football," he said.
This is a big shift from a coach who has built one of the most exciting teams ever in Barcelona, someone who always seems excited about attacking now sings the virtues of defending. His stalking of Javardiol proves to be a strong focus on this new system.
If Manchester City succeed in completing this signing, they will not only be able to rely on one of the world's best defenders, they will offer them the perfect defensive structure in which they can thrive and help them continue to dominate the world.
Hi bro, nice post.
One thing I try to do is make sure I listen to these guys in addition to watching what they do.
Now firstly, people usually forget that you don't score against that Pep Barca easily at all. People think it's just because they possess the ball, they forget how 3 players will immediately swoop on you to recover the ball, once that Barca team looses the ball. That's defence from all over the pitch(especially from the front), but their attractive passing-game lured a lot of people into overlooking the fact that Pep was actually very good defensively at Barca and Bayern.
Now on listening to Pep himself. I personally listened to Pep explain his English experience. He discovered:
The physicality was a shock and something he had never experienced before.
The game play in England kept frustrating his style. He said the number of times the ball is hoofed into the air was alarming to him and there was a danger of teams scoring you with those long balls.
So that's it, both points pointed to the need for physicality. He didn't need that kind of physicality before England, so when he came to England in the beginning he had no qualms benching the exquisite physical specimen of a player– Yaya Toure.
But England taught him a lesson and he had to go for physicality, not that his system had a fault per se. BTW these were the things fans kept telling Wenger at a time, they will say this team is beautiful, but too soft, buy physical players.
Well Pep didn't waste time to adapt and he therefore changed and intentionally began recruitmenting more physical players especially around the defensive areas(midfield or defence). That's the City you now have.
Thank you bro
Guardiola is a coach who prefers defense, but through possession. As long as the ball is at the feet of his players, the team cannot receive opportunities. Everything happens with the ball, as the coach described it in an old dialogue at the beginning of his career with Barcelona.
This appeared in what the coach presented with Barcelona, when Victor Valdez succeeded in winning the Zamora Award as the least goal-receiving goalkeeper in La Liga in 4 consecutive years.
And when he left to coach Bayern Munich, it was also the team that conceded the least goals in 3 consecutive seasons, meaning that Guardiola's team in 7 different seasons showed significant defensive strength, but only in an unusual way.
My pleasure, an insightful blog like yours, will tend to attract analysers.🙂
Well, on this your latest note, it happens that I have replied it above already. Like I said people often forget the FEROCIOUS PRESSING OF BARCA WHEN THEY LOOSE POSSESSION, this is also key to Pep's style– City does this press too.
Yup eventhough he described his possession style in the old dialogue you talked about, there has been so many other dialogues and publications after then, that we have monitored.
So the truth is, his defensive masterstroke is not only about possession, it also includes quickly recovering the ball when you loose it. He once gave his players an exact number of seconds by which time he expects them to retrieve the ball, if they loose it.
My regards man.
Cheers