Guardiola/Bayern Spotlight
CL semi-final second leg Bayern 0 - Real Madrid 4 ( Real Madrid won the tie 5-0 on aggr.)
Well that was Lahm to the Slaughter! ( I hope you saw what I did with the 'lamb' there? )
Mannschafted!
Bayern were toothless and Madrid were ruthless
It was a humiliation. End of!
Easy demolition of an overrated club, from the overrated league, with the overrated team led by way overrated Chancer coach
Overrated club & league
The Bundesliga has essentially been a '2-team' league for a while now- Bayern & Dortmund
But Bayern are the financial juggernauts. Hence, it is easy to buy all the best players in that league.
What is even more annoying is the fact that, every year, they buy Dortmund's most prized assets- the latter club being the only one that can seriously challenge their supremacy in the Bundesliga
Dortmund had found a way to remain very competitive until this season- when mind-boggling injuries to key players and a want-out Lewandowski ( Bayern destination) ensured that Bayern won the league at a canter with months to spare.
Bayern started believing the hype
It's not surprising that when half-decent competition can along in the CL, they struggled badly
Arsenal definitely stretched them, even Powder puff Man Utd (:D ) fancied their chances for long spells of their encounter. Losing 0-3 to Dortmund at home recently should have been another warning bell
Real Madrid eventually told them over 2 legs that: "you're not all that afterall"
Ribery is not the player he was last season, Robben's game is predictable when facing top-class opposition, it has always been felt that the CB pairing of Dante & Boateng had a soft underbelly- rarely exposed by the poor quality of the opposition in the Bundesliga. These duo were like watching drunks trying to traverse a bouncy castle yesterday
I think Bayern may be left further behind by the English and Spanish teams next year, because they are making so much money and may invest so much on new players next summer. This will make them much stronger than ever before. But there is something Bayern can't buy- it's called competition. It goes without saying that it's required to make you competitive
Overrated Manager
The most -sought -after -Manager -in -the- world hubris after he left Barcelona for his sabbatical in the US was of Titanic size. He even managed to piss off Chelsea's Russian Oligarch by snubbing him Nobody snubs Roman! N.O.B.O.D.Y!!
Chancer? :
Guardiola is a die-hard 'Purist' His entire philosophy is based on possession football. Unalloyed tiki-taka . This brought him unbelievable success with the best football team the world has ever seen- Barcelona 2009-2011
That Barcelona side were in their pomp and looked invincible. Maybe that side was not so much the result of a philosophy but a coming together of a set of players ( Iniesta, Xavi and the X factor, Messi ) and a good manager, as is often the way with great sides. That team also had pace in
No team has played Tiki Taka with as much pace since 2011
This current Bayern side is slow and ponderous- a dream for teams which are defensively organised at the back
Ancelotti's triumph over Guardiola is a victory for tactical adjustment against stylistic orthodoxy. Managers like Mourinho and Ancelotti don't play a particular style, they aim to prevent the other team from playing their own style. Ancelotti got it spot on!
Guardiola's entire philosophy is being questioned, despite a sparkling ( one-club, it must be reiterated ) managerial CV
Sometimes you just need to grind out a 1-0 result. Why throw caution to the wind. It's admirable to have a philosophy, but the one who adapts survive better than the one who cannot.
Ah, I love the smell of death to tiki-taka in the morning!! ( paraphrased from the film 'Apocalypse Now' )
The irony is Bayern adopted the very same playing style they crushed a year ago. Real Madrid played the way Bayern did under Heynckes. And yet the result over 2 legs was the same (well, almost, Real were 2 goals short- remember Ronaldo's & Di Maria's misses in the first leg? ). Bayern got Barca'ed
If it ain't broke, don't fix it, yeah?
It was the biggest home defeat in the Champions League for Bayern Munich.
To reiterate, I reckon what this performance showed, more than anything, was just how good Guardiola's Barca were
So, basically, Real Madrid: Gegenpress. Bayern Munich: Tiki taka. We may as well go all the way and say #PepOut because he's taken one of the most dynamic and talented teams in the world and regressed them to playing a style that everybody now knows how to beat.
( actually #PepOut is just the Mourihista in me. There is a time to be fair. This is not it. Lol But you can't argue that the odds that he'll make it to the end of his
The Bayern inquest will centre on the lack of an obvious Plan B from Guardiola -once the possession football had been blunted. Inept defending yesterday didn't help his cause eithe
Somewhere right now, Hoeness, Rummenigge, Sammer and Beckenbauer are wondering if employing Guardiola was a colossal mistake
Why did Bayern choose Guardiola after they dismantled tiki taka just last season? One thing you can't accuse 'fc Hollywood' board of is dithering when it comes to firing Managers. I don't think it has come to that for Guardiola yet.
But he's got some more convincing to do from now on.
The blame Moyes for everything camp puts a spin to all this: Pep faces Moyes, catches his sh*tness, becomes a self-parody, things end badly
To all the football "purists" who come to these parts to lecture us on how the game should be played, LOL.
To all the Pep Boys in particular: HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA . (I might live to regret this after the game tonight, but.....Meh! )
Digressions-
On another note, this is turning out to be quite the week for Mourinho - 'destroying' his former student ( Rodgers) , seeing his nemesis (Guardiola) pulverised, and a chance to come face to face with the club that ran him out of town. (Somewhere at The Bridge, he is sniggering while sipping the finest of wine....6 words on his lips: "That Opportunist has been found out" )
Ancelotti probably has an AX to grind with Abramovic too- after his controversial AXING by Chelsea some seasons back
If the Gods of Narrative have any say in this, Chelsea will face Real Madrid in this season's CL
final
Yo!, Modric is currently the best midfielder in the world- Any dissenting voice?
Sartorial vanity zone
Ancelloti's "Capo in an Italian crime syndicate" cardigan with suit look versus Guardiola's "French embassy attache but really a spy" garb. No contest- Ancelloti wins all the time
Ancelotti is the Purveyor of cool, init? You'd think that if he was parachuted into Kiev with his trademark raised eyebrow, all that Russia-Ukraine ish will be toast, init?
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