Pep Guardiola’s zonal theory will take time for Manchester City to learn

[Rousseau 10,499]

The fashion these days is to knife a manager at the first sign of trouble. Nobody is allowed to build, nobody is allowed to learn from a mistake. Move to a new country, take over a new team, try to adapt to a new environment and if you’re not winning titles six months later you’re a fraud. Neither Jürgen Klopp nor Pep Guardiola are under pressure as such heading into Sunday’s game at the Etihad, but both are facing grumblings of discontent.

 

When Steve McClaren was sacked by Derby last week it meant that a quarter of all league clubs had changed their manager in the previous 100 days. Aitor Karanka’s exit from Middlesbrough then followed on Thursday. The level of churn is absurd and counterproductive on a number of levels. It’s a troubling thought that, had they been working in the modern era, there is a significant chance Herbert Chapman, Matt Busby, Don Revie, Bill Shankly, Brian Clough (twice) and Alex Ferguson would all have been sacked before they had enjoyed real success.

 

Sacking managers has economic consequences and makes player recruitment over the long-term chaotic. But there are also tactical implications. Short-termism breeds simplicity and conservatism. Few managers, knowing the sword is dangling over their heads, are going to take tactical risks, or are going to seek to impose a system that takes time for players to assimilate. Everything will be simplified; nobody will look beyond the next game.

 

Liverpool, in the first half of this season, showed what Klopp’s approach can achieve – but it took lots of work last season and in the summer to get to that point. The issue now is to work out what has gone wrong since the turn of the year and put it right for next season (probably by expanding the squad, perhaps by trying to lessen the physical load at least to an extent and certainly by trying to improve the defence and work out a way of unlocking deep-lying opponents).

 

Guardiola’s project, his basic theory of play, is more complex. His preferred term for his philosophy is juego de posición and to instil it he divides the training pitch into 20 sections. The lines marking the penalty areas are extended for the full length and width of the pitch, while the vertical lines marking the sides of the six-yard box are picked up again at the edge of the 18-yard box and extended to the edge of the other 18-yard box. The zones nearest the touchlines are then split again, halfway between the 18-yard and halfway lines.

 

The idea is that players adjust their position according to which zone the ball is in. But that is just the foundation: ideally players should be flexible enough to fill a zone that would, in the initial template, be filled by somebody else, creating a level of rotation to overman in key areas while maintaining a structure that should both offer passing options and maintain a defensive shape that can react effectively to the loss of possession and a counterattack by being immediately prepared to counter-press.

 

At its simplest level, the zone principle should mean that no more than three players are in a line horizontally and no more than two vertically: if a player moves into a zone that means four in the same horizontal line are occupied, one of the other three should automatically move. That should ensure that the man on the ball always has two or three passing options and allows possession to be retained – the endless rondos that Guardiola favours in training making his players supremely adept at giving and receiving the ball in tight spaces – which is why his sides regularly have so much of the ball.

 

When it is not aimed directly at the opposition goal, passing is designed to allow the team to generate the right structure, whether to mount an attack or to be prepared to counter-press. Guardiola has said it takes 15 passes for that structure to be created. There is, in other words, a direct link between offensive and defensive strategies.

 

“Do you know how Barcelona win the ball back so quickly?” Johan Cruyff asked during Guardiola’s spell as coach at the Camp Nou. “It’s because they don’t have to run back more than 10 metres as they never pass the ball more than 10 metres.”

 

Instilling those positional ideas is difficult. While basic elements such as a holding midfielder dropping between the two centre-backs to overman when playing out from the back against two centre-forwards, or even the full-back coming inside when the winger goes wide and vice versa, can be readily grasped, the principle of responding constantly to a mental pitch map is rather harder.

 

At Barcelona, Guardiola was dealing with players who had been prepared for his extreme interpretation of the theory from their upbringing at La Masia; at Bayern Munich, he was working with players who had been instructed in a (more cautious) variant of the philosophy by Louis van Gaal.

 

At City, he was virtually starting from scratch, which is perhaps why implementation there has proved so much trickier. It seems likely there will be a clearout in the summer and that more signings will be made but perhaps most important is that players who are already at the club assimilate the 20-zone system.

 

Since the defeat at Everton there have been promising signs in that direction, which perhaps explains why Guardiola was so clearly irritated by his players’ lack of fight in the first half in Monaco. As he relentlessly rubbed ear and nose, only breaking off every now and again to scratch his chin, he reiterated that the defeat had not been the result of individual errors or tactics but of attitude. That, of course is also partly his responsibility, but losing to Monaco in that way doesn’t invalidate his more general strategic approach.

 

Sunday’s game is essentially a battle for the minor places, a scrap to see who reaches the Champions League. That is a cause of frustration, particularly given how Antonio Conte has – with no European football – had an instant impact at Chelsea but, realistically, in both managers’ first full season, at this point their sides were always going to be works in progress.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2017/mar/18/pep-guardiola-manchester-city-liverpool-barcelona-bayern-munich

Edited March 18, 2017 by Rousseau

[Uilleam 5,924]

I was just going to post this, but you sneaked an early goal.

 

To a perhaps lesser extent, PC has a similar problem - getting players to adapt to methods, systems, etc, with which they may not be familiar.

And, of course, even before a ball is kicked, there are those who have him hung, drawn, and divided into zones.

 

"Sacking managers has economic consequences and makes player recruitment over the long-term chaotic."

 

To me this is key, in the short, medium, and longer term, and, hence, I think, DK's preferrred option of a DoF operating with a coach/manager.

[Rousseau 10,499]

I agree. I was also interested by this:

 

"At Barcelona, Guardiola was dealing with players who had been prepared for his extreme interpretation of the theory from their upbringing at La Masia; at Bayern Munich, he was working with players who had been instructed in a (more cautious) variant of the philosophy by Louis van Gaal."

 

How do we expose our youth players to these ideas, so any manager has the best raw materials with which to mold and use? I suppose the answer again could be a DoF?

Edited March 18, 2017 by Rousseau

[Uilleam 5,924]

I agree. I was also interested by this:

 

"At Barcelona, Guardiola was dealing with players who had been prepared for his extreme interpretation of the theory from their upbringing at La Masia; at Bayern Munich, he was working with players who had been instructed in a (more cautious) variant of the philosophy by Louis van Gaal."

 

How do we expose our youth players to these ideas, so any manager has the best raw materials with which to mold and use? I suppose the answer again could be a DoF?

 

The bigger problem may be in finding age group coaches sophisticated enough to teach this kind of thing to younger boys (and girls?)

[Rousseau 10,499]

The bigger problem may be in finding age group coaches sophisticated enough to teach this kind of thing to younger boys (and girls?)

 

True, but then that would be part of the DoF's remit, whether that would be to educate coaches already here -- it doesn't have to be the whole theory at the younger levels but certain principles that older age groups can build upon -- and/or bring in coaches that know these theories.

Edited March 18, 2017 by Rousseau

[Uilleam 5,924]

The aim should be to produce players of tactical nous and sophistication, increasing the these qualities through the age groups.

Producing such players would make Murray Park attractive to younger players and their parents.

[craig 5,199]

I would argue technical over tactical until they get to U11 or U12 - U12 would be best I suspect as that is when they move to 11-a-side. At that point tactical gets brought in but tactical interpretation would be something best brought in at the U13 and U14 level.

 

Without technical competence tactical interpretation is pointless.

[Rousseau 10,499]

I would argue technical over tactical until they get to U11 or U12 - U12 would be best I suspect as that is when they move to 11-a-side. At that point tactical gets brought in but tactical interpretation would be something best brought in at the U13 and U14 level.

 

Without technical competence tactical interpretation is pointless.

 

I bow to your superior experience in coaching youngsters, and I agree prioritising technical ability at the younger age groups is sensible, but are there not certain tactical principles -- not whole theories at that age, of course -- that they can learn, pre-11-a-side, with which older age groups can build upon?

 

It would be interesting to see how continental sides incorporate the tactical element -- they seem to be more competent tactically... and technically too!