PEP GUARDIOLA’S POSSESSION style of play has come under fire from former Bayern Munich manager Giovanni Trapattoni.
The ex-Republic of Ireland boss says Guardiola’s tiki-taka approach that he honed at Barcelona does not produce the rewards, despite the 45-year-old winning 19 trophies as a manager since taking over at Camp Nou in 2008.
Guardiola looks set to take that number to 20, with Bayern top of the Bundesliga with six games remaining. However, Trapattoni is not impressed.
The veteran believes a more direct approach brings better results, and Guardiola — who will take charge of Manchester City at the end of the season — would be wise to adapt his style going forward.
“What I see in world football at the moment is true for Bayern especially,” Trap told SportBild. “For me it’s too much possession. Tick, tack, tick, tack. Tuck, tuck, tuck. To and fro. With too little revenue. And after 27 minutes they shoot on the goal for the first time — that’s too little revenue.
“You have to attack with more determination. There is a goal in the middle and the midfielders pass the ball backwards, 70 metres away from that goal. I do not like it, for me it’s too much.
“There was a Swede at AC Milan 30 years ago: Nils Liedholm. He started with permanent possession. But football is jab jab. Shoot and score. The thing with possession is not new — with Pep it’s extreme.”
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I like the sound of this Trapattoni guy and his direct approach ideas. Possible replacement for Martin O’Neill?
Trap’s style worked a treat in Euro 2012
To be fair to trap he got the two teams that eventually met in the final..?
And Croatia were the “bad” team we met…
I agree with more direct route in football but i like the way pep does it sometimes, but i think he’ll fail at city because he’s other two jobs have been easy enough in my opinion
His*
Lot of buts there. It was a joy to watch Peps Barca keep the ball, Ahead of its time and it always ended up with a great run in behind or space opening up on the edge of the box for a shot from anyone of the top class players that played for him.
Pep’s philosophy is simple: if you have the ball the other side usually will not score. I certainly prefer that to Trap’s idea of passing the ball back to Ward or Coleman at f/b and have them leather the thing as far away from our half as possible. Horrible to watch and fairly ineffectual over Trap’s reign. Old history now but the best Irish performance under Trap was v France in Paris in 2009. We played proper football all night and were undone by poor refereeing.
That is actually Johan Cruijff’s philosophy. He coached Guardiola who was part of Barcelona’s dream team of the early 90′s that won 4 la liga’s and the Europa Cup at Wembley in 1991 from a screamer of a free kick of Ronald Koeman.
I used to love Madrid under Ancelotti. Win the ball back and a few touches from 3-4 players and its in the onion bag. Fast and direct all the way for me.
I always preferred Heyneckes’ Batern to Guardiola’s myself.
I didn’t like the way Barcelona played under pep. Ticie tak and loud of driving. Give me Liverpool 80s or man United under Ferguson any day over that boring crap
It’s more about defending because the other team can’t score when you have the ball. Same with van gaal awful boring to watch unless you have a Messi or someone special to make it more interesting
Kick it up the line and win your throw ins after the full back heads it out of play. That’s the beautiful game
Calm down joe