How Arteta, Enrique And Flick Are Inspired By Guardiola

The exemplary of shot that has travel to specify our era - often associated pinch Pep Guardiola, who expanded connected what he learned from Johan Cruyff and Louis van Gaal - is not only nan astir salient today, but besides nan 1 shaping nan coming and early of nan game.

Guardiola didn't invent 'juego de posicion' - aliases positional shot - but he developed it further than anyone earlier him, laying nan instauration for a caller taste framework. And whether we for illustration it aliases not, it has already taken over.

Indeed, 3 of Guardiola's disciples - Luis Enrique, Mikel Arteta and Hansi Flick - find themselves successful this week's Champions League semi-finals. The Guardiola measurement will again beryllium connected show astatine nan business extremity of Europe's biggest nine competition.

There has been increasing guidance to this model. Critics reason that it turns players into robots, removes spontaneity and asks defenders to behave for illustration midfielders.

Some fans and pundits consciousness it's overcoached, overly structured, and lacking nan chaos and excitement of "real football".

But possibly that guidance is missing nan broader image - aliases reacting not to nan exemplary itself, but to mediocre implementations of it.

Let's look astatine nan facts. Five of nan 8 Champions League quarter-finalists this play played a type of positional football. Clubs crossed Europe - moreover accepted powerhouses for illustration Liverpool and, eventually, Manchester United nether Ruben Amorim - are gravitating towards it.

It produces superb games, peculiarly successful European competition, wherever elite coaches and players amplify its potential. More than conscionable a style, it's a winning model.

Most importantly, it's a taste force. Clubs are hiring managers who judge successful it, academies are shaping players to fresh it, and shot acquisition globally is being reoriented astir it.

Not everyone gets it right. But that's ever been existent successful football. Not each squad successful nan 1970s could play for illustration Nottingham Forest aliases Liverpool - but galore tried, because those styles defined their time. Every era has a prevailing model, and it's earthy that astir teams move towards it.

We're emerging from a footballing civilization champion summarised as: system astatine nan back, state up front. In different words, we train nan defence and time off nan onslaught to nan imagination of nan forwards.

That's changing, but taste shifts return time. The caller footballing paradigm is settling in, but hasn't afloat taken clasp yet.

The attacking shape tin beryllium surgery down into 3 stages: nan build-up, nan building and nan finishing. The French moreover mention to an further shape - nan mentation of nan last walk - which sits betwixt building and finishing. But for nan intent of this discussion, let's instrumentality pinch three.

When Guardiola began coaching successful 2001, his attraction was connected nan build-up phase. The celebrated speech pinch Victor Valdes, successful which Valdes thought his head had gone huffy for asking him to walk to centre-backs who didn't want nan ball, is now portion of shot folklore. A landmark infinitesimal successful nan improvement of nan game.

After nan 2010 World Cup successful South Africa, and particularly pursuing nan norm alteration successful 2019 that allowed players to person nan shot from a goal-kick from wrong nan punishment area, training nan build-up shape became not conscionable communal practice, but a basal pillar of modern football.

The building shape - managing nan mediate 3rd - has taken longer to spread, but Guardiola had already started processing it astatine Barcelona, and refined it further astatine Bayern Munich and Manchester City.

The finishing phase, nevertheless - nan last enactment of an attacking move - remains mostly unorganised. Football still hasn't figured retired really to afloat systematise it. The civilization of nan game, among players and coaches alike, isn't rather fresh for it. But 1 day, a caller revolutionary will travel on and beforehand that last phase. That's nan history of football.

For now, we person superb practitioners perfecting nan exemplary arsenic it stands - arsenic good arsenic nan 3 semi-finalists, Unai Emery and moreover Enzo Maresca are 2 more. Roberto de Zerbi had started to push nan boundaries, but his advancement has stalled.

"Pep has been a reference for each of america who want to play shot successful a definite way… You ever study by watching his teams play. Always," said Paris St-Germain head Luis Enrique.

"Working alongside him changed nan measurement I spot football. He gave maine nan devices to beryllium a coach," said Arsenal's Arteta.

"Pep influenced maine a lot. He has an unthinkable expertise to organise nan game, to power abstraction and to perpetually find caller solutions. Watching him train Bayern was an eye-opener. He's 1 of nan top thinkers shot has ever had," added Barcelona's Flick.

Much of nan disapproval towards positional shot is rooted successful frustration: "If we can't do it well, let's not do it astatine all."

But that's not really advancement works. Just because only nan apical teams tin presently execute nan exemplary exceptionally good doesn't mean it's flawed. It intends we're watching shot successful transition. The speech shouldn't beryllium "this doesn't work", alternatively "how tin we instrumentality it better?"

It's easy to romanticise nan past, to reason that shot utilized to beryllium much spontaneous, much human. But nan truth is shot coming is better. More complex, much collective, much intelligently designed. It's harder to coach, harder to play and, erstwhile done well, arguably much beautiful to watch.

That's why managers for illustration Emery are truthful fascinating. He challenged his ain beliefs, publication nan improvement of nan crippled and adapted. He embraced positional principles not because of ideology, but because they offered greater control, clarity and consistency - moreover without elite-level players.

That benignant of elasticity is brave. Not each head tin do it. Not each subordinate tin either. But I respect clubs that take to unrecorded successful nan now, alternatively than clinging to what worked then.

Why shouldn't defenders for illustration Virgil van Dijk, Pau Torres aliases Pau Cubarsi touch nan shot much than midfielders? Why can't they beryllium nan architects of nan play? Why can't they beryllium nan domiciled models for a caller procreation of defenders?

Even PSG, a nine historically reliant connected individual brilliance, has adopted positional ideas successful onslaught - making judge they're prepared to property nan instant they suffer nan ball.

The hardest point successful football, arsenic successful life, is to look guardant and ideate what's next. It's acold easier to look backmost and opportunity "that was better".

I don't dress to cognize what shot will look for illustration successful a decade. But I perceive to those who do. And I judge positional play is nan coming - and nan future.

We are successful nan mediate of a taste shift. Some managers are trying to transcript nan model. Some are succeeding. Others are still learning. And yes, immoderate are resisting altogether.

But successful 5 years almost everyone will beryllium playing immoderate type of positional football. Not because they'll beryllium forced to, but because shot doesn't hold for those who garbage to evolve.

The adjacent procreation of coaches is already fluent successful its language. And soon it will beryllium universal.

We're not asking each edifice to beryllium Michelin-starred. But we are asking them to extremity serving stiff food.

Let's not conflict nan model. Let's bask nan process. Let's observe nan teams trying to get it correct - mixing building pinch their ain taste personality - alternatively of dismissing them because they're not Guardiola's City.

A caller shot civilization has taken complete - and it's present to stay.