I have absolutely no doubt that Pep Guardiola is a talented young manager. You would have to be an idiot to think otherwise considering his record at Barcelona.
When he gets to a club where he doesn’t have three or four of the world’s top five players, he may initially struggle- James Calvert
But is he really the sparkling managerial genius many – including vast swathes of the media – would have us believe?
I’m not so sure.
A few days ago the Spaniard announced he is to end his sabbatical from the game later this year, sparking a frenzy of media excitement. It was like football’s very own messiah was about to return.
Many of you will, of course, be thinking I am a bit mad to even question Guardiola’s talent. After all, you don’t win 14 trophies in four seasons unless you are pretty good at what you are doing.
And I don’t deny that’s true.
But were those trophies won purely as a result of his stunning managerial genius or was it perhaps a case of the right man in charge of the right club at the right time?
Allow me to explain.
Firstly, the overall Barcelona approach to football is not exactly something Guardiola created. From the moment young lads start off at the club they are brought up on a diet of passing football. And that philosophy runs through each and every one of their teams.
He may have refined the system and tinkered with the tactics but any changes he made to the style of play he inherited were evolutionary rather than revolutionary. It’s hardly like he took over a 1980s Wimbledon team and turned them into an Arsenal.
Secondly, what about the personnel he had at his disposal? His transfers were generally good and the team he built was undoubtedly stronger than the one he started with.
But let’s not forget that he took over a squad that just happened to include players like Carles Puyol, Xavi, Andres Iniesta, Thierry Henry and a certain Lionel Messi. I think it is fair to say most managers on the planet would give away an arm to have that group of players in their side. Even Steve Kean would have struggled to relegate a team with them playing.
Those two points make me wonder if the football world might not be going a little bit overboard about Guardiola’s talents.
As I said earlier, and I don’t mind saying it again, I am sure Guardiola, despite his young age, is good at his job and he will no doubt enjoy a long and fruitful managerial career.
But I can’t help feeling if he had been in charge of any other team on the planet from 2008 to 2012 he would not have enjoyed a fraction of the success he had with Barcelona.
I could be wrong, of course, and he could actually be some sort of super manager, incapable of anything other than producing amazing teams and collecting silverware like most of us collect parking tickets. Ultimately, however, I feel he hasn’t yet had a difficult job, and the praise he is receiving is somewhat overinflated.
Obviously that won’t stop a host of top clubs fighting for his signature. Chelsea are open admirers and cunningly have a vacancy opening up in five months; Manchester City are losing patience with Roberto Mancini’s regular European surrenders and even Manchester United might be wondering quietly if it might be worth persuading Sir Alex Ferguson to go sooner rather than later once Guardiola is available.
And that’s just his English suitors.
As with so many of these situations, only time will tell if there is any basis to my theory. He could very well take over at Chelsea (which is where I think he will go) and win another 14 trophies in four years.
I just think when he gets to a club where the football philosophy is not as well established as it was at Barcelona and where he doesn’t have three or four of the world’s top five players on the books, he may initially struggle.
If that happens, remember you read it here first.
Handled without care
Sometimes in life you are given golden opportunities that you stupidly fail to take. Like Liverpool striker Luis Suarez, for example.
When he scored a goal with his hand against Mansfield in the FA Cup, Suarez had the chance to win himself bags of brownie points by confessing his sin to the referee.
Instead he chose to take the moral low ground.
For a player with a growing reputation for diving and a conviction for racism, I can’t help but feel he missed the perfect chance to start rebuilding his image among followers of English football.
Maybe the handball was accidental, as it appeared to be. Maybe the referee did see it and decided the goal should stand. Maybe it would have been allowed to stand even if Suarez had owned up.
But the very act of telling the ref what really happened would have gone such a long way towards repairing the player’s reputation.
This was an opportunity he should have grasped with both hands.
Should they stay or go?
The ‘walking off the pitch because of racist crowds’ debate is one that’s particularly hard to call.
On the one hand I fully understand a player not wanting to stay on the pitch in the face of racist abuse from the stands. You wouldn’t put up with it in everyday life so why should you just because you happen to be playing football?
However, at the same time, I think the very act of walking off the pitch in the middle of a game causes its own problems.
Where do you draw the line on that? Can players start to walk off the pitch because the crowd is hurling offensive but non-racist abuse at them?
What if players start using alleged crowd abuse as a reason to walk off the pitch in games they are losing?
This is a particularly ugly can of worms.
The bit I don’t get about all this is that racism was rampant 30 or 40 years ago but, up until the last couple of years, it was all but extinct.
Yet now it’s back with a vengeance and I’m struggling to understand why it has suddenly become ‘fashionable’ again.
Has increased media coverage inspired idiots to take it up again? Or has society become more sensitive and dropped its tolerance levels.
An interesting, if unsavoury, debate.
The cup of plenty
The League Cup just won’t stop giving this year.
I’ve said for a while it is my new favourite competition and last week’s semi-final first legs have only served to reinforce that opinion.
Lowly Bradford City were magnificent in beating Aston Villa, a real David and Goliath story that is driven home by the fact that one of the Bradford goal scorers is paid just £200 (€242) a week. Many of Villa’s players probably spend that much every day on headphones and petrol for their Baby Bentleys.
The second semi, which saw Swansea win 2-0 at Stamford Bridge, was equally enthralling, if not in terms of performances then certainly in terms of result.
That means there is now a serious chance of a Bradford vs Swansea final at Wembley.
Don’t we all wish we had had a little bet on that particular line-up at the start of the competition…?
Meanwhile some interesting factoids emerged during these semi-finals.
Firstly, when Michu scored it meant his 16 goals for Swansea have cost the club roughly £125,000 (€151,000) each while Fernando Torres’ 26 goals have come at the price of £1.9 million (€2.3m) each.
Another is that in Rafa Benitez’s six home matches in charge of Chelsea they have failed to score on four occasions. However, they scored 14 goals in the other two games.
Finally, last Tuesday’s result means Bradford have now beaten more Premiership teams this season than Queens Park Rangers.
Eat your heart out Harry Redknapp…
sportscolumnist@timesofmalta.com
Twitter: @maltablade