Pep Guardiola and The Ball
Watching Pep Guardiola’s post match press conference subconsciously hypnotizes your brain with two words. Control and the ball.
These are the two most used words by Pep regardless of the result, the opponent or the performance. It’s all about the ball and control. With the ball, you can control your fate. Without the ball, you must regain the ball back, to control your fate.
Ivan Toney, Brentford’s center forward summarized it excellently after Manchester City’s win at the Brentford Community Stadium. “Year 11s stole our ball”
Without the ball, Brentford can’t utilize their wing play. Without the ball, Brentford can’t be a threat from set pieces. And without the ball, there won’t be a second phase from the set pieces. And this was what Manchester City and Pep wanted.
“Some games play with one rhythm that we need to win, and today we need this type of rhythm to play. If you make attack quick, they will attack quicker. And this attack quicker that they used to do it with Toney and the other ones, they finish you really good. They create free kicks, corners and these kind of set pieces.” Guardiola said after the game.
The sentence “If you make attack quick, they will attack quicker.” rings a bell because it’s similar to the one Guardiola used after City’s win in the derby at Old Trafford.
“I ask (the players) in the half time more passes. We had to pass more the ball. So when you attack a little bit quicker then you need to attack, they will attack you much much quicker. In the transitions they are much better. So we have to rifle together and with that is more passes, more passes, more passes. Maybe we don’t have a lot of chances in this way but the chances are more clear and enough to win the games.”
City wanted to minimize the transitions and their method? The ball. By slowing down the game, City players aren’t only able to limit the transitions with safer short steady passes, but also by positioning themselves correctly to be able to counter-press once they lose the ball. By altering the tempo of the game and owning the ball, City create their own La Paz.
Depending on the game state and the opponent, City can also raise the tempo and weave their way through an opponent. The first half away to Watford was of a team possessed, as was the 7–0 annihilation of Leeds United. When City want to elevate the intensity of the passing, they can do.
“In football when you have the ball always you have to walk, and run at the right moment.” Guardiola told The Athletic’s Sam Lee last season.
This gives them different attacking options as well. For example, the slow rhythm against Manchester United allowed Ilkay Gundogan, Kevin De Bruyne and Bernardo Silva to position themselves in places where they can penetrate United’s block while still maintaining total control. Then, the slightly faster rhythm against Paris Saint-Germain allowed City to exploit the space outside of PSG’s full backs.
Without the ball, it’s a similar story. Since last season, City have been choosing when to press with full throttle, and when to passively press the opponent and block the passing angles. Aggressively pressing the opponent high up the pitch as they did away to Chelsea and at home to Leeds might be needed, but at other times City are pressing less aggressively and further down the pitch. Controlling where the opponent is going to play the ball by blocking passing angles, instead of harrying towards them.
The only exception is probably when City are in possession then lose the ball. At that time, all hell breaks loose as the City players counter-press the opponent to the abyss like dogs of war.
“And when we don’t have the ball we have to run like it’s the last ball in your life.”
For all the mastery of the set pieces, the attacking patterns, the pressing schemes, the rest-defence shapes, City’s true power is in knowing when and how to use these strengths against different opponents that play different styles of play. Going all the way from pin-ball passing combinations to 0.25x passing speed.
Guardiola’s affiliation with the ball is like a mother with her child. He attacks with the ball, defends with the ball, breathes with the ball. Slowing down games and igniting fire to others by manipulating the tempo of the passes. Defending by denying the opponent possession of the ball, or by moving in the correct positions in possession to maintain a strong rest-defence in case the ball was lost. All with the ball.
And that has been the case since his Barcelona days. “What I learn here (Barcelona) everything starts with the ball and finishes with the ball. So, sometimes we forget that it’s a game 11 vs 11, with one ball. We try to keep this ball, we try to play with the ball, we try to make everything with the ball and that is what we learn when you start as a boy here.”
No wonder the ball and control are his most used words. Because as he sees it, only with the ball you can have total control.
