Bayern Munich coach Pep Guardiola returned to the Nou Camp and realized that the fearsome Barcelona team he built is still in devastating form as the Germans were crashed 3-0 by the Spanish giants in their Champions League match.
It is rarely a good idea to strain against your instincts, for a team to reject its true identity and play in someone else’s image, even if it just for one night, and few managers have understood that better than Pep Guardiola. His career has been a triumph of self-belief, of trust in his football and the ability of his players. Guardiola has famously said that his job is to work out how to demolish the opposition.
His teams are taught to attack from the first whistle until the last. It is not in their nature to defend and that is what makes them great. It is why Guardiola won 14 trophies during that glittering four-year spell as Barcelona’s manager.
Yet this did not have the smell of an occasion that called for a demolition job from Bayern Munich. The suspicion was that Guardiola, back at the Camp Nou as a visiting manager for the first time, would be compelled to betray his principles: to sit, to wait, to accept the inevitable – that there are individuals in this Barcelona team who can make even world champions appear amateurish by comparison.
The Barcelona fans had a clear and simple message in mosaic form – “We are ready”. They wanted revenge for their 7-0 aggregate thumping in their semi-final against Bayern two years ago. The Germans side, deprived of David Alaba, Holger Badstuber, Franck Ribéry and Arjen Robben, this time, were warned. Guardiola? You could have been forgiven for thinking that he was parking the bus when his line-up was announced.
At first glance, there were five defenders in the Bayern team. There was a hint of lockdown, of them squeezing the space in midfield and throwing a straitjacket over Neymar, Luis Suárez and Lionel Messi.
Yet Guardiola, of course, is a tactical illusionist. He made a low-key entrance, darting straight to the dug-out just before kick-off, but he wanted to be expansive. The impression forms of a man who would be unable to live with himself if he played reactive football.
Bayern, though, were missing the pace of Robben and Ribéry, while Robert Lewandowski was wearing a mask to protect the broken nose and fractured jaw he suffered against Borussia Dortmund last week. Sometimes, as Floyd Mayweather demonstrated against Manny Pacquiao, there is virtue in pragmatism. Novak Djokovic is another masterful counterpuncher.
Bayern’s approach during the opening exchanges was admirable and courageous. It was also incredibly foolhardy.
They came out swinging haymakers, pressing high, and Lewandowski almost scored. Yet their back three of Jérôme Boateng, Mehdi Benatia and Rafinha was given the unenviable task of man-marking Neymar, Suárez and Messi. By the 15th minute, the Bayern defenders must have been wishing that the ground would swallow them whole.
Barcelona were magnificent in the first half, the wonderful Andrés Iniesta irrepressible, gliding past Bastian Schweinsteiger and Xabi Alonso as if they were mere puffs of smoke. Messi was making life miserable for Rafinha and Juan Bernat. Jordi Alba roared down the left.
For long spells, all that stood between Bayern and humiliation was Manuel Neuer, who made exceptional saves to deny Suárez and Dani Alves. Neuer also sweeper-keepered brilliantly when Neymar threatened on the hour. Yet even Neuer cut a disconsolate figure when Neymar made it 3-0 in stoppage time.
Guardiola had accepted that his team was outmatched by then, switching to a back four, and it was looking frustrating for Luis Enrique’s team until Messi finally broke Neuer’s resistance in the 77th minute.
Who else? Guardiola must have feared the worst when Bayern lost the ball just outside their area. Perhaps they had been worn down by all that chasing. Soon the ball was on Messi’s left foot, 20 yards from goal, and we all know what that means. And finally, Neuer had no answer.
Better late than never. The tension was lifted and three minutes later, Messi brought the house down with an extraordinary goal, a moment to rival that stunning solo effort against Real Madrid four years ago. Boateng was left on his backside, dazed and confused, and Messi’s dink over Neuer with his supposedly weaker right foot was a reminder of why he is the best in the world, if not all time.
If there is one consolation for Guardiola, he had told us that Messi is unstoppable.
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