Guardiola, Klopp, Pochettino, Emery: The idealists with a pinch of pragmatism
It’s the 80th minute, and you’re 2–0 down at home, and in desperate need to at least securing a point. Considering your team has shipped in 2 goals and has failed to score during the first 80 minutes, as a manager, do you still stick with your ideals and style of play, or purely act on the situation rather than ideals.
This one of the main struggles that managers face on a regular basis; finding the exact balance between winning and footballing DNA. How much of your footballing DNA and ideals do you have to sacrifice to win?
José Mourinho would prefer playing counter-attacking football with strong defensive solidity, willing to sacrifice attacking intent if it meant it helped him win or got him closer to a title. On the other hand, Pep Guardiola would be almost unwilling to sacrifice his possession-oriented, Cryuff-influenced style of play, even if hoofing it up would be the better solution.
Pep Guardiola
Whether Pep Guardiola could replicate his success at a smaller team remains to be seen, but either way he’s nevertheless regarded as one of the best managers in the world and will go down as one of the best managers in history. A manager who’s brought the idea of playing out the back, the goalkeeper as someone good with the ball, and the use of inverted fullbacks to the Premier League, Guardiola has brought quite a lot to the Premier League.
Many would consider Pep to have struck the right balance between idealism and pragmatism. As talented as the Manchester City squad and the amount of money he’s spent, it’s up to Pep on how he wants the team to play, and how to get the best out of everyone. Pep remains an idealist with a pinch of pragmatism, finding ways to win without completely sacrificing his footballing DNA.
“I am pragmatic,” he said in December 2016, a time when he had received criticism for a perceived dogmatic approach. “Look at my past, I am so pragmatic. I’m here because I won. I want to win. I’m so pragmatic, guys — concede few goals and score goals.”
In City’s crucial win against Liverpool at the beginning of the new year, City only managed 50% possession and completed 594 passes, 13.5% less than their average possession (63.5%) and at least 103 passes lower than their average (697.1), suggesting that Pep is willing to surrender some possession and in part the intensity of his style of play if it meant winning and stifling the opposition.
While Pep may surrender some of his team’s possession, he wouldn’t drop back and defend but still opt for a more conservative pressing style that would help with ball retention, allowing them to dictate the game. For Pep’s football to work, he needs at least 50% of the ball.
Jürgen Klopp
The # of trophies and win % rate doesn’t suggest that Klopp’s a good or top manager, but when you watch the way his teams play, then it’s easier to understand. Klopp uses gegenpressing, A tactic in which a team, after losing possession of the ball, immediately attempts to win back possession, rather than falling back to regroup. While teams would usually fall back into shape, Klopp wants his teams to press, whether it’s pressing the player with the ball, or pressing the options that the player with the ball has.
In the past, some of Klopp’s biggest critics have stated his inability to be more pragmatic is what has cost him. Whether it was the Europa League final against Sevilla in 2016, or the Champions League final against Real Madrid in 2018, Klopp doesn’t have a good track record in finals, and that’s presumably down to his ideals. While Mourinho is the master of finals, remaining defensively organised and calculating while not leaving themselves exposed, Klopp still sticks with the same gameplan.
However, this season has seen more of a change. While in the past, Klopp’s football has been rather chaotic with a “gung-ho” game plan, his Liverpool side has become far more calculated this season.
Considering that it’s a long season so many matches in quick succession, Klopp’s decided to adopt a less intense style of pressing in order to keep his key players fit, without entirely comprising his footballing identity. While Klopp’s teams are known for their attack, Liverpool this season have been known for their defense.
Klopp’s matured as a manager and come to grasp the knowledge that defensive solidity is more important than attacking flair when it comes to winning titles. Despite only beating Brighton 1–0 away, Liverpool looked defensively strong, something that usually is not synonymous with Klopp’s football. This is a Liverpool we haven’t yet consistently seen under Klopp; a Liverpool capable of dictating matches through defensive nous and midfield dominance, with less chaos thrown in.However, this season has seen more of a change. While in the past, Klopp’s football has been rather chaotic with a “gung-ho” game plan, his Liverpool side has become far more calculated this season.
Considering it’s a long season so many matches in quick succession, Klopp’s decided to adopt a less intense style of pressing to keep his key players fit, without entirely comprising his footballing identity. While Klopp’s teams are known for their attack, Liverpool this season have been known for their defense.
Klopp’s matured as a manager and come to grasp the knowledge that defensive solidity is more important than attacking flair when it comes to winning titles. Despite only beating Brighton 1–0 away, Liverpool looked defensively strong, something that usually is not synonymous with Klopp’s football. This is a Liverpool we haven’t yet consistently seen under Klopp; a Liverpool capable of dictating matches through defensive nous and midfield dominance, with less chaos thrown in.
Mauricio Pochettino
Mauricio Pochettino is yet to win a single trophy at Spurs, but that still doesn’t mean he isn’t a skilled manager. Having been strongly linked to Real Madrid and outclassing Real Madrid at Wembley, Pochettino has done very well, developing a young side without having to spend too much nor being forced to sell their key players.
Pochettino’s use of youngsters and high-pressing system has drawn praise from many, with a manager who has a vision for Spurs to play attractive football. Yet despite his footballing ideals, Pochettino is pragmatic too, occasionally changing formation and team shape either based on the players he has available or targeting specific weaknesses of the opposition.
The Argentinian works to two key principles: Positional Play and Defensive Counter-Pressing.
Positional Play (or juego de posicion) is an approach that divides up the pitch into a series of zones in which players are instructed to undertake specific duties as they move in and out of the different areas to organise a team’s shape in possession.
By applying these guidelines Spurs look for connections between players and stretch the opposition out.
In attack they use two wing-backs, two attacking midfielders and a single, central striker to spread out evenly across the width of the pitch.
They seek to overload a four man defence meaning that one of the five is always free to receive the ball in space. When Spurs lose the ball, they do something very specific too.
Defensive Counter-Pressing is about never letting the opposition settle. Unlike Liverpool who use their pressing to win the ball high and attack rapidly, Spurs are only interested in forcing the opposition to play long.
Given the quality of centre-backs at Pochettino’s disposal, he is able to work on the assumption that his defenders can dominate the aerial battles, win the ball and begin building out from the back.
With the way his Tottenham side presses and harries and drives forward with purpose and guile, Pochettino has demonstrated a pragmatic side this season. A coach influenced by the innovative Marcelo Bielsa, Pochettino’s sides are used to controlling the ball. But in the 3–1 home victories over Real Madrid and Borussia Dortmund in the Champions League group stages, Spurs had less than 40% of the ball in both games. Despite sacrificing possession at times in the big games, he still doesn’t sacrifice his ideals.
Pochettino has achieved it all with an exciting, high-intensity style of football. His Tottenham team work tirelessly without the ball, pressing high up the pitch and attempting to force mistakes, and with it they are fast and ruthless. Their energy levels often overwhelm opponents, and Pochettino applied the same philosophy at Southampton and Espanyol.
Spurs now have a clear identity in terms of the way they play but perhaps most impressively, they have also shed the perceived flakiness that has been associated with them in the past, and part of that has to do with his growing inclination to pragmatism.
Unai Emery
For a manager whose won 3 Europa League’s in a row, 7 trophies in 2 seasons as PSG manager, and managed 8th place with Almeria, it does seem at times that Unai Emery’s success as a manager has gone under the radar.
Emery is all about structured football, and is open to altering his strategy depending on the opponent, suggesting his occasional pragmatism. Nonetheless, his teams do like keeping the ball, playing a high-defensive line and adopting a rather aggressive pressing system. Yet as Arsenal manager, he’s still failed to solve the problems, suggesting that at times his style of play leaves his defenders too vulnerable.
Like his Spanish counterpart, Emery is an obsessive, spending hours and hours analysing teams, their shapes, their strengths & weaknesses, etc. Emery’s teams like playing structured possession football, preferably playing out the back with fullbacks high up the pitch and narrow wingers, not only to increase attacking options, but to undermine the opposing team’s defense. This is what we see with the 343/3421 that Emery occasionally uses. Despite the gaps that the wingbacks leave when going forward, the wingbacks become wingers, with the attackers becoming inverted forwards, forcing the opposition to drop back and defend in numbers. But because he plays with a back 3 and 2 central midfielders, this allows his team to have some numbers back when the opposing team try hitting Arsenal on the counter.
Emery is pragmatic at times (as we’ve seen in the Europa League), but will not sacrifice his attacking intent or high-pressing fullbacks, even if it meant conceding fewer goals.
The reasons football managers are idealists could be because they believe more in the style of play than winning, or they’re early into their career, but with a pinch of pragmatism, they’ve involved into serial winners. If Klopp didn’t adapt his pressing style or his style of play, then Liverpool wouldn’t be in the position they’re in. If Pochettino didn’t surrender possession against Real Madrid in 2017, than he may not have won.
Being pragmatic helps, but to what extent are you willing to sacrifice your footballing DNA to win? Does being extreme idealists or pragmatists always translate into winning?
Seeing idealists’ footballing DNA ingrained into a football side is truly beautiful to see, but isn’t their pure idealism a hindrance to their chances of winning trophies? Pragmatism only helps their chances of success. After all, everyone can recognise how Guardiola’s teams play even though he’s shown his pragmatism at times.
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