MUCH WAS MADE of the video that showed Pep Guardiola taking charge of a Bayern Munich training session during a winter break in Doha early last year. At the time, his attention to detail was lauded. Trying to get the players to perform a certain drill, he loses himself in a frenzy of gesticulations and instructions. It’s intimidating. It’s intense.
“Das passiert jedes f***ing Spiel. Jedes Spiel,” or “This happens every game. Every game.”, he yells before giving another tutorial. At one point, Toni Kroos plays a pass. It’s not what Guardiola wants. He shakes his head and walks away. He turns around and offers Kroos a withering stare. By the end of the season, Kroos was gone. So too were Bayern’s Champions League hopes. But Guardiola’s intensity and desire for control has remained.
Now, those characteristics have only fueled reports that he may leave the club at the end of the current campaign. Trailing 3-1 ahead of tonight’s Champions League quarter-final second-leg against Porto, Bayern are under pressure. And Guardiola appears to be feeling it more than ever.
The club’s medical staff walked out after they felt the ex-Barcelona boss placed the blame for the Porto defeat squarely at their door. And in the aftermath, Guardiola has been forced to answer questions about his future. So, how did all of this start?
Mark Rodden is a German football expert who has covered Bayern and the Bundesliga for Eurosport, AFP and assorted others.
“I was at Bayern’s first Champions League game against Manchester City this season and I was taken aback at how nervous and fidgety Guardiola appeared on the sideline. He’s intense at the best of times but it seemed to me that he was feeling the pressure and no doubt putting extra pressure on himself.”
“Bayern had reached three of the four previous Champions League finals before Guardiola arrived so expectations were high and I’m sure he was stunned by the capitulation against Real Madrid in last year’s semi-finals.”
“He’s used to incessant rumours swirling around a club from his time at Barcelona. But before the City game in Munich, he was evasive and mysterious in his answers about a recurrence of Franck Ribery’s injury so maybe there was already tension with the medical staff then.”
Prior to the Porto defeat, it seemed Guardiola already had problems with the club’s medical staff. After returning from injury just a few weeks before, defender Medhi Benatia was forced off during the first half of Bayern’s DFB Pokal clash with Bayer Leverkusen on 8th April.
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A hysterical Guardiola bounded around the touchline, turned to the team doctor, Hans-Wilhelm Müller-Wohlfahrt who was seated in the dugout, and clapped him sarcastically.
Moments later, Müller-Wohlfahrt got up and left.
“There’s still a lot of confusion after the departure of the medical staff”, says Rodden.
“Müller-Wohlfahrt, the team doctor, felt the medics were blamed for the Porto defeat but Guardiola and sporting director Matthias Sammer denied that that was the case.
“Müller-Wohlfahrt hasn’t opened up about the reasons for his exit, more than likely because he doesn’t want to destabilise the club further ahead of the second leg. It’s worth noting that he’s a legendary figure in his own right and another Bayern manager who had a public disagreement with him was Jürgen Klinsmann. While the circumstances are very different, Klinsmann was gone by the end of that season and Müller-Wohlfahrt returned.”
Even if you didn’t know the details, it would seem strange for Guardiola to pick a fight with medical staff. Is it any wonder that the likes of Lahm (31), Robben (31), Ribery (32) and Schweinsteiger (30) have struggled with injuries? Some of them have a history in that regard and many came into this season off the back of going deep in the World Cup during the summer.”
If Guardiola and Bayern were stunned at the inexplicable way their European odyssey ended last term, the manner of defeat to Porto last week was alarming. Should they fail to reach the final four, there could be some uncomfortable questions facing the top-brass of a club who reached successive Champions League finals under Guardiola’s predecessor Jupp Heynckes.
“The first leg against Porto was a lot worse than last season. Bayern had to go for it in that second leg against Madrid last year, whereas last week they were undone by a succession of individual errors in what was easily one of the poorest performances of Guardiola’s reign.”
Having said that, any team would struggle to cope without the likes of Alaba, Ribery, Robben and Schweinsteiger and there’s every chance will turn things around at home. He’s admitted himself though that Bayern expect him to win the treble so he could be in trouble if they lose.”
“If that happens, there’ll be a focus on man-management and transfers. His handling of Robert Lewandowski has been strange and while Xabi Alonso is still capable of some brilliant performances at 33, he was badly exposed away to Shakhtar Donetsk and Porto.”
Rodden also thinks that timing has played a crucial role in Guardiola’s difficulties in Germany. The romantic notions of him replicating the revolutionary system he designed and implemented at Barcelona are no more. This is a different Guardiola. A colder, harder, tougher figure who’s struggling with attaining the same dizzying level of success. But we probably should’ve expected that.
“Whatever you think of Guardiola and his methods though, I always thought it would be a big challenge for Bayern this season to reach the very top”, says Rodden.
“They’ve had a lot of success in recent seasons and it’s only natural that some players might pick up injuries or suffer highs and lows after their exerts in the World Cup.”
“And they may be starting to realise that picking off their rivals’ best players has some negative consequences too. Juup Heynckes’ team were pushed all the way and driven on by a brilliant Borussia Dortmund side but Guardiola’s Bayern have had little or no competition domestically. Many Bundesliga teams seem beaten before the first whistle blows against Bayern and it may mean that the German champions aren’t as battle-hardened as they should be when it comes to the Champions League.”
