UEFA Nations League

[L3T5 PL4Y]

@Toby Andrl To be honest, when I heard Joe Pep was headed to Bayern I knew immediately that it would raise the level of Bundesliga and the German national team. And I think that's how it transpired. I mean majority of German NT were Bayern players as it is and all they needed was to develop and evolve tactically. What he did with Neuer, Boateng, Lahm, Alaba etc and the playing style was absolutely breathtaking. The football on display and the tactical evolution of an already elite team was something else. Obviously the players and resources helped but to be fair to him Guardiola never denied his dependency on player's quality being the decisive factor. That's how football works and tactics are heavily dependent on the players you have since coaching is about maximizing the potential of the players.

However, where Pep fell short was not winning the CL. Bayern clearly appointed him with the dream of lifting a CL or two. On the other hand you can't totally blame him for it. Winning in CL depends on a number of factors and one of the key detail was Messi and Ronaldo. They instantly made their team a contender by themselves. Also, the Bayern officials made a massive mistake in putting all their faith on Gotze while pissing off Kroos in the process. Kroos was about to be the midfielder to build your team around and should have been the crown jewel for Bayern for the coming years but sabotaging BvB and going for a shiny new toy for FC Hollywood screwed it up.

The other factors that got in the way and also in the development of German football was the failure of other German clubs to evolve after the peak of FCB-BvB and German NT. At the time, it was high time to invest and follow Bayern's footsteps to gamble in higher profile foreign managers as well players. What they didn't realize was the generation of talent that emerged was a matter of getting lucky on top of the great work of years and it always going to dry up after peaking like it happens all the time in football. You have to compete, invest and be constantly willing to evolve or you'd be left behind. You need new different ideas from coaches and build towards a certain situation. Players won't always develop unless you push them and give them the needed possibilities. The likes of Schalke, Bayer, Wolfsburg, Gladbach and even BvB at the time with a lot of resources, talent and possibilities didn't give themselves the chance to take things to the next level.

 

[krackpot]

However, where Pep fell short was not winning the CL. Bayern clearly appointed him with the dream of lifting a CL or two. On the other hand you can't totally blame him for it. Winning in CL depends on a number of factors and one of the key detail was Messi and Ronaldo. They instantly made their team a contender by themselves. Also, the Bayern officials made a massive mistake in putting all their faith on Gotze while pissing off Kroos in the process. Kroos was about to be the midfielder to build your team around and should have been the crown jewel for Bayern for the coming years but sabotaging BvB and going for a shiny new toy for FC Hollywood screwed it up.

I agree with your points but still think Kroos has fooled a lot of people, including me at one point. Nothing more than a solid player. Bayern were lucky to sell him for a huge sum while he still had value.

The problem with Pep's time was that he reinvented them, and they could not carry on his work or decided not to.

 

[L3T5 PL4Y]

I agree with your points but still think Kroos has fooled a lot of people, including me at one point. Nothing more than a solid player. Bayern were lucky to sell him for a huge sum while he still had value.

The problem with Pep's time was that he reinvented them, and they could not carry on his work or decided not to.

That is just ludicrous on so many levels I can't be bothered to go into too much detail. You don't become a mainstay at top of the top national and club level teams winning the World Cup and multiple CLs by being nothing more than a solid player.

As for Bayern, that team had peaked under Guardiola and it was a nearly completely home grown squad of players that were ageing. Its near impossible to replicate the same level of football after the best manager out there leaves and your players are ageing without ridiculous investment to compete with the elite. They have been heavily reliant on other clubs in the league producing top players and that talent pool has dried up too.

 

[Toby]

@Toby Andrl To be honest, when I heard Joe Pep was headed to Bayern I knew immediately that it would raise the level of Bundesliga and the German national team. And I think that's how it transpired.

It didn't raise the level of the league, that is the whole point. It raised Bayern's level and dominance and maybe Dortmund a little. That's one of the myths that get spun about Guardiola, that his presence somehow makes everyone better. Along other factors, Guardiola forcing his style on the league had a significant detrimental affect on all other teams' styles and approaches and the overall attractiveness of the league. Most German managers, pundits and experts are f*cking happy he's gone and the league is becoming more positive again. He was a nice to have for three years, but it's better he's gone. It also has to do with the Bundesliga being a one horse or two horse race, and not a fight for Top 6. Only 1 team had the quality to go out and play, everyone else was shredded if they didn't park the bus. In the PL, there's at least 5 teams who can have ago at City. That's how Guardiola managed to take the tempo out of the BuLi, for example, and is one of the reasons why so many teams resorted to a patient, park the bus, counter attacking style who then were absolutely overwhelmed when they were supposed to play football against teams on their level - that lead to so much **** football in the Bundesliga in recent years and only now it seems to get better again - two years after Guardiola.

Guardiola in the BuLi helped Bayern and made them a better team, but was bad for the overall league. He may have inspired a few coaches tactically longterm, but overall his way of play had a detrimental effect on all other teams' styles. It's the rather common conception on Pep in Germany by now after years of blindly revering him. If you think otherwise, you probably don't have enough insight into the league.

It's kind of similar with the German NT. Pep helped raise some of those players another level, but on the other hand the Bayern core of the NT had managed to win the treble in 2013 under Heynckes and guys like Schweinsteiger, Lahm and Neuer were already playing at their peak before Pep arrived. Müller got gradually worse under Pep. The only guy who I'd say got even better was Boateng.

Guys like Alaba, Thiago, Lewa, Robben don't factor into the German NT as they're all foreigners. Kimmich didn't join Bayern until after the German WC win - in 2015.

Overall, Guardiola surely had some positive tactical influence on some of the German Bayern players who could take that tactical understanding to the NT. Löw always had amdired Pep and had started to model the German style on Pep's style the moment he was able to watch him more closely in Bavaria. So there's definitely an influence, but longtime, the closer Löw modelled the team after Pep, the worse it got, starting in 2016, running through 2017 and ending with the horrible WC performance. That's sure not on Pep, as Löw is the inferior manager and the player pool never 100% fit Pep's style - but it shows looking at the Pep template isn't always the smartest thing to do.

The other factors that got in the way and also in the development of German football was the failure of other German clubs to evolve after the peak of FCB-BvB and German NT. At the time, it was high time to invest and follow Bayern's footsteps to gamble in higher profile foreign managers as well players. What they didn't realize was the generation of talent that emerged was a matter of getting lucky on top of the great work of years and it always going to dry up after peaking like it happens all the time in football. You have to compete, invest and be constantly willing to evolve or you'd be left behind. You need new different ideas from coaches and build towards a certain situation. Players won't always develop unless you push them and give them the needed possibilities. The likes of Schalke, Bayer, Wolfsburg, Gladbach and even BvB at the time with a lot of resources, talent and possibilities didn't give themselves the chance to take things to the next level.

I agree with what you say in the middle paragraph about Bayern being too reckless in sabotaging BvB, but BvB brought it about themselves in recent years with doodling around and clearly having an interior post-Klopp-crisis.

But I almost completely have to disagree with your last paragraph. That just speaks of very superficial knowledge of the Bundesliga. Most of it is also pundit level phrases like "you have to constantly evolve, you have to invest". No ****. The German clubs all tried to do it but made wrong decisions and still have to actually make a profit to survive - bar Bayern we don't have rich clubs and we don't have owners. That makes for a very different business approach than Premier League sugar daddy clubs and when talking about the BL clubs needing to "gamble and follow Bayern's footsteps" it leaves that completely out of the equation. If you want to read more, I just did two or three posts on this stuff over the last week in some other threads, talking about the recent crisis of the BuLi, why that happened and it seems back on track this season.

I can maybe only agree on that German youth development was resting a bit on the laurels of the WC2014 generation, but then again they clearly kept on working and developing, but just made the wrong choices in how to educate young players. A few more foreign coaches could have been good, too.

 

[L3T5 PL4Y]

It didn't raise the level of the league, that is the whole point. It raised Bayern's level and dominance and maybe Dortmund a little. That's one of the myths that get spun about Guardiola, that his presence somehow makes everyone better. Along other factors, Guardiola forcing his style on the league had a significant detrimental affect on all other teams' styles and approaches and the overall attractiveness of the league. Most German managers, pundits and experts are f*cking happy he's gone and the league is becoming more positive again. He was a nice to have for three years, but it's better he's gone. It also has to do with the Bundesliga being a one horse or two horse race, and not a fight for Top 6. Only 1 team had the quality to go out and play, everyone else was shredded if they didn't park the bus. In the PL, there's at least 5 teams who can have ago at City. That's how Guardiola managed to take the tempo out of the BuLi, for example, and is one of the reasons why so many teams resorted to a patient, park the bus, counter attacking style who then were absolutely overwhelmed when they were supposed to play football against teams on their level - that lead to so much **** football in the Bundesliga in recent years and only now it seems to get better again - two years after Guardiola.

Guardiola in the BuLi helped Bayern and made them a better team, but was bad for the overall league. He may have inspired a few coaches tactically longterm, but overall his way of play had a detrimental effect on all other teams' styles. It's the rather common conception on Pep in Germany by now after years of blindly revering him. If you think otherwise, you probably don't have enough insight into the league.

It's kind of similar with the German NT. Pep helped raise some of those players another level, but on the other hand the Bayern core of the NT had managed to win the treble in 2013 under Heynckes and guys like Schweinsteiger, Lahm and Neuer were already playing at their peak before Pep arrived. Müller got gradually worse under Pep. The only guy who I'd say got even better was Boateng.

Guys like Alaba, Thiago, Lewa, Robben don't factor into the German NT as they're all foreigners. Kimmich didn't join Bayern until after the German WC win - in 2015.

Overall, Guardiola surely had some positive tactical influence on some of the German Bayern players who could take that tactical understanding to the NT. Löw always had amdired Pep and had started to model the German style on Pep's style the moment he was able to watch him more closely in Bavaria. So there's definitely an influence, but longtime, the closer Löw modelled the team after Pep, the worse it got, starting in 2016, running through 2017 and ending with the horrible WC performance. That's sure not on Pep, as Löw is the inferior manager and the player pool never 100% fit Pep's style - but it shows looking at the Pep template isn't always the smartest thing to do.



I agree with what you say in the middle paragraph about Bayern being too reckless in sabotaging BvB, but BvB brought it about themselves in recent years with doodling around and clearly having an interior post-Klopp-crisis.

But I almost completely have to disagree with your last paragraph. That just speaks of very superficial knowledge of the Bundesliga. Most of it is also pundit level phrases like "you have to constantly evolve, you have to invest". No ****. The German clubs all tried to do it but made wrong decisions and still have to actually make a profit to survive - bar Bayern we don't have rich clubs and we don't have owners. That makes for a very different business approach than Premier League sugar daddy clubs and when talking about the BL clubs needing to "gamble and follow Bayern's footsteps" it leaves that completely out of the equation. If you want to read more, I just did two or three posts on this stuff over the last week in some other threads, talking about the recent crisis of the BuLi, why that happened and it seems back on track this season.

I can maybe only agree on that German youth development was resting a bit on the laurels of the WC2014 generation, but then again they clearly kept on working and developing, but just made the wrong choices in how to educate young players. A few more foreign coaches could have been good, too.

Well, seems like you pretty much agree with all my points but just see it different. The negative impact of Pep is exaggerated here because its up to the other clubs in the league to get their **** together. Of course they didn't have the resources to compete but they had enough to not make stupid decisions and as you say tapping into the foreign coaches market could have helped.

And btw, Neuer and Lahm were already great but Pep most definitely got a different level out of them without a shadow of a doubt. I mean Neuer's sweeper keeper stuff is legendary and one of the highlights of the World Cup for example.

Of course, I'm not insulting your intelligence and deep knowledge of the Bundesliga. You're clearly better placed for that and have a greater in depth idea of German football. I didn't mean you have to gamble as in to go bonkers and spend crazy money but the likes of Schalke, Wolfsburg, Bayer, BvB etc had the resources and possibilities for much better decision making as you clearly put it yourself. That's where the real problems come from.

 

[Toby]

Well, seems like you pretty much agree with all my points but just see it different. The negative impact of Pep is exaggerated here because its up to the other clubs in the league to get their **** together. Of course they didn't have the resources to compete but they had enough to not make stupid decisions and as you say tapping into the foreign coaches market could have helped.

The power structures with the sporting and financial dominance of Bayern levels above the rest of the league cannot be stressed enough when looking at the state/evolution of the BuLi. The negative impact of Pep is definitely not exaggerated.

Of course the other clubs have to do better work themselves, but that can be outdone by Bayern in a hunch with their financial power. You also have to take a look at the geographical structure of the league, the infrastructure in the areas where the clubs are. For example, Dortmund, Schalke, Köln, Düsseldorf, Gladbach, Leverkusen and Bochum all operate in the same location and compete for the same talents and sponsors in the Ruhrpott/NRW area. 4 of those are in the tier just below Bayern and direct competitors.

In BW it's Hoffenheim and Stuttgart, with Freiburg and Augsburg also in the vicinity doing great work as basically small village clubs.

Up north it's Hamburg, Bremen, Hannover, Wolfsburg in close proximity.

Berlin is on its own, but in terms of competition for personnel they have Union which is probably even bigger in terms of fandom. And then there's next to no big corporations that could act as benevolent sponsors.

Leipzig could only emerge because of Red Bull and the singularity of being the only East German club in the first division and you can see their domination of the area in terms of fandom and talent recruiting.

Bayern is only competing with a string of 2. BuLi level clubs and has some of the most potent sponsors in close proximity and pumping them with money. Few know that the 80m transfer offensive of Bayern in 2007 after they had ended the 06/07 season as 4th was massively financed by a cash injection by sponsors Audi and Telekom, the latter being the biggest league sponsor at the time, too. No other club has those resources.

And let's not overlook the general financial superiority of the PL, for example. A lot of young talents and foreign players just chose the money in England and Spain. I think it was Sancho's agent or someone at Dortmund who just came out and said it's only now that players have understood they will earn more money but won't play, so the BL has become a viable option again.

You also have to take into account that German clubs are far more complex as joint stock companies owned by the original club with multiple levels of decision making bodies - at club level and at stock company level - and heavy fan involvement as the clubs actually still own the teams. It's not as easy as having one majority shareholder who runs the thing. And this is not just about buying players and managers, but also about investments into the infrastructure and clubs as businesses, youth academies, etc. This is actually a very good example of "investing". You say other clubs should have invested in foreign players and managers, but 'cause they have to be financially stable and a 20m player might turn out to be a big flop after all, they choose to invest in infrastructure and youth work. Freiburg for example put most of their transfer plus in that, as they know they can't compete on the transfer market. So German clubs do invest to become better, but it's not always the obvious investing in the transfer market. And as the league isn't as financially strong as the PL e.g., you cannot put 20m in the transfer market and another 20 into players - you can only do one.

Of course the problems run deeper than Guardiola. But his style coupled with Bayern superiority in every aspect definitely impacted the others in how they set up in a negative way.

 

[A_G]

@razörist vs @Jury

 

[razörist]

@razörist vs @Jury

RIP.