How Guardiola Revived a Century Old Tactic

Rhulani Mokwena is now using this system at Sundowns

My man thanks for the sharing of knowledge. What I can remember is people consistently clowning the formations they used to play before the 70's, when it's shown today how dynamic these formations actually are and very adjustable throughout a game.

Brazil dominated themselves to multiple WC's using this.

Great video 👏

Formation is still a good term, I've noticed that most formations now describe the defensive structure(how I think it should work). On the flip side formations now sometimes get named on the attacking structure mainly when the structure is absolutely mental(think united's misfiring 316). For me the formation should be named after the structure the teams snaps back into when they lose the ball. I think this makes most sense because when thinking about how to play against a team, most tend to think about how to attack their shape. i.e. Are they playing a back three or a 4? If you are consistently coming up against 4 defenders, you would tend to think of it as 4231 or 433 etc.

Ted lasso

here from coach boby

Xavi gets no credit pep was still playing single pivot when xavi started using this

why is the audio coming from the left

Wicked video bro, as always. Is it me or doesn't it seem that Guardiola and his disciples are just regurgitating forgotten approaches to playing what is essentially a very simple game, and maybe adding their own twist? As such, most fans hail coaches as Gods and laud excessive praise where, in my view it isn't necessary.

Best football tactics channel !

This is false. Thomas Tuchel revived this at Chelsea, we beat Man city 3 times in a row using this 3box3/3223 then Pep understood the strenghts

Tactics change every 3 years

The future is 3-2-2-3 and 3-4-2-1

These 4 men midfield was revived by xavi, pep saw it from xavi after barca beaten madrid

Great video!!

So much tripe

thebaus music

Ecuador, Chile , Columbia all played this way in 2014 World cup, to good advantage.

Xavi revived this formation not Guardiola

now wait for the 2024 season when pep introduces the high press goal keeper

So essentially it's the 3-5-2

He didnt revive it. Arteta, de Zerbi and most notably xavi were already doing it.

this is so tenuous. this channel is so pretentious.

he literally just copied Xavi's system, with a box in the middlefield. Xavi has been trying it for almost a year a few times but he did not have the players for it., especially in defence. Xavi played it in the Spanish Supercup in 2023 January and dominated Real Madrid. Pep saw it and played it against Arsenal first time in February 2023.
--- Koundé.Araujo. Christnsen - Busquets. Frenkie, Pedri, Gavi - Dembele, Balde (as a winger all the way at the same height of the field), and Lewandowski at the top
Pep did not have Busquets, and Phillips was out and unreliable most of the season, so he moved Stones up to solve it

This Pep's Barca team and Ajax 1995- the 2 best club teams ever, by far. Simply untouchable teams😱

By spending billions on players.

century old tactic: spending a billion

The very old tactic that I think is under-utilised right now is split strikers. This was a relatively popular method in the 70s and 80s, if never reaching the level of striker partnerships. The theory was that most attacks were initiated by long diagonal balls so you put your strikers out there to collect them, then used attacking midfield players to flood the box late so as to be more difficult to pick up. Belgium played this way sometimes under Martinez with de Bruyne occupying the 10 role in a 4-4-2 diamond.
Now imagine how this looks in a 3 man back line. I could, for example, easily see a 3-2-3-2 formation using this principle being highly effective. The back 5 line up as in this video but the CF turns into a third offensive midfielder. The aim is again completely different from the original one, with the main concept being to overload the midfield but now the effect is even more extreme than using a box. You do need highly flexible players to make it work but that's hardly an issue on City's budget. Maybe an option for when Haaland gets injured.
Going forward tactically though, I suspect the direction will depend at least as much on referees as player development. Right now, the teams that dominate are either built around possession and press or around heavy defence and counters. One of the main reasons this works so well is the development of the tactical foul. If a press team has their top line broken, they can commit a minor foul and reset - no harm done. A referee might give the occasional yellow but not enough for it to matter and with so many subs available, you can just switch out if it does. On the opposite side, teams specialising in counterattack look to score their goals within a few seconds, meaning that there is likely to be at least a few chances in a game where they can avoid a foul. If the defence is strong enough, they only need one goal...
This is for me the biggest issue in the current football. If refs sort it out, penalising niggly tactical fouls more harshly, we would probably see a new revolution in football tactics. I suspect there are a few top coaches around who would struggle if their tactical foul crutch got taken away from them.

More than anything else, Pep has mastered the technique of reinventing his football every few seasons, trimming his squad when the opportunity arrives and keeping it challenging and exciting. He might just have found the solution to managers losing their grip on a team after 3-4 seasons. Reinvention.

I'd say the 3-5-2, Man City would be the one to experiment that since they lost Gundegan and has multiples midfielder and Julian Alvarez.

Feyenoord is playing like this as I know Slot the manager is a adapt from Pep and Cruyff.

xavi started using this a few months before pep

good tactics... a SHIT tonne of oil money to buy the best players in every position and then buy the best back ups...

As a United fan I'm curious if we could pull this off. Not atm I'd say

Guardiola coaching tree is number one, number two and number one top teams in premier League and la Liga

This man is a genius !

I just came here to love this ...pep is the TRUTH ! ....I'm not even a man city fan ...lol

While this is a great formation because of the defensive and attacking midfielders, what I especially love about it is the rotations. It allows the scheme to take advantage of players' versatility and fill multiple roles at once

Excelente informe, muy completo.
Siempre soñé que vuelva la WM y por suerte se logró con algunos cambios por supuesto.

Only 2 coach best in MODERN, PEP VS De ZERBI.

So ….how can you win against that ?

What is this person’s qualifications and expertise to discuss this?

When you break down a 4 3 3 system you see exactly this formation in possession. It's really just having the right players and media attention. Having the right players to do a different instruction that surprises the opposition because they are not expecting it, and having the media pick it up.

That's why the system went out of vogue before, and now looks like it's in vogue now. Surprise.

He stole this from De Zerbi

I wish i can tweak fm like this

Xavi was doing this 4 yrs ago

Very good

Take notes inzahgi, you have to save football

So you wanna tell me that pep is the reason why everyone spams cutbacks in fifa?!