If Pep Guardiola has seen Flåklypa, he probably recognizes Reodor Felgen. Both are brilliant inventors. Both are on a team with a sheik. Both have had assistants who have copied the working drawings. In Flåklypa, Felgen finds out that Rudolf Blodstrupmoen, his former apprentice, is winning car races with an engine Felgen has designed himself. In the Premier League, Mikel Arteta has taken Arsenal to the top with a system very similar to Guardiola’s. INNOVATOR: Reodor Felgen (centre) was known for his inventions. Here flanked by Ludvig (left) and Solan (right). Photo: Maipo AS Arteta was Guardiola’s assistant for three years at City. Arsenal are now eight points ahead of the champions, who ran out of ideas in the defeat against Manchester United on Saturday. For over a decade, Guardiola has invented new tricks that baffle rivals. But how long will he be able to renew himself? What now, Pep Guardiola? Photo: Dave Thompson / AP Studierte Magnus Carlsen Guardiola’s time at the top is already long. Most trainers are successful for a maximum of 10 years, before their ideas are copied and improved. Many struggle to come up with new tricks – and become outdated. In 2015, José Mourinho talked about how several of his assistants and colleagues, including André Villas-Boas and Brendan Rodgers, had become head coaches themselves. – They take with them everything I have done, everything we have done, all the knowledge, Mourinho said. – New ideas spread quickly. So you need to make sure you have several new ones in stock. Since then, Mourinho has struggled, precisely because he has not renewed himself. THE FINISHED ONE: Manchester City supporters hold up posters with the faces of Pep Guardiola and then Manchester United manager José Mourinho in 2018. Photo: BEN STANSALL / AFP But Guardiola has survived by innovating. Since taking over his first A team, Barcelona, in 2008, he has stuck to basic principles such as high pressing, plenty of possession and free play from the back. Within these frameworks, he has experimented. He has not only stolen ideas from other coaches; he has spoken to academics, directors and economists. He has studied how basketball teams stop counterattacks. He has had dinner with chess legend Garry Kasparov and discussed the strategy of Magnus Carlsen. WORLD SENIORS: Chess player Magnus Carlsen. Photo: ARUN SANKAR / AFP Guardiola’s constant search for ideas has led to “false nines”, full-backs who cut into the pitch, inside runners who overlap, goalkeepers who make breakthrough passes, and a long list of unusual formations. Coaches who meet Guardiola’s team say that there is always a surprise: A winger who wanders in here, a forward who pulls down there. Guardiola is often accused of overcomplicating, a consequence of always thinking anew. Guardiola’s success has been spectacular: at the top level, he has won 10 league titles in 13 years. But now he struggles against the man who knows his secrets better than anyone. Brought the textbook Arteta is what Mourinho described many years ago: An assistant who knows everything about Guardiola, who copied the textbook in 2019 and took it with him to Arsenal. Arteta also has a deep understanding of the principles that inspired Guardiola. Guardiola learned “his” football when he played for the Barcelona team from Johan Cruyff, the Dutchman who himself took ideas from the Ajax team that wreaked havoc with “Total football” in the 70s. From 1988 to 1994, Cruyff’s Barça was known as the “Dream Team”. ICON: Johan Cruyff. Photo: JULIAN MARTIN / AP As a youngster, Arteta played in Barça’s academy, where these principles were in use: High pressure, few touches, an extra man in the middle, attack over several moves. Arteta loved the Dream Team. This common understanding of how football should be played was one of the reasons why Guardiola wanted Arteta as an assistant in 2016. Since then, Guardiola has made a number of adjustments to his teams so that he does not become predictable. Unfortunately for him, Arteta has followed the lesson. The system Since Arteta took over Arsenal in 2019, he has used many systems, but the structure he plays with now is very similar to that of City. The formation is 4-3-3. The two side-backs go into the field to create a surplus. When Arsenal end attacks, they pull in to stop counter-attacks outside the box. This is a move Guardiola has been experimenting with since 2014. Arsenal like to build up the play on the left, then pass the ball to a right winger who stretches the play (Bukayo Saka). Since the right back (Ben White) is centrally located in the pitch, the winger can challenge one on one. This is another classic from City. Central is a smart ball winner. The right inside runner is a goal-threatening playmaker who moves into the space: Martin Ødegaard (Arsenal) and Kevin De Bruyne (City). Arteta has also brought in two players from City: Oleksandr Zintchenko and Gabriel Jesus. SUCCESS: Martin Ødegaard and Arsenal can celebrate how the season has gone so far. Photo: Frank Augstein / AP Few would have thought that Arteta would implement this system so well. Although he had seen it work for City, it will take a huge amount of faith, tactical intelligence and teaching skills to pull off the same with Arsenal, who were 10th when he took the job. Arteta has less experience than Guardiola. He coaches a club with fewer resources. He has brought in names that were meant to be too bad for City’s first eleven. Now Arsenal play “Guardiola football” better than Guardiola’s own team. Tough race With that, Arteta shows how difficult it is for a coach to stay at the top for a long time. Guardiola has inspired tacticians around the world for more than a decade. Several of them have already competed against him. And some of them have beaten him. Last Saturday, Guardiola lost against Manchester United, who are now one point behind City. United’s coach, Erik ten Hag, loves Cruyff’s football, and asked the legend a question as a 13-year-old on a TV show in the Netherlands where Cruyff was a guest. In 2013, Ten Hag took over Bayern Munich’s second team in the German fourth division, partly because it gave him the chance to study Guardiola, who took over the A team the same year. When Ten Hag took over Ajax in 2017, he used the tactical structure he had learned from Guardiola. Before the derby, Ten Hag was asked how much he has learned from Guardiola. – There is too much to tell about here, said Ten Hag. Everywhere Guardiola turns, he sees coaches who have studied him, and parts of his own football. As Reodor Felgen, he is involved in a tough race against his own student. For one of football’s greatest inventors, it has never been more difficult to be original.
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When the teacher Pep Guardiola loses to the student Mikel Arteta – news Sport – Sports news, results and broadcast schedule
