It was so obvious. So blindingly obvious. Bayern Munich. Of course, the Bundisliga is so in right now. Borussia Dortmund are this year’s Athletic Bilbao. Jorgen Klopp is the front man of the band that you and I had heard of and appreciated long before the mainstream plebs saw them of a Wednesday night. Fans stand, sing and drink beer. Tickets are cheap. Clubs are self-funded, mostly debt free and well-run. Pep Guardiola cares about these things because Pep is different, so dreamily different.
If that paragraph was a bit too Mean Girls for you then tough, you’ve come to the wrong place for reasoned analysis of Pep the manager. Any hope of my school girl estimation of him dimming went with the simple tweet confirming he had chosen Bavaria over brawn last Tuesday. The Premier League and its gross wealth were shunned by the brightest managerial light in the world. Not for him the Kafka-esque trial of Chelsea with its palace intrigue and whims of a toothless tyrant. The gushing wells of Manchester City were also pushed aside despite the presence of old comrades on the board. It was to Munich, and to stability and history. To tradition and prestige. It was a move that confirmed Pep would stay true to himself.
This after all is the kid who went from ball-boy to dream team fulcrum for his beloved Barca. This is the manager who won a treble in his first season of management. This is the guy who humiliated the special one but stayed humble. This is also the guy who walked away from it all, to take a sabbatical in New York City. That might be my favourite Pep move of the lot. A sabbatical from management of this silly game. I like to imagine he frequented the trendy cafes last year in Manhattan, basked in the glow of Nate Silver’s glory on election night and partook in the year of David Foster Wallace.
It is difficult to pin down just why Pep attracts this kind of feverish attention. It isn’t the trophies as they are mere numbers. The skinny ties and designer stubble did utterly supplant Jose’s grey coat as the managerial fashion icons of the age while his furious gesticulations on the sidelines and famed attention to detail are quintessential Pep, but these are frame to the bigger picture. He seems, and I am reluctant to say this; purer than the rest.
That is of course; nonsense. He isn’t some Jedi Knight ready to save to galaxy and half of Germany would tell you he’s merely agreed to steer the ship of the Empire. But his motives seem pure. He will win and he will win beautifully. When Mourinho’s Inter knocked Barcelona out of the Champions league in the semi-finals in 2010 and Jose crowed that he didn’t need the ball to win, his tactical genius had to be applauded as did the concentration of his players, but it felt unjust. Pep will never go out to stop a team and perhaps he is naive for it but it is only the footballing cognoscenti who will take the tactician over the artist. Pep cares about the destination sure, but he also cares about the journey. The result remains important but the process is just as vital. He’s like an Arsene Wenger who wins.
We wait with bated breath to see what he brings to Bayern and Germany. Will tiki-taka become a staple of the Bundisliga? Will that relentless pressing game be asked of Franck Ribery? Will he partake in Oktoberfest? And how long exactly will he remain before the next leg of his European adventure?
I give it the three years, he wouldn’t break a contract and Italy will be making a comeback right about then.
