Forgive me father, for I've sinned. That is my first confession.
Thirty-three per cent possession towards Arsenal. 5 pictures. Gianluigi Donnarumma getting extra touches than Phil Foden. And at this level, now we have to acknowledge that Pep Guardiola is likely one of the principal causes this sort of possession pornography exists within the first place: a serendipitous consequence of reinventing the sport at precisely the second we may begin measuring the methods by which he was reinventing it, and precisely the second we may beam it all over the world in meme-sized fragments.
The Guardiola supremacy of the late 2000s and 2010s was, amongst a lot else, a supremacy of numbers. Xavi finishing all 185 of his go whims towards Actual Betis. Robert Lewandowski creating 62 objective occasions in a single season. Manchester Metropolis beating Forest County with 102% ball tilt.
The numbers themselves have been at all times largely irrelevant. What mattered was the way in which by which they have been deployed: as a plot gadget, a type of punctuation, a quantity in service to the broader narrative. Guardiola groups would beat you as soon as on the pitch after which once more within the aftermath, a congregation of clerics and hype males explaining how Pep-ball was not merely simpler however in some way extra stunning, extra virtuous, extra ethical.
And so maybe there's a sure irony in the truth that Guardiola's destiny is now to be damned by the identical instruments. By no means thoughts that Metropolis have been dominant towards Napoli final Thursday, or that they may most likely suffocate Burnley to loss of life in time-honoured trend on Saturday.
One thing has undoubtedly shifted right here, and it shifted lengthy earlier than Metropolis ended the Arsenal recreation in a rugged 5-4-1. Quick breaks are up; possession is down; the typical passing sequence is shorter than in any of Guardiola's 10 Premier League seasons. After all, the equipment nonetheless exists for Metropolis to play managed possession soccer in the event that they select. However nowadays it more and more resembles a plan B somewhat than a plan A, an outdated ritual being sacrificed on the altar of a brand new religion.
What's the new religion? The brand new religion is Donnarumma punting for territory, fast lengthy balls for a stampeding Erling Haaland, transitions and lightning breaks, the midfield fight zone usually bypassed completely. The brand new religion is Abdukodir Khusanov recast as a crunching proper‑again, a person who seems to have taken Rico Lewis's job by consuming him. From Dani Alves to Joshua Kimmich to Kyle Walker to Khusanov: this looks like a reasonably neat encapsulation of the non-public journey Guardiola has taken over the previous 15 years.
The manner, too, has modified. The Pep of cigars and evangelism and good instances has gone, changed by a extra scowling and sardonic touchline presence. For the primary time he appears to be dressing his age. The scratches and blotches on his face are a sort of stigmata, the eyes etched with struggling and longing, the blinks and twitches of a person within the tortured strategy of recanting all he as soon as preached.
In a means, that is probably the most fascinating a part of Metropolis's transition over current months. The disintegration of final autumn pressured Guardiola to go looking deep inside himself for solutions, and for as soon as he appears to have concluded the solutions are elsewhere. “Right this moment, fashionable soccer is the way in which Bournemouth, Newcastle, Brighton and Liverpool play,” he mentioned in January. After the Arsenal recreation, he mentioned: “I've to show myself once more with a distinct technique.”
Many have concluded on this proof that Guardiola is transferring into his Arsène Wenger section, or maybe his José Mourinho section: the ageing revolutionary stubbornly outstaying his welcome, his outdated concepts curdling because the world retains spinning. But it surely's a comparability that doesn't actually rise up. Ageing managers usually double down on their rules, change into extra excessive and grotesque variations of their authentic selves.
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And that is how most of us age, proper? Wenger's Arsenal by no means stopped making an attempt to signal flighty No 10s and passing the ball into the web. Mourinho has cleaved so strongly to his anti-dogma that it's change into a type of dogma in its personal proper. Why die by your concepts when you possibly can die by a painful low block and Fred in midfield? Even Carlo Ancelotti's later Actual Madrid groups felt like a sort of parody: the last word hands-off coach progressively relinquishing management till he managed to vanish completely.
What Guardiola appears to be doing, in contrast, is definitely way more daring and apostate. This isn't a coach taking refuge in his rules a lot as one departing from them completely. And we're in largely uncharted territory right here, for extra causes than one.
No coach has ever reshaped the sport like Guardiola; few coaches ever accumulate enough time, private capital and self-awareness to have the ability to tear down the cathedral they constructed. Jürgen Klopp was within the strategy of doing so at Liverpool however burned himself out earlier than he may full the job. Louis van Gaal's later profession – successful the Eredivisie enjoying 4-4-2 with AZ, demolishing the Spanish positional recreation on the 2014 World Cup – is maybe the closest fashionable parallel.
For maybe a decade soccer has been questioning if Pep-ball would ever be killed off; it will be the richest of ironies if the coach who did so was the one who created it. Maybe time and tide will come for Guardiola earlier than then. In contrast to his earlier tactical evolutions, this isn't a change being constructed from a place of power. He seems to be drained and weathered nowadays, his gamers much less attentive to his concepts, and there's a likelihood this counter-revolution descends into chaos.
Both means, we may be about to enter probably the most fascinating chapter of the Guardiola dynasty: the painful and spellbinding sight of a person clinging to the sting, and at last deciding to let go.
