'The biggest ****-up of my life as a coach' - behind the scenes of the worst defeat of Pep Guardiola's career

“You can write about everything you see and be as critical as you like in the book, but during the season please don’t talk to the outside world about what you witness inside.” Those were the words from Pep Guardiola, one of the most successful football managers of all time, to Marti Perarnau in 2013, when he stunned the Spanish journalist by giving him complete behind-the-scenes access to his first season in charge of Bayern Munich. Over the next year, Perarnau would be privy to every training session and team talk, an unprecedented level of insight into one of the world’s biggest clubs he chronicles in a new book, Pep Confidential: Inside Guardiola’s First Season at Bayern Munich. In this extract, Perarnau witnesses the devastation felt by Guardiola after a 4-0 Champions League semi-final loss to Real Madrid, the worst defeat of his career. “I GOT IT wrong man. I got it totally wrong. It’s a monumental f***-up. A total mess. The biggest f***-up of my life as a coach.” Pep comes into his office in the Allianz [Arena] having just done the press conference during which he has publicly assumed total responsibility for the catastrophe. Real Madrid have wiped the floor with Bayern in the Champions League semi-final, a game which will stay with Guardiola for the rest of his career. The 4-0 home defeat is the worst of his professional life and the biggest trouncing Bayern have ever received in a European competition. His team has been pummelled into submission and totally humiliated in their own stadium by the team who will take the European title from them a few weeks from now. Bayern had conceded only two goals direct from corner kicks all season: today Sergio Ramos makes it three, rising majestically above the Bavarian defence in the 16th minute. Pep’s team are on the ropes. It’s the start of a debacle. This season Bayern haven’t conceded a single goal from an indirect free kick. Not one. But in the 20th minute Di Maria delivers, Pepe flicks it on with his head and Ramos, again, beats Neuer, taking advantage of the fact that Dante is badly positioned. Fifteen minutes later Ronaldo adds another from a counter-attack which begins when Ribery loses the ball. And then, just to round off a dark, dark night for the holders, they concede only their second goal all season from a direct free kick. Again, it is Ronaldo who shoots hard and low whilst the Bayern wall jumps. A bitter moment. Humiliation complete. However, getting bogged down in an analysis of the goals fails to give a full picture of the reasons for a defeat primarily caused by serious errors of judgment on Guardiola’s part. And we need to go back one week, to the previous Thursday morning, to get to the root of the problem. The scene is a private room in Madrid’s Hotel Intercontinental, where Bayern have enjoyed their traditional post-match dinner. The meal has finished and all but three tables lie empty. The remaining diners include members of the club’s press department, a group of Bayern’s sponsors and, at the third table, Pep and his assistants. The group has already diagnosed the problems at the root of their 1-0 defeat at the Bernabeu [in the first leg] and are proud of the way the players have imposed themselves in this arena by sticking to the game plan. They are also, however, well aware of the fact that their men are below par and have struggled against a defensive line-up made up of well-organised, super-talented players who defend as a unit almost to perfection. Right now, Guardiola is facing one of the most common dilemmas in a football coach’s life: how do you attack effectively in such tight space? Often the suggested solution in this situation will be to shoot powerfully at goal. Bayern shot at goal 18 times at the Bernabeu – twice as many times as Madrid. Another will be to get crosses into a centre-forward in the box. Bayern put 31 crosses into the box – three times Madrid’s tally. The reality of football is that using Guardiola’s type of positional play against a team which defends deep and well, demands not only high-quality preparation but also a touch of individual creativity. In other words, in this kind of difficult, frustrating situation, it is usually down to the talent of a top player to make the breakthrough. Unfortunately, during the game, of all Bayern’s forwards, only Arjen Robben has been on his game. Either they haven’t managed to dribble past their markers or have failed to get the right shot away, because they are blocked by the centre-halves. At 3am on Thursday, April 24, Pep is considering the obvious fact that Madrid will shut up shop when they visit the Allianz for the second leg and that he will be counting on all the same weapons as in the first game. These include Robben, who is in fine form, [Franck] Ribery, who is mentally blocked and pained by his loss of form, [Mario] Mandzukic, who had managed to get on the end of only one of Bayern’s 15 corner kicks in the Bernabeu, and [Thomas] Mueller, with his anarchic movement. The coach also has [chess champion and Guardiola’s friend] Garry Kasparov’s words ringing in his ears: “Remember, Pep, you don’t win games just because you’ve moved your pieces to the front.” Don’t let me change my mind. 3-4-3 is the only way to go Pep Guardiola to his assistant ahead of the game It is during this early hours reflection on what he has just seen that Pep decides to play the return leg with a 3-4-3 formation. With three central defenders, two full-backs pushed up into the midfield next to the creative midfielders and [Mario] Goetze as one of the two strikers, so that he can add superiority in midfield by dropping back to help in the middle of the pitch. It’s a 3-4-3 which can be changed to a basic 3-5-2 with minimal alteration. Theoretically good for defending against the counter-attacks which, Pep is convinced, will feature heavily in Madrid’s game. But it should also allow Bayern to dominate the middle of the pitch, to keep the ball and not to get log-jammed in and around the Madrid penalty area. It’s then that I overhear Guardiola telling [assistant Dome] Torrent: “Dome, don’t let me change my mind. This is the only way to go.” Then, on the flight back to Munich, Pep changed his mind. Reflecting on the fact that the team had last practised a three-man defence in December, the coach realised that there was very little time to prepare his players. Added to this, Javi Martinez had not only just recovered from a bad bout of gastroenteritis, but was also suffering from tendinitis in both knees. There was no way he was going to make it through 90 minutes against Madrid. The coach decided to leave the 3-4-3 for next season and by the time the plane touched down in Munich Pep had switched to a 4-2-3-1. This formation had worked well in Bundesliga games and would give his men superiority in the midfield. What’s more, it was a system they were completely familiar with and would allow him to use both Ribery and Goetze. If only he could do something to get Ribery back to his best. On Friday, April 25, Pep addressed his squad briefly. “I’ll be eternally grateful for all you did in the Bernabeu. You showed enormous courage and played the kind of football I want to see. I’m proud of you all.” This was also the day [Guardiola’s former right-hand man at Barca] Tito Vilanova passed away [from cancer], a desperately sad day for his family, FC Barcelona, their supporters and all his friends. The world of football shared their grief and for Pep [and his assistants] who had been part of Tito’s life over so many years, it was a devastating blow. That night the coach dined out with friends but his mind was elsewhere. From time to time he pulled out photos showing himself and Tito together, his favourite having been taken in Atletico Madrid’s Vicente Calderon dressing room. In the picture the two men are discussing their plans for the game. All in all it was a strange evening, during which they toasted Tito and discussed almost every subject under the sun except football. Pep had other things on his mind. By Monday the players are fired up and eagerly anticipating their chance to take revenge on Madrid. There is a sense that this will be an encounter of epic proportions, but there is little evidence of cool, tactical analysis. Pep allows himself to be carried away and even his performance at the press conference seems out of character. It’s then he makes a big mistake. He asks his men how they are feeling and they talk to him about the German talent for glorious comebacks, as well as the passion they have all felt on similarly epic nights in the Allianz Arena. All they want is to be allowed to play with their hearts and souls. They need to go out and attack hard from the first second of the game. Pep changes his mind again. The 3-4-3 had become a 4-2-3-1, but now he opts for a 4-2-4 formation. Just as he did in Dortmund in July 2013, in his debut match, he swithers between patience and passion and ends up going for passion. But it didn’t work in Dortmund, and it won’t work now. Lads, this is not about going out and having a good time. You are going out there to do some damage. Go for the jugular. You are German, so be German and attack From Guardiola's team talk Monday’s training consists of rondos [a piggy-in-the-middle-style drill], a short session looking for explosive strength and two 11 v 11 matches of 10 minutes each. It all draws to an end with 20 minutes of crosses and finishes, with a view to what’s likely to happen the following night in the match. [David] Alaba and Ribery have slightly raised temperatures and sore throats, and Javi’s knees are bothering him. The line-up is finally agreed and Pep pulls Ribery to one side and tells him he’ll be starting. The pre-match team talk, in the Presidential Suite of the Charles Hotel, reflects the optimism everyone in Munich is feeling: “Lads, this is not about going out and having a good time. You are going out there to do some damage. Go for the jugular. You are German, so be German and attack.” In the end, their epic story ends in disaster. Not only because of the way in which they concede the goals but most of all because this Bayern side is unrecognisable. These are not the masters of possession who have dominated at the Bernabeu, in Manchester, London and in so many other arenas. No, this is a team which appears to have been stripped of their principal asset: superiority in the centre of the field. And yet the Allianz Arena is the perfect setting for Bayern’s comeback – a breathtaking atmosphere and a fired up, emotional and very vocal home crowd. The Bayern players are running on pure adrenalin, but the first two moves are a foretaste of what is to come. Twenty seconds in, Ribery takes the ball down the left wing and tries to shake off Carvajal, but Gareth Bale joins in and helps the right-back. Between them they snuff out the Frenchman’s move. All night it remains 3 v 2 in favour of Madrid whenever Bayern try to open up the wings. Pep will confess later that even at this early stage of the game he already knew that the team was messing up. [...] Pep has kept Rafinha on the bench and returned [Philip] Lahm to right-back. It is a crucial error. On this, the biggest night of his Bayern career, Pep has stripped his midfield of the guy who has locked all the components together and been his best midfielder all season; the man who has imposed order on the team. Madrid play more intelligently, albeit they don’t attempt to own the ball. Bayern bring the ball out from the back, but do so badly. They often resort to a long ball, leaving their midfielders isolated and outnumbered. The team isn’t moving forward in unison. In every zone they look and feel inferior and have failed to establish superiority. Every time they lose the ball they hand Madrid a huge opportunity and Luka Modric is performing majestically for the Spanish side. Bayern abandon their usual patient, intelligent approach and end up completely dislocated. Their poor defending as well as an apparent lack of tactical and emotional control result in the first two goals. Guardiola uses the break to make some changes. Martinez comes on for Mandzukic and the team moves to a 4-3-3, with Schweinsteiger at the top of a triangle ahead of Kroos and Martínez. This functions well; it helps. But it’s already too late. They are going to miss out on the Champions League final – by a long way. Later the coach assumes all the blame for the disaster. He makes no reference to his players’ requests and goes out of his way to protect them, making sure that they are left out of the post-match debate. He had abandoned the centre of the field on the very day his men were up against a pack of lions. We dominate the play when all the good players are together in the middle. And if I end up losing it won’t matter. I’ll go home happy to have done it my way Guardiola's philosophy, which he abandoned for the Real defeat Throughout the season Pep had often commented on the clash of cultures between his own style and the German game. After winning 3-0 in Dortmund, he said: “If we bombard the penalty area with shots, sure, we’ll score but we’ll never dominate the game.” But tonight even that statement doesn’t ring true. They have put the ball into Iker Casillas’ penalty area 74 times across the 180 minutes and barely scraped half a dozen very moderate efforts on goal. Pep had been more than clear. “We dominate the play when all the good players are together in the middle. And if I end up losing it won’t matter. I’ll go home happy to have done it my way.” And yet, on this, the most important day of the season so far, he has betrayed his own belief system. He has failed to play the football he believes in and has not even attempted to build the kind of game he considers vital to attack and win. It’s true that he was perhaps missing the men best qualified to deliver his style of high-risk football, a game that must be executed with the utmost precision. Even so, it is evident that Pep’s own decision was the catalyst for this catastrophe. Today, Pep betrayed his own principles. Several weeks before, the coach compared a football team to a glass bottle hanging by a thread. Today, the thread has broken and Bayern has come crashing down. I spend the whole season refusing to use a 4-2-4. The whole season. And I decide to do it tonight, the most important night of the year. A complete f***-up Guardiola All great sportsmen have experienced monumental disasters and humiliating defeats. But the evening of April 29 is Pep’s first bitter taste of such devastating failure and the scars will be a long time healing. There are those who would argue that such suffering is necessary for the renewal of energy in the life of any sports professional. Great victory always emerges from devastating defeat, after all. Pep is still shut up in his office with Domenec Torrent, Carles Planchart and Manel Estiarte well past midnight. Ostensibly, they are there to review the match together, but in reality his assistants are trying to boost the boss’s morale. They can see that tonight Pep is a broken man. But they need to know how they’re going to get out of this hole. Are they going to keep moving forward or end up taking a backward step? “I spend the whole season refusing to use a 4-2-4. The whole season. And I decide to do it tonight, the most important night of the year. A complete f***-up.” Pep Confidential is available in paperback and ebook from BackPage Press / Arena Sport