Is not the only test - I said the true test - When you start to get knocked out this early with the largest budget in football in three consecutive years, you have to begin to question the manager - and I reiterate.- . specially when other managers with smaller budgets have done much better.. this year Pochetinno, Pellegrini, Klopp, Ajax.. We were missing a lot of chances against Atletico in the second half, we were were all over them at some point that it was only a matter a time until we tied that match.. Then in extra time why did we crush them? Isn't overtime also part of knockout competitions? How come they could not beat us or put up a challenge there.? Know how to spend sure.. you mean like spending 70M on Mahrez to have him sit on the bench.. or 30M on Nolito to send him back to Spain after a year.. what about DeJesus His spending is limitless.. he can buy players and if they don't work out he does not play them.. Most teams in his league don't have this luxury.(Manchester United and Arsenal have not spent millions on rebuilding their defense as Pep did). Imagine if you could try someone and spend millions on him to use him just a year.. and discard him after.. See what happened to Bravo. Also, if you rate yourself based on just doing better than MU, those are some very low standards because that team is doomed.. They have no clue what they are doing there. Us not winning the CL for 5 years has nothing to do with this discussion by the way.. stop trying to divert the conversation.. I did not say Guardiola has to win the CL, I am criticizing him for not being able to take his rich team to at least the semifinals, something that the prior Manchester City coach did.. that Pochettino has now done and that Kloop did (he went even further) now twice in three seasons there.
There is no question he outplayed Tottenham. Got KOed on away goals rule. Aguero choked a PK away in the first leg which was crucial. Laporte with 2 really bad mistakes gave up 2 goals. At some point, it's out of the hands of the manager. As I've said before, people criticize him for always playing the same way and leaving his team exposed, when he goes more conservative in the 1st leg, people say he is over thinking it. Too funny. Klopp got to spend plenty of money if you haven't noticed. Ajax is a case of golden generation + good chemistry from add on players. Nobody is crazy after Pellegrini if you haven't noticed. I wonder why .. I mean, he once made a SF CL .... Pochetinno seems like a manager that does well with little in a club with no pressure to win. He needs to prove he can win with a big club with pressure on his back. Many managers can't do that even if they have the bank at their disposal. You crushed them in ET because they were spent if you didn't noticed. They had 0 energy left. And they didn't even have Costa. Madrid only won the double when they had a bench that was deep as fuk. Big teams need deep benches to compete on all competitions. At least that's the culture nowadays. You still have to manage it correctly. When Mourinho arrived at Chelsea they spent and had been spending a bunch of money. He never even got to a CL final. Was he also a failure ? At least Pep doesn't resort to parking buses with multi million teams. Yes it does. It shows how hard it is to win it even when you invest heavily. First year vs Monaco the team was building. And he caught a hot Monaco. So that's BS to criticize him. Last year he got smashed ... although Liverpool had PLENTY of help from the refs. Let's not ignore the many mistakes that helped Liverpool and screwed Man City. This year it's a failure although like I said, he did his job and did outplay Tottenham specifically at home. Even the best managers/teams need a little luck to get them through sometimes and Pep just hasn't had that in the CL.
At the end of the day wins is what counts.. outplaying a team when you can't beat them on goals is irrelevant. I expect City to outplay Tottenham based on the vast difference of quality between the two squads. Tottenham also made some mistakes by the way.. so it goes both ways. Yes he did but nothing compared to what Guardiola has spent since he joined the EPL. Exactly. It goes to show you how overrated Guardiola is. His Barcelona era carries with him but his results since are nothing to brag about.. because other managers, who people are not too crazy about, have accomplished more or the same. Pellegrini also won the league by the way.. Right now he is a better manager in Europe.. What would Pep do without an open check book ..? And? Isn't that part of managing the game.. and the quality of the the players you have in the bench.. We won with a deep bench yes.. and City now has that deph - I mean who does Tottenham have in the bench.. or Livepool last year in comparison to City? ..so what is your point? I am not saying Mou is a better manager than Pep.. so that argument about Mou is irrelevant to me. To say his failures in 3 years area all about luck is simply being in denial.
No doubt there are certain weaknesses to mention for Guardiola (e.g. rarely he beat a team that was the equal or 'better' in the CL than his team, very often he lost in the CL against an inferior team) but who is a markedly better manager than him the last decade?
Pellegrini won 1 EPL in 3 seasons. Finishing 4th and way out of pace in his final season. I guess all top teams should be after Ranieri since he won the EPL with Leicester. And after di Mateo winning the CL with a fairly weak Chelsea. Look at Benitez, CL champ with Liverpool and when he came to Madrid with all resources, complete failure. That's why saying what would Pep do without a check book is irrelevant. Top coaches get the top jobs which have resources. That's how it is. Tell Zidane to go coach Getafe for example to prove what he can do without a check book. Dude quit when he saw Florentino wasn't opening the check book for God's sake.
Yea but not everyone can coach a high priced team it's a special area of its own. On the flip side ask Sam allardyce to coach Barcelona or real, I'm sure it would not work.
Simeone - Europe League x2, La Liga, Copa del Rey, UEFA Super cup, 2 CL Finals Pochettino -CL semifinal but look at this team in comparison. Klopp - Bundesliga, Two CL Finals with two difference teams. Carlo - Premier league, Domestic british cups, Ligue 1, La Liga, Champions League, UEFA Super Cup, Bundesliga, DFL cup, Copa del Rey Zidane - most titles ever won by a manager in just 2.5 seasons.. 3 CLs, La Liga, Uefa super cup x2, World Club cup x2 Emery - Europa league x3 , Ligue 1, Domestic cups in France. All with their flaws of course but not European chokers like Guardiola. In addition most here have not had the luxury to coach the best or equal best teams in their respective leagues for the entire duration of 10 years. ..
Who did he buy thought? And look a how much he accomplished.. I am not saying a check book is not needed. You are being obtuse .. I am saying that his checkbook is disproportional to his success relative to other comparable teams.
So let me get this straight, you're saying (1) coaches who have NOT WON anything are greater than a 2x CL winner that regularly wins leagues. Even if they haven't proven themselves at the highest clubs. (2) Had Pep quite after 3 seasons, his record would have looked much like Zidane. Let's see what Zidane does going forward. (3) Emery ? Fuk off man. Now we are putting Europa leagues over CL just because it was won with Barca ? Ligue 1 ? Domestic cups ? With a bigger spending disparage than Man City vs EPL ? You're joking now.
So let's build a bit more on this. One aspect of 'influence' is indeed the knowledge part. This not only about 'inventing' things but also develop, popularize and export it to other countries (like Ernst Happel arguably did - he exported it to top teams at other places). It is possible to say Bielsa played his part in making a certain approach popular, but I don't think you can say he 'invented' or developed ideas in the way a Sacchi or the 1980s dutch managers in Spain did (the full article is in the 'brief history of tactics' thread). Second thing: the number of direct links to winning or remarkable teams (the Austrian Wunderteam, 1980s Denmark) is rather limited for Bielsa. For Jimmy Hogan then yes, we can see some direct links to various successful or remarkable/over-performing teams. Bielsa his direct links to EC winners, national team winners, Ballon d'Or winners is exactly zero. Third: the success Bielsa himself had is even more limited than Pochettino, nor does he provide a lasting imprint on his teams. So for me it is a strange call unless some can explain this.
Team was ALREADY stacked. Did Pep buy that much in his 1st year at Barca in terms of high profile signings ? Nope. You talk about Mahrez riding the bench. Madrid has had Bale, James, Isco riding the bench. Before that, Kaka, Illarramendi, Coentrao ... most players that cost a lot of money.
both James and Bale were immediate starters when they first joined and contributed to the club . Mahrez was bought for 70M and never became a starter for the team.. It was literally throwing millions down the drain.
And? At least he's been tested against comparable teams in Europe and has succeeded. Guardiola has failed without Messi. Glad you are now admitting to understanding the spending disparage concept.. finally.
The guy just blew 2 games vs Wolves and Crystal Palace in the fight for 4th. I guess he must keep playing Europa league. Top Manager
Zidane has only won with Ronaldo. Hasn't proven himself without him. So why you place him above Pepe ?
Dani Alves, David Villa, Fabregas, Alexis, Mascherano, Ibrahimovic, Hleb, Chygrinsky were all expensive signings. He was outspent hugely in 2009-10 (by Real Madrid), but in all other years he had the biggest signing of that year (Alves, Villa, Fabregas). The difference in net spending 2009-2012 was 150 million euro. So basically Ronaldo + Kaka, and the fact they could resell Ibrahimovic.
because winning 3 consecutive CLs was unheard of and impossible. First manager in the history of sport to accomplish this.
Those accomplishments had that Barcelona side called the best ever club team by many, many people. And 3 CL wins in a row are at the very least comparable thus I shall forever disagree with @Milan05 about Klopp being more impressive at Dortmund. Doesn't matter if they were a mid-table club side when he came in (not to mention he nearly left them in the same position). They're historically not a mid-table club side, if you don't count Nurnberg's & Schalke's success from the 60s and prior, they are by far the most successful German club behind Bayern. They won the Champions League 10 years before Klopp arrived FFS. No average club "just wins" that competition, especially in the modern format. The infrastructure was there and yes he deserves credit for being the one to turn it around but it was not a legendary managerial performance. Back to the Barcelona point, obviously extremely impressive achievement from that team but Pep also had many factors going his way there. He did not create Messi nor did he create the Spain team that dominated international football, the core of which was at Barcelona. These two factors are not only independent of Pep to a very large degree (not entirely, I believe is fair to say) but they are two all-time historical factors. Messi & that legendary Spain team core would have existed and dominated without Pep. As they showed very well with Luis Enrique. That's a big mark against him, doubly so given the relative lack of success (relative to that Barca team) he's had since. Mourinho's CL wins with Porto and Inter are very arguably more impressive than anything he's done. Winning what is likely the last CL outside the Top 4 leagues (Ligue 1 is a pathetic disaster in Europe and don't deserve to be included in any 'Top 5' nomenclature) and then winning the CL with Inter, 40+ years after their last win and the first and only treble in Italian football history. Mourinho up until he lost his mind at Real Madrid is very easily up there with any manager in a discussion of best of all time, IMO. Up until that point, he achieved more in that short time period than virtually anyone ever.
What you people ignore is how Pep won. He won in a way that wowed the football community. With mostly physically unimposing players using technique to beat teams ... making many look inept and hopeless. Yeah Barca won a CL without Pep ... and Chelsea won a CL after Mourinho and Madrid won one after him as well. Mourinho's Porto trophy is obviously valuable for Porto, but it's in a year that the competition just wasn't that strong. Mourinho took advantage of it. I don't think he wins a CL with that team in most other editions. Not taking the title away from him, but lets just put things in perspective and not make it more than it really is. I've been saying you need some breaks/luck to win the CL. It's not just up to how good you are as a manager. Or else Mourinho would have EASILY won it with Chelsea and Madrid ... which he did not. Zidane for example ... great accomplishment winning 3 in a row, but he had good fortune along the way such as winning one on PKs and a campaign where every opponent had their major player(s) fall out to injury or suspension for at least 1 leg (including the final).
Your points on Mourinho are fair. I don't agree with your points on Pep with respect to "how we won", however. Pep didn't wow the football community. The Barcelona players wowed the football community. Messi wowed and continues to wow the football community with or without Pep. And Messi is a big factor behind that overall "wow" factor you speak of with respect to that team. People were wowed by Messi, especially then. Xavi and Iniesta, just behind him, wowed for Barcelona like they wowed the international football community by winning three major tournaments in a row, absolutely unheard of in modern football, with this streak starting before Pep even managed the Barcelona team. Don't get me wrong, he had his influence but you're literally talking about a team composed of multiple all-time greats, one of which is considered the greatest of all-time by many. These players perform regardless of who is their manager. They teach their managers more than their managers teach them. When you have a team of Messi, Xavi and Iniesta in peak form, they will dominate whether it's you, me, my grandma or Pep at the helm. That is a fact.