There is already a before and after for Guardiola in the technical direction, I say to my Colombian colleague.

-That much? Isn’t it a lot?, he answers me. – And Ancelotti? – he adds.

Ancelotti is an excellent leader of groups, Klopp, Tuchel, Simeone, Xavi, Scaloni are also good. And so many others. It’s not a matter of titles, that Guardiola has twice as many as almost everyone else, but of revolutionaryness. Rinus Michels, for many connoisseurs even France Football, The Times and other publications, he is the best coach in history. And he was never a world or Champions League champion. He didn’t need it, he left a legacy that changed the way the game was understood and practiced. He improved it. Before him, football was positional, old-fashioned, the defender played on the defender, 9 out of 9, nobody left his zone, he scored a little and everything was more or less as it was invented in the eighties. years before. From Michels, a number of unknown concepts were born, such as continuous dynamics, constant rotation, everyone plays everything, pressure, possession of the ball, overtaking to leave the opponent out of the game. And, in the process of understanding, the opponents conceded four and five goals. It was called “total football”. This sport has changed forever from Amsterdam.

True, when he arrived at Ajax, Michels met a very good 18-year-old named Cruyff, and Piet Keizer and Win Suurbier, but they remained NN. Ajax was a semi-amateur team and started its transformation with Michels. Ajax will dominate Europe, and the Netherlands will become a world power. No one thought to say “of course… with Ajax’s millions and my grandmother wins”, or “with Cruyff I also win”, or “why not with Getafe…”. In the table of the most profitable technicians, Michels is in the third team, he is not even among the top twenty; On the other hand, when the geniuses of the game are declared, they will always fight for the first place.

Forty years before Rinus, there was another innovator, the Englishman Herbert Chapman, known as The father of tactics, creator of the so-called WM, because it had four lines: 3-2-2-3 and that made two letters. Before Chapman, the so-called “classic system” or 2-3-5 prevailed. Chapman surprised and Arsenal, his team, won five consecutive leagues in England. Then, as always happens, others adopted his formula, and others ventured to try new ones.

In addition to the 32 titles he collected as a coach, Guardiola can add three more in the next twenty days: the Premier League, the English Cup and the Champions League. However, they won’t add anything to your sage dimension. His Manchester City’s sensational 4-0 win over Real Madrid in the European semi-finals, dazzling, crushing, put the Catalan strategist (never such a fair word) back in the spotlight. The supremacy was so great that Madrid looked like a Lilliputian team covered by the shadow of a giant. He never let her even try to react seriously. He deleted Vinicius, Benzema, Modric, the possible valves to generate the game. He destroyed her with that velvet football, endless passes and touches.

The Madrid press, with a brutal degree of penetration in Latin America and even in Europe, creates trends of opinion. Let us never forget that Guardiola is the flag of Barcelona; To minimize this, Pep has created an image of winning because he leads teams of millionaires who buy everything cracks, but this also proclaims naive and boring football, with too many harmless passes. And that he is a domestic coach who adds up the leagues, but not the champion.

At the same time, according to the same current, the best players in the world are those from Madrid: in this line, Vinicius is currently superior to Messi, Haaland and Mbappé, Benzema deserves the Ballon d’Or, Modrić a phenomenon and also the Ballon d’Or Oro, Militão, Rudiger and Alaba they are the best centre-backs at the moment, Courtois number one among number ones… Which is largely true, they are all fantastic footballers. But then, after such a demonstration of Manchester City’s game that smashed Madrid (in the Champions League), they danced to it and shouted: “Of course, with all its stars, how can it not win?”, “You can’t compete against a club state” , “No one has the economic power of the Arabs”.

We ask: Is the Stones a star? Akanji is a star? Are Walker, Ruben Dias, Gundogan, Rodri, Bernardo Silva, Foden, Julián Álvarez stars? Nobody talked about them before coming to the City. We can label De Bruyne and Haaland as galacticos, well, the rest are good or very good footballers who were within reach of any more powerful club in Europe. And De Bruyne went galactic there, to Manchester.

Speaking of economic power: Madrid’s last offer for Mbappé was 220 million euros. That’s having money! He did not sign him because Kylian preferred to continue at Paris Saint Germain. While Madrid insisted on him against PSG, City took Haaland for 60. With that 220, Madrid bought four Haalands, they just didn’t know how to see it, City did. Guardiola paid 50 million for Bernardo Silva, Tchouameni cost Florentino Pérez 80. Who is the richer of the two?

Millions aside: if the same twenty-two play on Wednesday, but we change the coach, how would the game end? Maybe Madrid won 4-0. The imbalance factor is Pep, his method, his idea, incomprehensible to rival coaches. No one has ever had such an impact on the game, especially in modern times, where you always hear that “everything has already been invented”. But he continues to invent.

Position by position, Madrid surpasses City in quality; City destroy him in team play through Guardiola’s system. Of course, Pep needs good translators to realize his idea, this is football, not table football, not puppets controlled from outside. Everyone needs good material to be successful. But, beware, City signed for 150 million this season and sold for 186. It happens that there is a good eye. If Guardiola were to break up with City tomorrow and announce that he wants an annual contract of 100 million euros, there would be a line of clubs that would compete for his engagement. Just from England, six or seven. He is a phenomenon.

“Why not do the same with Almeria?” they ask on Twitter, that fountain of wisdom. With the same funds that Almería has today, he would optimize it, in three months, after his idea caught on, his performance would improve significantly and with a few reinforcements he would start to fight for positions in the European Cup. Thierry Henry explained it: “He deprogrammed me and reprogrammed me.” And he added: “I learned to play again at the age of 30. After what I achieved at Arsenal, Monaco, Juventus and international level, I saw and understood the game in a different way. Understanding the space, staying in position, giving 100% in everything, even when we stopped for water you had to run back. Every little thing… his attention to detail, everything.”

Legions hope that Guardiola will come out once, even if it is second, to vent: “Did you see? I told you, he is a log.” But don’t get excited… (OR)