Guardiola and Klopp: An Education in Football

AN ARTCILE BY MATTHEW

Embed from Getty Images

As you may know, I wasn’t exposed to much football growing up. Football to me was the sport where you throw a brown ball for touchdowns, not kick a ball to score goals. I played football rather briefly as a young kid, I usually played in goal or in the midfield. I was the shuttler or sweeper keeper, as I’d eventually find out: I would dribble the ball up the field to get it to the playmakers on the team, and when I was in goal I would often venture outside of the six yard box to make plays before someone could even attempt to make a shot. But you know by now how educated I want to be on the game of football, the football played by Liverpool and City. I can talk tactics and strategies, understand different player roles and how different teams play different styles. But I wouldn’t have understood much of this until the Liverpool-City rivalry to me gave me a very eye-opening experience on this subject.

I became a Liverpool fan because of a Luis Suarez card. I started following at just the wrong time, Stevie’s last season right after Suarez left for Barcelona. It was a bit of a mess, those last years under Brenda. But it allowed us to bring in Klopp right when our club was desperate for any type of success. It was exhilarating to watch us grow and learn under his watch, becoming one of the best teams in the world again. Meanwhile, 20 miles away, an oil baron hired Pep Guardiola to build the greatest football team of all time. Watching Liverpool and City play in 2018 was such an educating experience for me, the style of play from both teams was interesting to watch in different ways. City and Liverpool, in many ways, are yin and yang, control versus emotion, tactician versus leader, favorite versus underdog. I believe the saying is “every dog has its day”, right? Well the underdogs of Liverpool had their year in 2019 and 2020, winning four trophies in the span of a single year. Then City clapped back with an improved defense and incisive attack. And now both teams are at a standstill, at the peak of their powers, one team currently unable to beat the other.

Before I end the article, I want to elaborate on the tactical education that each of these games provide. How does each manager like to play? We often talk about how Klopp’s Liverpool have constantly evolved, from a team that thrives on the counter to a team adept at attacking from any area of the pitch. But Pep’s City has evolved too. The best example I can give is the signing of Ruben Dias. Am I a fan of his defending style, no. He’s much more Vidic than Ferdinand and I have a soft spot for defenders that are so good at understanding the game that they rarely have to make a tackle. Virgil and Maldini come to mind as two of my favorites. But Dias’ signing made City’s defense better for two reasons: he replaced the leadership void that Kompany left and he gave them a scrapper to pair with their more elegant defenders like Laporte and Stones. His presence made that City defense much tougher to crack, but so did the tactics. City used to be a breathtaking side that passed the ball around faster than the eye could see. They are still capable of this, and have shown it at times against us this season. But they almost pick and choose their moments. They almost coast through games once they’re up by two or more goals, just retaining possession as Pep’s teams do so often. I’d also like to talk about the other major tactical evolution of City: the difference of usage in the midfield. Pep’s midfielders almost always were playmakers rather than goal-scorers. However, in the last two seasons, the midfielders are now tasked with doing both and have delivered. City haven’t really had a true “striker” since Aguero left and even last season he didn’t feature that often. Instead, City replaced his production with increased goal output from Gundogan especially, but also Silva, Foden, de Bruyne, the list goes on. With Foden also acting as a false nine, City’s midfield constantly swap positions with each other, Rodri is the only constant at the base of midfield. There are games where you’ll see de Bruyne as a “striker”, Silva on the wing and Grealish and Foden in midfield, only to swap ten minutes later. This confuses teams a lot, especially if you don’t play zonal marking.

So what does City’s evolution show us? It shows us that they are indeed a strong competitor and that they have managed to keep up with us as we have improved our squad. I don’t want to make this too, too long, but I’ll leave it at this: City and Liverpool are the two best teams in world football and nobody else can touch us at the moment. Prepare for another brilliant game of football.