Not sure if anyone caught an interview that was done with Pep a while ago (maybe during his sabbatical and cant recall if it was on TV or just an article I read), but it stuck with me and have basically tried to imagine/hope/wish that we aspire to playing that way of thinking he has.
During the interview he mentioned there were 3 simple classifications of where a team is in their footballing philosophy in his opinion;
1. you give the ball to a player and he runs with it.
2. the player runs into a space and you pass the ball to him.
3. the ball is played into a space which a player is running into.
He said that basically his teams are built on the model of #2 and #3 and in particular #3 was which he strived for. And so I continually wonder what it would take to get us to play anywhere near #2 consistently, let alone playing much of #3. I sometimes see fleeting moments of us playing that #2 but I see that we neither have the manager or players who have the ability or desire to think that way. In terms of players' ability I don't see the players who can control the ball in the way required, whether its the pass to the player or the receiving player making the conscious run into that space and actually doing something effective with the ball. There's always a breakdown somewhere and more often than not it looks messy when we try or the opposition are too good for our players to execute anything seriously meaningful.
In short, it must be incredibly tough for any good manager to get the team to play the way he feel is footballing perfection, but I hope that one day we will get there and I really hope it isn't too far away.
During the interview he mentioned there were 3 simple classifications of where a team is in their footballing philosophy in his opinion;
1. you give the ball to a player and he runs with it.
2. the player runs into a space and you pass the ball to him.
3. the ball is played into a space which a player is running into.
He said that basically his teams are built on the model of #2 and #3 and in particular #3 was which he strived for. And so I continually wonder what it would take to get us to play anywhere near #2 consistently, let alone playing much of #3. I sometimes see fleeting moments of us playing that #2 but I see that we neither have the manager or players who have the ability or desire to think that way. In terms of players' ability I don't see the players who can control the ball in the way required, whether its the pass to the player or the receiving player making the conscious run into that space and actually doing something effective with the ball. There's always a breakdown somewhere and more often than not it looks messy when we try or the opposition are too good for our players to execute anything seriously meaningful.
In short, it must be incredibly tough for any good manager to get the team to play the way he feel is footballing perfection, but I hope that one day we will get there and I really hope it isn't too far away.
