Pep Guardiola's new 4-1-4-1 at Bayern Munich

Eden hazard‘s statement: “I’ll be joining the Champions of Europe” in the wake of Chelsea‘s CL glory is still fresh in my mind. His arrival at the Bridge was followed by others such as Oscar and Moses, for whom the CL glory was a major attraction at the club.

Reverting back to this 2013 summer, the entire footballing world was upbeat about possible implications of an all-German final and Bayern Munich’s eventual victory. With Pep Guardiola’s signature already in the bag and a last minute announcement of the Mario Goetze deal, Bayern Munich were already done with much of the business they required to launch another successful campaign.

In the aftermath of the somewhat typically Pep purchase, the Catalan has announced his dealings complete in this window, and apart from the Mkhitarayan deal in Dortmund, the German league does not look any different this time around.

This article will see much more of the limelight shifting towards Guardiola’s buys and tactics that are starting to appear in the Munich set-up.

Right from his youthful days where Cruyff shifted him from a winger to a centrally deep playmaker, to his surprising announcement at 33 that talents such as his had no place in the modern game full of physicality, and to his arrival at the Barcelona management scene which saw the dismissal of Ronaldinho, Deco and eventually Eto; Guardiola has also been at the center of attraction, albeit being successful all the way through.

But his tenure at the German capital might see him ease into a team that has been practising his ideals of passing and heavy pressing from an earlier stage.

At this point of time it is Pep’s transfer policies that need a look into, and a haphazard glance in that direction highlights the likes of Ibra, Villa, Sanchez, Fabregas, Dani Alves and Keita. Apart from the latter successful duo, none of the transfers made by Guardiola come into the category of ‘results of a new strategy planned’ or a Plan-B.

While Ibra’s purchase was just due to Pep feeling the need of a man in the box, Fabregas’s just seemed to add an extra runner from midfield. Only Pique’s purchase now in hindsight seems as a planned event of bringing in a ball playing defender. Though yours truly might turn out to be severely wrong and could be hurdled off track, the transfer of Thiago Alacantra from Barca to Pep’s new club seems to be yet another of the offbeat ones by Guardiola.

Though the young Spaniard was sparkling in La Masia grounds, it was his 40 yard long free-kick for Spain in 2010 that made other clubs take notice. In order to fend off strong interest from Arsenal and Manchester United, Guardiola himself made Thiago sign a new contract that listed a buy-out clause of 80 million.

Though the loophole in the clause of having to play a minimum of 9 games a season was overlooked by the Catalans in 2012-13, Pep’s brother Pere who is in fact Thiago’s agent, was able to help activate that clause and hence carry forward the deal for a mere 18 million.

Thiago’s purchase along with Goetze’s arrival sets the tone to the Guardiola era, as the manager didn’t even care care to make any other major scalp in other departments. Here again,I refer to his now famous line: “midfielders are a superior breed of footballers and I prefer playing them at any position on the field”.

Apart from these transfer activities, Pep had already got one player that he begged the Barca management to buy in previous seasons. Javi Martinez, previously from Bilbao in Spain, had been the shining light for the Bavarians last season. And the central duo of Bastian and Martinez is now considered as the best dynamic duo out there in terms of pressing, tackling and attack initiation.