I enjoyed it as well. Certainly not from the new school of ex footballer ghost written articles on behalf of the likes of Collymore, savage, Merson...
Then I read this from a poster called totaalvoetbal on redcafe. Good stuff.
"Another article by a clueless British journalist that uses buzz words that indictate alack of understanding of what Pep Guardiola is doing.
Ronald Koeman, Philip Cocu, Luis Enrique, Julen Lopetegui and Frank de Boer are in no way shape or form Cruijffians. Peter Bosz is the only name mentioned that Johan Cruijff would approve.
Any one that knows anything about Louis van Gaal knows he is not a Cruijffian. A lot of people have a wrong understanding about Juego de posicion, it is a set of rules more than a philosophy in of itself as Antonio Conte and Maurico Pochettino use elements of it.
That is not what makes Pep Guardiola special. What makes him special is his variation within his system that eventually culminated with his players automatically understanding his ideas without his instructions and they all instinctively know where to position themselves and when to attack as we saw in his last 2 seasons at Barcelona and his final season at Bayern Munchen.
Pep Guardiola is a the greatest thief of ideas. He has the philosphy of Johan Cruijff, systemised it ala van Gaal and added elements of aggression similar to Marcelo Bielsa teams whilst adapting and taking the La volpe exit to a new height that La Volpes never imagined.
At Barcelona he had the perfect players to execute it as they all grew up using positional play. It was the purest execution since the Ajax of Louis van Gaal in the 90s. The only two teams before Maurico Sarri's Napoli to completely follow the principles.
At Bayern they had a basic understanding through Louis van Gaal but he was far more horizontal. After his first year he adapted his philosphy and married it with the directness of the Germans and also learnt how to prevent the counter attacks by improving the positioning of his team after the ball is lost.
Finally in England he has learnt to deal with the second balls that Xabi Alonso warned him about to prove that his methodology is adaptable to any league. No team has ever comprehensively dominated the premier league in every single metric. He is the reason Barcelona became a super club and Bayern have never dominated the Bundesliga consistently as they did when he was the coach.
Now English football are seeing it first had. No team in the history of the top 5 leagues and in the 129 years of English football, no team has ever had a start like this. This is supposedly the most competitive league in the world and he is dominating it more than he did any of the other leagues.
Johan Cruijff is surely smiling wherever he is. It is sad because instead of learning like the German and Spanish league did with foreign coaches, English football will continue to criticise."