Chapter 217: A New World - 3
They say baseball is a pitcher’s game, and soccer is a manager’s game.
It means that in the sport of baseball, the pitcher holds that much influence, and in soccer, the manager wields that much influence.
At first glance, it might be difficult to understand.
What matters are the players who actually compete in the match; how could a manager who merely watches from the bench have greater influence?
Shouldn’t it be a players’ game rather than a manager’s game?
It might not be wrong.
Even with an outstanding manager, there are countless cases where good results aren’t achieved if the players cannot support him.
Conversely, even if the manager is mediocre, there are instances where the squad is so strong that they achieve good results.
The argument that eleven players are far more important than one manager certainly has its merits.
However, it is necessary to consider the opposite perspective as well.
Because soccer is a sport where eleven players form a single team, the one manager who leads those eleven has no choice but to hold absolute influence.
This is a simple numbers game.
In a one-on-one game, a single player’s ability would naturally determine everything.
In a two-on-two game, one player would account for half of the team’s strength.
But what about eleven versus eleven? Fundamentally, any given player is only 1/11.
But the manager is the one who controls all eleven of them.
Eleven is a narrow view; including the substitutes on the bench makes it twenty, and expanding to the entire squad makes it dozens.
Those dozens of players train according to the manager’s methods and approach the match as the manager directs.
If the players are chess pieces, the manager is the player.
Soccer is not a battle; it is a war.
An individual’s might may lead a battle to victory, but ultimately, it is the commander who leads a war to victory.
That is how great a manager’s influence is in soccer.
And the magnitude of that influence has only grown greater as time has passed.
This was because the continuous leveling up of the industry meant winning through simple individual skill was becoming increasingly difficult, and thus the importance of tactics grew.
Therefore, it was only natural that the role of the manager who devises those tactics and unfolds them on the pitch became more important.
The reason managers’ names are mentioned before some players’ names in the history of soccer’s development can also be seen in this light.
Rinus Michels of ‘Total Football,’ for instance.
Helenio Herrera of ‘Catenaccio.’
Arrigo Sacchi of ‘Sacchiism.’
Johan Cruyff, ‘the true disciple of Michels.’
Jürgen Klopp of ‘Gegenpressing.’
And so on.
A few extraordinary individuals left such a deep mark that their names are still mentioned today, and the concepts they presented became paradigms that advanced tactics by a step.
There is one more figure absolutely impossible to omit from such history.
The ‘Innovator,’ Pep Guardiola.
Although opinions on him may be divided, there is likely no one who denies his ability as a tactician.
Because he was someone who led trends and proved himself with results.
Then what is the concept and philosophy that forms the foundation of Guardiola football?
What exactly was so innovative that it could change tactical trends?
Simply put, it is ‘Positional Play.’
However, if we lump it together under the term Positional Play, Guardiola’s football might feel no different from early Total Football.
Assigning specific roles not to players but to spaces—that is, anyone performing an attacking role in attacking areas and anyone performing a defensive role in defensive areas—is the basic concept of Total Football.
But Guardiola took one step further from there.
The core is numerical superiority.
Based on Positional Play, he presented a method to secure a one-man advantage over the opponent in any given space.
The purpose of every detailed tactic was truly just that one thing alone.
Securing numerical superiority in the space where the ball is.
Creating even just one free player.
The concept itself is truly simple.
But the methods mobilized to implement that simple concept were not simple.
Even listing only widely known methods: the goalkeeper’s transformation into a field player, asymmetric build-up, utilization of the La Volpiana, full-backs moving like midfielders, side isolation, the false nine, and many more.
If we include all other minute detailed tactics, it would be difficult to enumerate them one by one.
Therefore, such tactics are difficult to instruct one by one, and difficult to implement upon receiving those instructions.
It is only natural.
If it were easy, it would be easy to counter, and any team would play soccer like Manchester City.
But reality is not so.
Because it is not easy.
That is why, occasionally, there were players who were clearly outstanding yet underperformed under Guardiola relative to their reputation.
Or in the case of players recruited from outside, there were also instances where it took a long time for them to meld into the team tactics.
That was mostly because the tactics themselves were extremely complex and difficult to implement.
“···.”
Standing with his hands behind his back under the blazing sun, Manager Guardiola’s eyes gleamed sharply.
Beside him, looking out over the pitch where training was in full swing, stood Juanma Lillo, his assistant coach and mentor.
Like hawks stalking their prey, their eyes fixed on one point and moved simultaneously.
Both were watching the two-hundred-billion-won new signing.
Whack—! An eleven-versus-eleven practice match being conducted by mixing first-team and second-team players.
Near the center of the halfway line, I Jian of Team A receives the ball.
Whack—!
The moment he receives the ball, I Jian plays a short pass and moves to the side.
It is a space the defense has yet to occupy.
Naturally, the ball heads back to I Jian, now in a free state.
Taptap—!
The defense belatedly closes in.
But once again, I Jian moves a step faster.
He pushes the ball slightly to the side to open the angle and slides a pass into the original spot vacated by the defender who had closed in on him.
The teammate who had exchanged passes with him is penetrating into that empty space.
Taptap—!
And then I Jian moves again.
Pass and move.
That continuous movement causes a chain reaction, moving the ball up the pitch one space at a time.
His teammates move according to I Jian’s movements, and I Jian also adjusts his movements in accordance with theirs.
Through that movement, space continuously opens up, and I Jian constantly penetrates into that space.
Thanks to that, as a result.
Around the ball, a situation constantly arises where Team A always has one more player.
“···Huh.”
Assistant Coach Lillo, who had been watching that scene, lets out a short exclamation.
An expression as if he cannot understand.
At Assistant Coach Lillo’s exclamation, Manager Guardiola also glances at his expression and then shakes his head as if feeling the same way.
“Phew—”
I Jian’s play.
It is utterly incomprehensible.
It is not that he cannot understand why he plays like that.
It is that he cannot understand how he can play like that.
“Fiorentina was···”
“Not our style.”
Before Coach Lillo even finishes speaking, Manager Guardiola answers.
To Manager Guardiola’s knowledge, Fiorentina was not a team that played soccer emphasizing Positional Play.
Fiorentina was a team that played soccer with a different nature from the soccer he pursued.
I Jian was someone who had trained and played in such a Fiorentina.
And today was the first practice game I Jian was playing after joining the team.
No separate tactical training had been conducted.
He had not been taught or instructed to do this or that.
It had been done deliberately to see his play in a pure state.
Whack—
-Tatatat—!
And yet, look.
He plays as if he were a Manchester City youth product.
He shows a high level of understanding of Positional Play, as if he had seen and learned it from a very young age.
“···.”
In fact, he had known for a while that his spatial awareness and soccer intelligence were top-class.
He had stood out remarkably even when playing for Fiorentina, so there was no way he wouldn’t have known.
So he had thought he would blend in quickly.
But he had expected quick understanding, not that he would move as if he already knew everything.
Look.
Is there anything more to instruct or tell him?
He simply judges and moves on instinct, yet it is nothing short of ideal.
“···”
Guardiola does not particularly like granting players autonomy.
He is the type who wants all play to be within his control, following the framework he created as promised.
There is even a famous anecdote about Thierry Henry being subbed out of a match for deviating from the play despite scoring with an irregular movement.
But for some reason, he wants to see that now.
Rather than nitpicking, he wants to let him run as he pleases.
It is not that there had never been a player he let do so.
Even from Guardiola, who wants to keep everything under control, there were definitely players who earned freedom.
After all, everything exists to score goals and win matches.
In that regard, that eighteen-year-old boy seems to already know how to win.
Whack—!
Smack—!
Thus, there was no need to hold onto him and argue.
*“Hoo··· Hoo···”
Sitting in the shaded stands, he gulps down a sports drink and exhales roughly.
His whole body is drenched in sweat, and he can already feel muscle pain in his calves and thighs.
It’s hard.
But··· it’s fun.
“···”
Slurping noisily from the narrow-mouthed bottle, he looks back on today’s training.
Hmm··· After an intense warm-up, they did rondos, then intense physical training, and finally a practice match.
Nothing unusual about the training content.
But it felt different.
Thinking about why, I suppose it was because of the practice match.
Because aside from the national team, it was the first time he had played as teammates with players other than his Fiorentina seniors.
Although he transferred, does he still subconsciously think of himself as a Fiorentina player?
Especially since they were Manchester City players, it felt all the more new.
The feeling of exchanging passes with De Bruyne, coordinating with Bernardo Silva, and threading passes to Erling Haaland··· didn’t feel real somehow.
Thanks to that, he was incredibly nervous.
He concentrated every moment as if he were playing an actual match, not a practice game.
What if I make a mistake and break the flow? I shouldn’t ruin the attack with a strange judgment of my own.
Because such worries constantly plagued him, he approached training with the feeling of struggling to keep up without being a nuisance.
But what is certain··· is that it was fun anyway.
How should I put it?
When I felt that I was moving with the same thoughts as such amazing players, should I say I felt a sort of ecstasy?
Of course, it might be that the players adjusted their level to match mine.
Since I’m a newcomer after all.
They might have watched my style and adjusted to it.
But however it was, what I felt··· was definitely a feeling that we meshed quite well.
Even though it was the first day, it felt like I could see what each person was thinking while running, and how they intended to connect to the next play.
Honestly, it was the first time that teammates moved according to my thoughts on their own.
Perhaps that’s why playing soccer was fun.
Simply put, the soccer here felt like it matched my style.
So he was a bit looking forward to it.
The new season, that is.
Hmm.
Honestly, he had thought playing for a team other than Fiorentina would be no fun.
He hadn’t known he would feel this different kind of fun.
“···Phew.”
He spits out the sports drink he had been holding in his mouth.
By the way, there is still one thing he doesn’t quite understand.
Usually, when you play a practice match, the coaches or manager tell you this and that.
But the new manager and coaches didn’t say anything at all.
Run like this, run like that.
Try to play like this, run with this as your goal.
There was not a single word like that.
Are they not interested in me?
But if so, they spent a lot of money on me.
I don’t know.
Maybe it wasn’t a lot of money for a team like Manchester City.
Well, or maybe that’s just the manager’s style.
A style of leaving it to the players rather than nagging them about every little thing.
Come to think of it, when he came for individual training the other day, he had said that too.
That he could do as he pleased.
Right.
It must be for that reason.
That was the reason he hadn’t said anything to me at all.