Pep Guardiola’s distinctive model of Barcelona play was impressed by totally different sport
There’s a good probability Pep Guardiola will go down as the best soccer supervisor of all time.
He’s a relentless trophy-hoovering grand grasp whose arrival within the mainstream sparked a tactical revolution that, if we’re being sincere, remains to be in full power. So simply the place did his genius come from precisely?
Sure, he was schooled in Barcelona’s famed La Masia academy and sat for years below the Johan Cruyff studying tree, however it was really a curious look at one other sport that pushed a younger Guardiola down the trail of prodigy.
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While germinating in La Masia, Guardiola was uncovered to quite a lot of unorthodox concepts and training strategies, all designed to show him into the easiest footballer, and human being, he might be. Much of his coaching concerned finding out different sports activities, and one which notably piqued his curiosity was handball.
For those that do not know, handball is at it sounds. It’s stylistically and methodologically just like soccer, however gamers use their arms as an alternative of their toes. The enjoying space, when in comparison with a soccer pitch, is small, so creating area is a fully pivotal facet of the game. And it was this that sparked a proverbial lightbulb second for Pep.
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![A photo from a handball match](https://i2-prod.dailystar.co.uk/incoming/article32021225.ece/ALTERNATES/s615b/1_GettyImages-1958539565.jpg)
(Image: Mahmoud Elkhwas/NurPhoto through Getty Images)
“Before football I took handball training [at La Masia] and [Guardiola] came with me,” former Barcelona health coach Paco Seirul-Lo revealed within the latest BBC documentary Pep Guardiola: Chasing Perfection. “For him, training was about watching other sports and learning about how they trained. He was creative and curious.
“He would speak to the handball coach Valero Rivera about his teaching strategies. When you are going left, they are going proper. You’ve created area by shifting the ball rapidly from one facet to the opposite. He positively took that concept from handball.”
![Pep Guardiola being thrown in the air by his Barcelona players in 2009](https://i2-prod.dailystar.co.uk/incoming/article32020999.ece/ALTERNATES/s615b/1_GettyImages-1255888249.jpg)
(Image: Etsuo Hara/Getty Images)
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Guardiola subsequently developed a private footballing philosophy primarily based round area creation through precision passing and motion, and the fruits of his labour ripened when he took cost of Barcelona B in 2007. After a stellar 12 months, he was promoted to move coach of the senior crew, and led them to an historic treble in his first season, enjoying among the most eye-catching, intricate soccer (later generally known as ‘Tiki-Taka’) ever seen.
15 years on and Guardiola remains to be wedded to the identical philosophies. But not solely that, virtually each prime crew on the planet is attempting to copy him in a technique or one other. That’s some legacy. And they are saying handball is ruining soccer, pah!