Revealed: Guardiola Hates Tiki-Taka After All

Bayern Munich coach Pep Guardiola has disclosed his hate for the famed tiki-taka style of play and foresees himself coaching Manchester United one day.

Guardiola, who won three consecutive La Liga titles in four years as coach of Barcelona, made these revelations in a new book written about himself by author Marti Perarnau.

Here are a few highlights from the book…

Barcelona are renowned for their ability to dominate play with their stylish and ever-expressing tiki-taka style of play, but Guardiola “loathe all” of it.

The 43-year-old coach on tiki-taka

“I loathe all that passing for the sake of it, all that tiki-taka. It’s so much rubbish and has no purpose. You have to pass the ball with a clear intention, with the aim of making it into the opposition’s goal. You need to dig into your own DNA. I hate tiki-taka. Barça didn’t do tiki-taka. In all team sports, the secret is to overload one side of the pitch so that the opponent must tilt its own defence to cope.

“You overload on one side and draw them in so that they leave the other side weak. And then you attack and score from the other side. That’s why you have to pass the ball, but only if you’re doing it with a clear intention.

“It’s only to overload the opponent, to draw them in and then to hit them with the sucker-punch. That’s what our game needs to be about. Nothing to do with tiki-taka.”

Guardiola Pictured on Arrival at the Manchester Airport for Last Season's Champions League Last 8 Tie Against United.
Guardiola Pictured on Arrival at the Manchester Airport for Last Season’s Champions League Last 8 Tie Against United.

Prior to the German champions’ victory over Manchester United in the last 8 of the Uefa Champions League earlier in the year, the Spaniard had joked he probably never had understood former Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson ascent well when asked if the Scot ever approached him to become his successor at the 20-time English champions, but it now appears that a trip to Old Trafford in May 2011 with his trusted confidante Manel Estiarte left a lasting impression on him.

As the pair sat together in the stands, watching their next Champions League opponent United beat Schalke 4-1 (3-1 on aggregate)- a day after Barcelona beat Real Madrid 3-1 on aggregate in the semi-finals- Guardiola turned to his friend and said: “I like this atmosphere. I could see myself coaching here one day.”

Pep on Bayern’s defeat by Real Madrid in the Champions League last season

He admitted he made the biggest mistake of his career in the semi-final of Europe’s elite competition last season, when Bayern went from losing 1-0 to eventual champions Real in Madrid to being humiliated 4-0 in Munich.

He told Perarnau: “I got it all wrong, man. I got it totally wrong. A total mess. The biggest of my life as a coach. I spend the whole season refusing to use 4-2-4. The whole season. And I decide to o it tonight, the most important night of the year.”