Josep Guardiola Philosophy Tactics FM16

Playing Background

Josep "Pep" Guardiola i Sala; born 18 January 1971 is a Spanish former footballer who is the current manager of Bundesliga club Bayern Munich.

Guardiola played as a defensive midfielder and spent the majority of his career with Barcelona, forming a part of Johan Cruyff's "Dream Team" that won the club's first European Cup in 1992, and four successive La Liga titles from 1991 to 1994. He later captained the team from 1997 to 2001. He then played for Brescia and Roma in Italy, Al-Ahli in Qatar, and Dorados de Sinaloa in Mexico while training to be a manager. While playing in Italy, he served a four-month ban for a positive drug test, although he was cleared of wrongdoing twice on appeal in 2009 before the Courts of Justice of the Italian Football Federation and the Federal Anti-Doping Courts of the Italian Olympic Committee (CONI). Guardiola was capped 47 times for Spain, winning the Olympic Gold Medal in 1992, and appeared at the 1994 FIFA World Cup. He also played friendly matches for Catalonia. A deep-lying playmaker, he was highly regarded throughout his career for his vision of the game, ball control, technical ability, passing range and calm composure.

As a manager, Guardiola won 14 trophies in the first four years of his managing career. He is one of the most successful managers in the world and is considered by a number of players, managers and commentators to be one of the best managers in the world.

Source: Wikipedia

FM 2016 Tactics

This time, I decided create two main tactics: One, from his time at Barcelona; and one from his time at Barcelona and Bayern. The tactics are great at creating overloads like Bayern in real life; the tactics have terrific ball movement and constant position swaps so as roaming; the tactics employs high tempo (not to be confused with the TI!); The defensive line is very high; Players need speed and stamina, because of the intense pressing, that the tactic uses; your team needs to be good both technically and mentally -- otherwise the tactics are to adventurous -- and I advise you to take a more conservative approach, playing more simplistic and organised.

I've also included some counter tactics against tough opposition or/and to use in later stages of the match. I used it against Tottenham away, image below...

As far as training goes: I use some very intense schemes, always use high to very high intensity -- but, let your players rest when you play a lot of games in a short period of time. Fitness is very important however you want play.

/Jat