Pep Pays For One Dimensional Tactics

In the past week or so, Chelsea and Mourinho have been labelled all kinds of names, from anti-football to boring to negative and many other unprintable names. What many have also recognised is the fact that Chelsea have gotten the needed results during that period and have an amazing record against the big sides.

This brings me to the Bayern vs Real Madrid game. I am getting bored listening to people, 'philosophers' as Mourinho calls them, who believe football should be played in a particular way. In little over 2 days, we saw two teams with more than double possession losing to the team with the inferior possession stats. What is possession without penetration? Infact, what is possesion without winning? Counter-attacking football will always defeat possession obsession because all a smart team has to do is defend well and deep and then counter(provided you know how to defend-that is a different science). Real Madrid clearly set up to play on the counter. I was surprised at the sort of suicidal, high line defending I saw from Bayern. You are playing a team that has a front four of Bale, Benzema, Ronaldo and Di Maria supported by the passing prowess of Alonso and Modric. That was naive. It was comical at times.

These so-called purists claim that any football that is not tiki-taka or possession based is boring and not entertaining. I ask, what is more entertaining that the victory celebration at the end of a match or when you win a trophy? Can Pep say he was entertained yesterday? To me, Bayern was the near perfect team last year, kept possession when needed and could also play on the counter when needed. They had a Plan B. They attacked and press aggressively while keeping their defensive shape. Attacking football is not about keeping possession. Winning football is easy.

I look forward to tonight's game between Chelsea and Athletico Madrid. In Simeone, Mourinho comes up against someone who I would describe as his younger self. To Simeone, as he was quoted yesterday, winning is all that matters. During the 90 minutes, there might be few reasons to be turned on, but after that, there will definitely be wild celebrations by the winning side. What an entertainment that would be, to the winning side, I must add.