Josep Guardiola Sala- the man who compares his process of picking his 11 with sitting in front of a chess board, contemplating which piece to move, calculating countless future moves. A man who has spent days into nights, picking at calluses of his mind matter. Toiling over which pawns to move, which to hold back.
The child whose gift was a brain, and whose limitation was a body, until geniuses of God were sent to save him, from being cast aside, to becoming the embodiment of Cruyff’s Catalonia.
In a time where those with brawn, genetic monstrosity to rival beasts of land and wild, for a stage that mimics the battles of land and wild, there was a scrawny individual, Asked the impossible, tasked to civilize an intellect enough to survive beasts.
Search for superiority:
What tools did Guardiola need in his Search For Superiority? He needed a system of thought, a ruthless filter of defiance to all that is redundant. A sword wielded with which he cut through the thick greenery of Information. A process, a hierarchy, an order.
How did he? You may ask; tall, strong, fast athletes, with rockets for legs and oxygen tanks for lungs, the height of Olympians and the width of Roman battalions, in an arena where time and space were captive to the wild brutes, there was only one way.
Chess Positional Play:
There are many renderings of the origins of Positional Play in football, and many readings on the holy text of today’s sport, from the Laws of Physics to the heritage of Cruyff, but here I would opt for the depictions of Capablanca, of Smyslov, of Karpov Chess’s Positional Play.
The art of enhancing one’s position, while simultaneously diminishing the opposition’s position is how the positional play merchants chess dominates the game. Acquiring a superior position augments one’s capacity to launch attacks, defend effectively, and elevate tactical capabilities. This particular playstyle unveils the intricate tapestry that intertwines the two games.
The tenets of Chess’s Positional Play, you may ask. What are the fundamentals that it stands upon? – Improvise your pieces with perfect “positioning” – Create and sustain favorable structures – Restrict your opponent’s pieces – Restrain your rush to alter structures, or abandon them.
Do these not sound like principles from which, the genius of Santpedor, Josep Guardiola has taken inspiration? Ideas like: – Pinning opponents by positioning between the line players, Half-Space Occupation, Numerical Superiorities in 1st phases, Importance of the “15” Pass Rule
Also Read: José Mourinho: The Special One’s not so Special Principles
How has Josep Gaurdiola sipped from the esoteric river of Chess’s Positional Play?
It is in these transferable concepts:
– Vigilant / Conservative forward Pawn movement. Why is Pep focused to inculcate such an idea into his team? To assure the initial “escape” is not a Herculean one, not one where a hero has to move his team into the opposite half.
– Tempt / charm opponents into a weak Pawn position. Pep’s Barca would tend to move the opponents in such a way that eventually the desired territory would be vacated, and subsequently congregate, pouncing, on the vacated spaces. Bait, and play.
– Seclude, then Target Pawns. Ball-near combinations/overloads, the cunning short, quick passing to lure Madrid, like thieves on a desert path, guaranteed for their bounty.
Then, as regal-like stars traverse the night canvas, Iniesta asks Ramos’s hand for a dance. Bam. Freedom across the field.
– 1 Pawn can stop 2. Cruyff taught Josep something about defending, that only a couple of decades later he would find in his busy mind, mapping out details, and phases, of football, like an architect, visualizing, dreaming. How can a man, not even in the field, exceed the limits of such delicate frames?” the answer? Control space.
“One must strive to increase whatever weakness there may be in the opponent’s position; or, if there is none, one or more must be created.”
“Some believe that when I play I am excessively cautious, I try to avoid chance. Those who rely on chance should play cards or roulette.”
These are the words of men who own their minds, who lay out their sturdy toys named Variables, on the floor of the dorm of their intellects. and play the night away with them. until Eureka!
“surrounding himself with good people being demanding of all around him daily – it had all been worthwhile.” Win or loss, always in thought. exemplary to us all. Grandmaster that was promised, Josep Guardiola.
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