Is Pep Guardiola to blame for Germany’s decline?
Pep Guardiola is widely regarded as one of the best, if not the best, managers in history. He has won just about everything there is to win at the club level, and he has done it in different countries. Spain, Germany, England, you name the country, he’s won the league.
Not only that, but Guardiola’s teams play some of the most beautiful soccer the world has ever seen. No one has coached the Tiki-Taka style better than Pep. Whether it was with his Barcelona teams or with his Manchester City team now, it is hard to argue against Pep’s tactical genius.
However, not everyone is a fan of the Spanish manager. Former German and Bayern Münich midfield Bastian Schweinsteiger has claimed that Pep Guardiola is partially to blame for the German national team’s recent decline.
The German team now is a far cry from the German team that won the World Cup in 2014. Since that triumph, Germany has failed to get out of the group stage at the last two World Cups. They also suffered a second-round exit to England during the 2020 Euros.
Things were supposed to improve after Joachim Löw was fired. However, it has seemingly only gotten worse under Hansi Flick’s leadership.
Since the start of the 2022 World Cup, Germany has won just two out of eight games. The German fans are agitated and recently rained a storm of boos and jeers upon their team after its friendly loss to Colombia.
A year out from hosting the 2024 Euros, Germany is in a tailspin, and Schweinsteiger believes Pep Guardiola is to blame.
Schweinsteiger, who played for Pep for two years at Bayern, believes Guardiola’s tactics are partially to blame. He claimed that Pep caused Germany to lose its core footballing values and that Guardiola’s time in Germany has set the nation back immensely.
“When Pep Guardiola joined Bayern Münich, when he came to the country, everyone believed we have to play this kind of football, like short passes and everything. We were kind of losing our values,” Schweinsteiger said. “I think most of the other countries were looking at Germany as a fighter, we can run until the end and everything. The strengths got lost through the last seven, eight years. We forgot about that and were more focused on playing the ball nicely to each other. That’s one of the reasons.”
Is Guardiola to blame for Germany’s decline? Or is Schweinsteiger just trying to use Pep as a scapegoat?
No matter whether he is right or not, it is clear that German football is in a state of crisis. They are going to need a complete revamp as they head into next year’s European Championship.
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