The Pep Episodes XX
November 9, 2015 This article is part of a partnership with Grup 14, an organization dedicated to Futbol Club Barcelona and supporters around the world. The Pep Episodes are created by Alex Truica and originally published at Grup14.com.
It seems Bayern Munich don’t even care that much about winning anymore. Don’t get this wrong: They are so used to win comfortably it’s nothing special anymore, everything else would be very unexpected. So they simply move on and look at the bigger picture. The bigger picture its a Dali or Picasso: It’s Pep Guardiola and his contract, which ends in summer.
“It’s all about the margin of the victory”
Again, Bayern trashed two opponents easily. First, they got their revenge against Arsenal, crushing Arsene Wenger’s men 5-1 in the Champions League. On Saturday in the Bundesliga, their game against an incredible naive VfB Stuttgart was over after just 40 minutes, when Bayern lead 4-0 (the final score was 4-0 as well – understandably, even the ever hungry players seem to get a little bit bored by scoring that many goals).
“I like teams with this mentality,” Guardiola stated afterwards. Of course he likes it when an opponent allows his team to have plenty of time and space at the ball. Stuttgart doesn’t know how to park the bus or even defend properly, so it was an expected win for the German Champion. That’s why kicker sports magazine noted: “It’s no longer a matter of win or lose when Bayern play at home, it’s all about the margin of the victory.”
Impatient Germans
With this attitude, even applied by the media, it’s clear they move on to the important questions. And there is only one in Germany at the moment: When will Guardiola sign his contract extension? Well, you can add two or three extensions to this question, as many outlets do. Why hasn’t he signed his new contract already? for example or what is he waiting for? Germans want to be clear about the future, living in some kind of limbo isn’t what they are used to, especially if it’s about a big job position. The talk between club and coach has to happen, and it has to happen soon – that’s the general consensus.
But Guardiola doesn’t care about that, all he cares is about his team and the football it plays. “He’s an emotional, with pleasure pondering man,” observed Süddeutsche Zeitung, always analyzing the next opponent, focusing on the next game. So the Catalan doesn’t have time for some kind of “clarifying talk”.
CEO Karl-Heinz Rummenigge did the talking after the game against Stuttgart, saying that contract talks are held after the last game of the first half of the campaign. “We will have that conversation during the winter break.” Between 20th and 31th December, everybody will find out if Guardiola stays or leaves after the season, and the announcement will be “a christmas surprise”, Rummenigge added. A good or a bad one. “I’m relaxed, the coach is relaxed,” Rummenigge said. The only problem is: The German media isn’t.
The Pep Episodes is a weekly column about the adventures of Pep Guardiola in Munich exclusively written for Grup14 by Alex Truica, a freelance sports journalist and editor. You can follow him on Twitter.
