Pep Guardiola and The Revie Plan?

[Skoorb]

Well this is spooky……and proves perhaps that nothing is really new in football.

I am reading “Trautman, the biography” by Alan Rowlands. First published in 1990 , my edition published 2013 well before Pep arrived. This was the season when the manager Les McDowell chose to change tactics after a pre-season tour of Germany and finally give in to Don Revie’s idea about playing a different style of football utilising a ‘deep lying centre-forward‘ (aka false nine?). McDowell had also taken note perhaps of the success of the reserve team the previous season where, left to their own devices, they had gone 26 games undefeated having adopted the style of football displayed by the famous Hungarian team that thrashed England 7-1 in Budapest having already confounded and beaten them at Wembley.

The chapter dealing with the 1954-55 season contains some remarkable content including:-

“The football world, deeply suspicious of of any new style or technique, treated the news with cynicism…”​

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Hmmm. Sounds familiar….seems the football establishment and especially the hacks haven’t changed much in nearly 70 years Given the cynicism with which Pep’s inverted full backs and wanting a keeper that is good with the ball at his feet were received.

And then not much later there was this:-

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“Revie used both wings for space while the wingers found space inside. Revie realised, however, that the success of the plan depended heavily on a goalkeeper who could read the game well and whose distribution from the penalty area was unfailingly accurate”​

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“Revie and the rest of the team conceptualised that keeping possession was the basis of good football and that started with the goalkeeper. The normal method of play with goalkeepers was to hastily kick the ball up field after making a save, often without any direction or accuracy.“​

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p128​

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Ederson as the reincarnation of Bert Trautmann………and Pep as the student of football history and tactics and the deployment once again of The Revie Plan.

Written 26 years before Pep arrived at Manchester City. Spooky.

It would be fascinating to know whether Pep knows anything of Don Revie and these early ideas.

 

[Skoorb]

“The great skill in football is in not standing still, but depends on men not in possession getting into position. The key factor in this strategy is using short, accurate passing at first in building up an attack….”​

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Don Revie (p129)​

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This could easily be attributed to Pep Guardiola.

 

[Rising]

Very interesting and as you say, spooky!

 

[Buzz Lightyear]

It was very informative, I noticed in the early years of watching City, that the City teams ie reserves, and youths did not all play the same system and it was not only until PG came along that all teams, including the women all play to the method the first team play

 

[kennyclementstache]

I'd always believed the 'Revie Plan' was well known by City fans - the deep lying centre forward etc. Growing up watching footie from the late 60' onwards I didn't really realise that teams played in different ways ie you were more successful if you had better players, although I guess there were innovators like Big Mal, Cloughie, Shankly etc although a lot seemed to be down to force of personality. Interesting that the reserves were left to get on with it, wonder what would happen if Pep told the first team squad that he was busy for the Tuesday night fixture on Tyneside and they'd have to muddle through as best they can without him...