He knows his players intimately. He cried with youngster Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg when the midfielder lost his father to stomach cancer in April 2014. He wants a maximum of 20 players in a first-team squad because he hates telling anyone that they have failed to make the 18-man matchday squad. Pep always likes to see the whole match and we load it on to his computer as soon as the match is over,” continues Planchart. “He might then look at the whole game or watch the particular moves we’ve categorised, either player by player, or by type of move, or under different tactical headings. He’ll also find my notes there, both details from the match and specific things we’ve agreed to watch out for. As well as getting the match broken down like this, Pep likes to review the match himself and he produces his own analysis.” As a rule, Guardiola gives three team talks before each match, each of them about 15 minutes long. He uses images to clarify his points, usually video footage that doesn’t last more than seven minutes. The three talks follow the same pattern.

Guardiola was on a sabbatical between his job at Barcelona and his eventual move to Bayern Munich, and during their first dinner in New York, he discussed various topics with Kasparov, though neither chess nor football arose in conversation. It was all very high brow and intelligent, as one might expect. He is super-intelligent,” Guardiola said of his elegant Bayern captain. “He understands the game brilliantly; knows when to come inside or stay wide. The guy is f**king exceptional.” You can see why it would be annoying. Liverpool had to put up with it towards the end of last season, hearing that City were being held, only for them to eventually find a way to win. On Saturday, I’m sure Pep and his players avoided the score from Anfield for a while, even if their title hopes were already slim then.ISAAN KHAN: Forget VAR, Mikel, you've got bigger problems to solve! Arsenal need to sign a striker in January and Arteta has created an unnecessary goalkeeper conundrum

Aaron Ramsdale howler almost hands Brentford an early lead as the Arsenal stopper gets his feet all wrong minutes into rare start The coach also has Garry Kasparov’s words ringing in his ears: “Remember, Pep, you don’t win games just because you’ve moved your pieces to the front.” Put simply, Guardiola loves talking about football. It’s a process that begins the first time he meets his players, continues throughout every training session (“He interjects all the time to correct and explain exactly what he wants from us,” recalled Dani Alves of Pep’s early days at Barcelona) and even extends to individual chats every day. Praise is effusive when merited. In Guardiola's view, these three concepts, the 'core idea,' 'language,' and 'people' are fundamental parts of any playing model and can determine a coach's chances of success or failure." -pg.55 Have you seen how smart Philipp [Lahm] is? How the guy turns and protects possession and also splits the opposition?”SIYA KOLISI opens up on suffering childhood hunger and violence in moving first interview since clinching World Cup glory Much is made of Pep’s Barça-ball style, yet he clearly adapted to Bayern’s strengths out wide, encouraging crossfield balls for Robben and Ribery. “I’m not some kind of Taliban; I’m not totally inflexible,” he says in Pep Confidential. “I’m happy to evolve. But please don’t ask me to do something I don’t believe in.” And if you don’t do what he believes in, you’ll find yourself discarded.

At 3am on Thursday, April 24, Pep is considering the obvious fact that Madrid will shut up shop when they visit the Allianz for the second leg. The coach also has Garry Kasparov's words ringing in his ears: 'Remember, Pep, you don't win games just because you've moved your pieces to the front.' Tottenham lead Premier League tributes for Terry Venables after their former manager, who won the FA Cup with Spurs in 1991 and led England at Euro '96 It’s a system Pep learned as part of Cruyff’s Dream Team. In his autobiography, Guardiola describes the play as “ pels extrems i amb els extrems”, a wonderful Catalan phrase that means “on the limit and with the wingers”. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted in any form, or by any

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I didn’t know him before Munich. It was amazing to be so close to such a brilliant coach teaching a team a totally new way. They’re masters at it now. I had doubts at the beginning, but Lahm, Robben and Ribery want to learn. Trying to figure out what Pep is trying to do wasn’t easy for them – imagine what it was like for me! IN October 2012, a mutual friend introduced Pep Guardiola to Garry Kasparov, arguably the greatest chess player of all time. Nothing is left to chance. The same long-established process is followed religiously in preparation for each fixture. Such painstaking preparation serves to calm the 44-year-old coach’s pre-game nerves.