Champions League 
/ Jonathan Wilson / 16 February 2012 / Leave a Comment 
Pedro didn't enjoy the way things went on Saturday night in Osasuna
"Guardiola has tinkered with the shape and has brought in at least two major signings each summer, as though he is conscious of the need for constant evolution."
Jonathan Wilson on how the great Bela Guttman only ever stayed for three years at one club and why the best that Pep Guardiola's Barcelona side have to offer may have come and gone.
As the league slips further away from Barcelona, it's hard not to wonder whether perhaps we have already seen the best of them, that the 3-1 victory over Manchester United at Wembley last season will stand as their greatest moment. They remain brilliant, of course, and the 3-1 win away to Bayer Leverkusen on Tuesday showed why they remain favourites for the Champions League, but their struggles in the league
(or rather, relative struggles, for in any normal league in any normal season they would be streets clear) perhaps just hints at marginal decline.
There is an irony to this, of course, and it is that Jose Mourinho is likely to win the league (Real Madrid are [1.05] to do so; Barca out to [11.0]) and still leave Real Madrid in the summer. To topple this Barca would probably be his greatest triumph, but the cost would be dreadfully high. The struggle has led him to Machiavellian tactics which even by his standards, has lost him respect and led to constant friction with his squad and with the board.
The clash of the most egotistical player in the world, Cristiano Ronaldo, the most egotistical president in the world, Florentino Perez, and the most egotistical coach in the world was never likely to end well. What is odd is that it is still likely to end in the league
title, so Mourinho can join Raddy Antic, Vicente del Bosque and Fabio Capello in being forced out of the Bernabeu having done a job that, if judged by results alone, would be deemed a success.
Of course nobody can win everything all the time, and the collection
of trophies gathered by Pep Guardiola - 13 out of 15 available since he took over - is astonishing. Miss out on the league this season and come back and win it next, and it would be ludicrous to do anything other than salute the achievement - particularly if it is accompanied by a Champions League (which they are [2.4] to win). In fact, the
weekend defeat to Osasuna could be seen as an indication that - whether consciously or not - they have given up on the league to focus on the Champions League. Giving up, of course, is itself relative - they are [1.30] to beat Valencia at home on Saturday.
But there are the words of the great Hungarian coach Bela Guttmann to consider. "The third year," he said, "is fatal." If a manager stays at a club more than that, he said, his players tend to become bored and/or complacent and opponents start to work out counter-strategies. There are occasional exceptions, especially in weaker leagues, but at the highest level, it seems to hold true that great teams last a maximum of three years.
Guttmann escaped the three-year rule by never remaining in the same place long enough for stagnation to set in. The other solution is for the manager to stay put and for the players to change, which is the strategy Sir Alex Ferguson has employed in his unprecedentedly long spell at Manchester United. A hard-core of loyalists, seemingly immune to complacency having grown up in United's youth sides, have been
supplemented by a rolling cast of signings, with anybody whose hunger dipped being culled: after United had finished second in the league and lost in the FA Cup final in 1995, for instance, Mark Hughes, Andriy Kanchelskis and Paul Ince were all offloaded.
Teams who play a hard-pressing game seem especially prone to the syndrome. Victor Maslov's Dynamo Kyiv won their third successive Soviet title in 1968, but within 18 months their form had disintegrated to the point that Maslov was sacked. Ajax won a
hat-trick of European Cups between 1971 and 1973 before Johan Cruyff's
acrimonious departure after other players voted for Piet Keizer to take over as captain. Arrigo Sacchi's AC Milan won a scudetto and two European Cups before the sheer effort, mental and physical, of maintaining the hard-pressing approach overwhelmed them.
Guardiola has tinkered with the shape and has brought in at least two major signings each summer, as though he is conscious of the need for constant evolution. The stuttering away form this season, though, suggests he has not been able to hold of Guttmann's rule. Entropy gets to us all.
James Eastham says the English visitors are the smart pick in the San Siro on Wednesday night....
James Eastham says Benfica are good enough to earn a point on Wednesday evening....
There were no surprises in tonight's two Champions League first-leg ties as both Barcelona and Lyon recorded victories......
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