Pepism is no longer the prevailing tactical template, with football and its innovator in a state of flux
T
he world is blasted, unfamiliar. Smoke swirls amid the gloom. Foul odours belch from the sulphurous earth. The landscape echoes to howls and grunts and screams. A great light has gone out and all that remains is confusion and fear. Everywhere coaches and managers, hunched under their doubts, scuttle hither and thither, desperately seeking a path through the wilderness.
From his very first season at Barcelona, Pep Guardiola’s way of playing football has been dominant. The effectiveness of his philosophy was so obvious and so pervasive that there is not an elite manager now who has not in some way been influenced by his philosophy, even if they are not, as many are, overt disciples.
But as the near-universal acceptance of his methods fractures, as other Premier League sides turn away from or adapt Pepism towards approaches based on counterattacking, set plays, players who run with the ball or a more direct style, the result is a profound uncertainty. Belief recedes to leave a wasteland of possibility.
