Former Manchester United defender Patrice Evra has once again targeted Manchester City boss Pep Guardiola, accusing the Spanish manager of killing football.
The Man United legend, who played for a plethora of clubs during his playing days, called time on his football career in 2019. Since then, he has expressed that he is not a fan of Pep Guardiola’s style of football.
During a podcast episode with former teammate Rio Ferdinand, Evra criticized Guardiola’s football philosophy. According to him, Pep Guardiola, is undoubtedly one of the best managers in football but he has literally murdered the game with his tactics.
Explaining his position further, Evra described players that have played under Guardiola as robots – a metaphor delineating how the Spaniard has mechanized the game with strict roles for players.
He added that Guardiola’s style creates little or no room for creativity. Players are tied to defined roles and are tasked to perform same in the Spaniard’s football system and tactics. This he believes has been the final death knell to the potential emergence of geniuses and creative players.
Specifically, Evra stated that football may never witness another Ronaldinho or Eden Hazard again because of Guardiola’s searing influence in modern game. To him, those geniuses developed under old systems of coaching that allowed players more freedom to plump their creative depth and foray into new roles.
‘’I think Guardiola is one of the best managers. But Guardiola, he killed the game. And when I say that, people will say because it’s United and City. No! Because now we’ve got robots. Academy, everyone wants to play like Guardiola. The goalkeeper has to be a number 10. A defender center back need to tackle, put his head, like, those kind of things. But now everyone wants to play amazingly.”
“This tiki-taka only Guardiola can do it. Why everyone is copying Guardiola. We have no creativity; we have no genius anymore. You will never see a player like Ronaldinho anymore, or Hazard or whatever. Because when he’s going to be young, you know those coaches what they’re going to tell him, if you don’t pass the ball, I’ll put you on the bench. All football comes from the street.”
While he was still plying his trade at Manchester United, Evra faced Pep Guardiola’s Barcelona side multiple times in the Champions League. And it was a tie that never went in United’s favor with Guardiola defeating the Red Devils twice as a Barcelona boss.
Patrice Evra and Pep Guardiola’s media war
It is not the first time, Patrice Evra has aimed a dig on Guardiola’s football tactics. He had previously slammed the Spaniard back in 2022 for building a team that doesn’t have character and players with personality, hence their Champions League knockout loss to Real Madrid in the year.
Patrice Evra said City lacked leaders because Guardiola can’t train people with personality. The comment didn’t sit well with Guardiola, who responded with swipe on the former footballer.
Speaking with Sky Sports, he said;
“It’s the same character and personality that we lost in Madrid in the last two or three minutes. Former players like Berbatov, Clarence Seedorf and Patrice Evra and these types of people were there, and I played against them.
“I didn’t see this kind of personality when I destroyed them, we destroyed them, in the Champions League final against United.’’
“It’s the same character and personality. You cannot have personality because we conceded two goals in one minute when we have two chances to score? And after the last four games, we score 22 goals, and we have an incredible personality.”
Guardiola played against Manchester United in the 2009 and 2011 UCL finals and won both encounters as Barcelona manager.
He has come to dominate the Premier League with his ingrained tiki-taka football brand, winning six Premier League titles with four of those being successive in the past four seasons.
He also won the 2022-23 UEFA Champions league, ending City’s long-wait for the continental Championship.
However, for football analysts like Evra, Guardiola’s system, although hugely successful at the club level, limits individual players.
