Still with a bit of hair and just retired from his playing days, Pep Guardiola used to write columns in Spanish newspaper El Pais. He was 35, and reading them back now offers a unique insight into his tactical fascinations.
Among his fetishisation of versatile midfielders, creating free men through positional play and false nines, the former Barcelona captain describes Zinedine Zidane as ‘France’s best defender’.
‘Thanks to him, France are never disorganised,’ Guardiola wrote. ‘He asks for it, he gets it, he passes it on, he asks for it again, he gets it again and he passes it on again.