How does Pep improve on perfection?
Claudio Ranieri was crucified for his tinkering tendencies by the British press. But the truth is that every good coach, deep down, is a tinkerman.
Pep Guardiola is a case in point.
While European journalists ran out of superlatives to describe Barcelona last season, their obsessive, workaholic perfectionist coach was less interested in the compliments than the semi-final against Chelsea when his team failed to function like a well-oiled machine.
It would be truly, deeply stupid to draw any conclusions from the soporific Super Cup game with Shakhtar Donetsk.
But the manner in which Shakhtar Donetsk stifled the European champions suggests Guardiola might be right to rebuild.
The best way to unsettle the reigning champions, ShakhtarâÂÂs performance suggested, is to bore them to death.
The genius that is Lionel Messi became so frustrated he invented his own variation on the Glasgow kiss, a gesture that may henceforth be known as the air butt.
"Nab him, jab him, tag him, grab him..."
ShakhtarâÂÂs clever counter-attacking style could, with a smarter referee, have put them 1-0 ahead in extra time.
Coach Mircea Lucescu, who looked more animated when he ran onto the pitch in protest than most players had been all night, was shrewd enough to realise that the more open the game the more likely Barcelona were to win.
So he organised his troops accordingly, with players blocking the zones where Barca might create, squeezing play on the flanks, packing the middle of the park, and trusting that in any match, even against the European champions, you will get opportunities and, if you can take them, you might just win.
In the first half, Shakhtar had an easy time because Barcelona were too predictable, always trying to play through the middle.
Gerard PiqueâÂÂs passing was especially one-dimensional â always moving the ball into the congested centre, where finding the right pass was like trying to thread the eye of a needle, rather than releasing Daniel Alves on the right.
At half-time, I wondered if Guardiola would start his team talk by saying to Pique: âÂÂLet me introduce you to Dani Alves. HeâÂÂs a team-mate. Why donâÂÂt you try passing the ball to him occasionally?âÂÂ
Certainly in the second half, Pique released Alves more often, initially with promising results. Messi then drifted out wide to exploit the space as Shakhtar tired.
So Chelsea and Shakhtar have both shown that if you donâÂÂt care about the spectacle, you can seriously disrupt Barcelona.
And thatâÂÂs one reason, according to a very entertaining discussion on Sky Sports' ever-entertaining Revista de la Liga, that Guardiola has set out to improve on perfection.
The goal is to make Barcelona even more awesomely effective by varying the threat up front, making more devastating use of the flanks and improving their dismal record from set-pieces.
Central striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic will sometimes pull back to draw defenders out, creating space for Xavi and Iniesta to run into.
As tactically sophisticated as football can sometimes seem, defences and coaches have still not devised a way to cope with midfielders running into the area, even though this ploy is at least half a century old.
Both full-backs â Alves on the right and Abidal or Maxwell on the left â can bomb forward simultaneously, because one of the central midfielders will come deep so Barcelona have three at the back when attacking.
Ibra: key to a new tactical philospophy
In the interchange of players and formations, this is much more Total Footballish, echoing the 3-4-3 Johan Cruyff deployed as a coach at Ajax and Barcelona.
With players as good as Guardiola, he could risk exposing his defence because he was so confident he would control midfield.
Rinus Michels said this âÂÂspectacular but riskyâ formation depends on the quality of the players in the middle of the park and their intelligence.
But get it right, as Guardiola believes his players will, and your team becomes much harder to predict and nullify.
Against Shakhtar, even with Ibrahimovic, they were so ineffectual from corners they could have taken them all night against an undefended goal and not scored.
But against Sporting Gijon, in their first la Liga game, all the goals in their routine 3-0 victory came from headers.
Shakhtar showed enough speed and technique on the counter to create chances but didnâÂÂt always make the right decisions.
In one passage of play in the first half, LucescuâÂÂs men passed the ball around in front of the Barcelona penalty area and the Catalans looked distinctly uncomfortable.
Carles Puyol was caught out a few times â so the ã22 million arrival of ShakhtarâÂÂs steely, shrewd centre-back Dmytry Chyngrysnkiy, who looked far more composed and accomplished in Monaco than any Barcelona defender, looks superbly timed.
The good news for BarcelonaâÂÂs opponents is that the Super Cup might have already done for the European champions.
The last team to win the Super Cup and go on to win the European Cup the next May was Milan in 1990.
Since then, only Sevilla, who outclassed Barca in the 2006 Super Cup, have gone on to win a major European competition (the UEFA Cup).
As curses go, it must be on a par with the Community ShieldâÂÂs.
But maybe GuardiolaâÂÂs thoughtful tinkering can defeat that curse too.
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