Pep Guardiola: Bayern boss set for Barca Champions League return

Having spent nearly his entire playing career with Barca, winning six league titles and one European Cup along the way, Pep Guardiola returned to the club as manager of the reserve team in 2007 and succeeded Frank Rijkaard as first-team boss a year later.

The rest - and for once this is no mere cliche - is history.

Basing his team around the divine talents of Andres Iniesta, Xavi Hernandez and Messi, Guardiola created arguably the best team in the history of football.

In four seasons under Guardiola, Barca won a staggering 14 trophies, including a pair of La Liga and Champions League doubles, in 2009 and 2011. And they did so with an attacking, attractive, possession-based brand of football which left even vanquished opponents drooling and praising their achievements.

In 2012, emotionally and mentally drained by the demands of the job, Guardiola resigned and enjoyed a sabbatical from the game, living for a year in New York to pursue his cultural interests and take a complete break from football.

Now, he is returning to his spiritual home for the first time, looking for his first European crown as Bayern manager.

And for Barca fans the meeting with Guardiola - the game they have been waiting three years for - will present a heady mix of emotions as their team attempts to defeat the club legend many of them still idolise.

In truth, Guardiola didn't single-handedly 'invent' Barcelona's short passing style of play which became known to the world, even though he dislikes the phrase, as tiki-taka.

In fact, Guardiola merely adapted and enhanced an already well-established playing tradition which was first implemented by Johan Cruyff during his managerial reign at the Nou Camp between 1988 and 1996, and later continued by fellow Dutchmen Louis van Gaal and Rijkaard.

Nevertheless, Guardiola took that particular brand of football to the next level, making himself synonymous with Barca's style of play. But since he left, things have changed a great deal at the Nou Camp and the team he will face on Wednesday is tactically different from the team he left behind.

Messi, for starters, no longer plays in the 'false nine' deep-lying centre forward role created for him by Guardiola, instead lining up on the right wing.

Furthermore, Guardiola's on-pitch representative, Xavi, is now a largely peripheral presence who will probably witness the majority of the tie in very close proximity to his former manager: from the bench.

And even Iniesta, despite a magnificent assist for Neymar's opener in last month's quarter-final victory over Paris St-Germain, is a less significant figure in a Barcelona team which now relies much less heavily on patient build-up play in midfield.

Instead, the team ethic under current boss Luis Enrique is based upon exploiting the explosive attacking talents of superstar trio Messi, Neymar and Suarez, who have already combined for an outrageous 108 goals this season: 51 for Messi, 33 for Neymar and 24 for Suarez.

Barca have not, of course, suddenly become a kick-and-rush team and they still place great importance upon passing football. 

But the emphasis is subtly different, with attacking through wide areas now more fundamental than dominating the midfield.

Now, it is Bayern who embody Guardiola's style, with the German team commanding a greater share of possession than any other team in the Champions League - including Barcelona.

(BBC)