The flawed genius of Pep Guardiola

Before Pep Guardiola took charge of Barcelona in 2008, nobody believed it was possible to play elite European football in the way you might play a five-a-side: holding possession, dragging the opposition around the pitch, trying to work openings. Thirteen years on, his approach is so accepted as a standard way of playing that there has been a counter-revolution. And now, in the season just finished, a synthesis seems to have emerged, led by Guardiola himself.

After the years