What's the best way to stop Pep Guardiola's teams?

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Martin Macdonald | Writer

Content writer covering football, formula 1 and movies

Pep Guardiola is one of the most successful managers of all time and undoubtedly one of the most influential.

In fact, his haul of 40 trophies won is only bettered by Sir Alex Ferguson.

Among Guardiola's managerial accolades are three La Liga titles, six Premier League titles and three Champions League triumphs.

After coming through to take over as head coach of his beloved Barcelona, he changed the face of football by continuing Barca's Tiki-Taka philosophy, while he evolved himself as he eventually dominated with Bayern Munich domestically and with Manchester City on all fronts.

Nobody has won more trophies this century than Pep, which raises the question...

How do you stop Pep Guardiola's teams?

Several coaches have tried and plenty have succeeded on a given day, though one has been battling against Pep alongside his dad for years.

Davide Ancelotti, the son of Carlo Ancelotti, is a head coach in his own right now at Botafogo but spent years as an assistant to his father at Bayern Munich, Napoli, Everton and then Real Madrid.

In an interview with the BBC, he discussed the best ways to stop a Pep team and it involved, firstly, adopting a 4-4-2 formation, though he admitted that Guardiola looked to combat that by adding in an extra central midfielder between the two in the opposition side.

"Yes, the best way to attack against a 4-4-2 is to create an overload in the centre," he explained.

"Guardiola did it a lot against us, even when we were at Everton. At Everton we defended in a 4-4-2, and we decided to mark their two midfielders with Abdoulaye Doucoure and Allan so he started to put a third player inside, and it was tough. We then moved our number 10 to follow this player.

"He did it again with John Stones in the Champions League, who started to go inside, I think in the game we drew 1-1 at the Bernabeu.

He says having the four midfielders very narrow is key to closing down the space for Guardiola's players.

"We demand a lot from the four players in midfield. The way you cope with it is to close space with the wingers. They have to be really narrow," the Italian continued.

"Every time the ball is on one side, the (far-side) winger controls one of their central midfielders, but at some point, because they are patient and they move from one side to another, you'll leave space in midfield.

"At that point, your number 10 dropping back helps.

"But sometimes you have [Kylian] Mbappe and Vinicius Jr as your two strikers, so what do you do when you need a player to drop back?"

While at Real Madrid, Ancelotti helped coach the likes of Jude Bellingham, Mbappe and Vinicius Junior and the latter two could be viewed as players who are extremely impactful at the top of the pitch but perhaps don't have the workrate or defensive capabilities to help against a team like Man City.

Ancelotti explains a tweak that he and his father made in one vital Champions League encounter.

"You have to find a way. At the highest level you have players that you cannot avoid playing because they can win you the game," he said.

"When we played against City in 2024, we were having a successful season with [Jude] Bellingham on the left of midfield with Vinicius and Rodrygo up top, but for this game we needed somebody to drop in as a third midfielder. We couldn't leave two players up top when defending.

"Our solution was to move Bellingham centrally to play behind Vinicius. His work rate meant he could defend City's third midfielder. We then moved Rodrygo to the left who worked more defensively than Vinicius, who played up top.

"That game finished 3-3. Maybe tactically it would have been better to play with an even more defensive winger on the left and to play with Bellingham and Vinicius up top, but then you had Rodrygo, who scored."

We saw Guardiola utilising that extra midfielder very recently against Liverpool. Arne Slot set his side up in a 4-4-2 formation but Bernardo Silva was placed between the two Liverpool central midfielders and caused havoc, forcing opposition players to choose between making him centrally or confronting wingers on the flank.

In addition to his duties with Botafogo, Ancelotti will assist Carlo with the Brazil national team at the 2026 World Cup this summer.

The Selecao are one of the favourites to win the trophy and are in a group alongside Scotland, Morocco and Haiti.