Comparing Pep Guardiola's First Bayern Munich Side to His Last

Pep Guardiola's footballing philosophy is one of the most widely discussed and, at the same time, commonly misunderstood topics in world football.

Although "tiki-taka" is rightly no longer commonly used, the terms "Pep player," "Pep team," and "Pep effect" are often thrown around without any clear definitions.

In reality, Guardiola's footballing philosophy—like that of any coach successful over long periods of time—is something that has proved a bit more fluid. A case study can be seen in the trainer's tactical evolution during his time at Bayern Munich, contrasting his first season at the Allianz Arena to his third and final campaign in Germany.

In the summer of 2013, Guardiola took the helm of a Bayern team that was probably the most tactically flexible the game had seen in a long time.

Jupp Heynckes' treble-winners had won the UEFA Champions League using containment, pressing and possession-based methods at different stages.

Their midfield trio of Javi Martinez, Bastian Schweinsteiger and Toni Kroos had all the qualities to defend and attack with devastating effect, or simply to hold the ball. To add a bit more fuel to the forward game, Kroos would be replaced with Thomas Muller, with Arjen Robben taking the Germany international's spot on the right wing. This central-midfield trio was probably the most important part of the treble-winners.

Yet Guardiola had his own plans.

Despite stating in his first press conference as a Bayern coach (via Goal) that "there (were) very few things to change" with the team he inherited, the former Barcelona man completely revamped the treble-winners to mould them into his own image.

Perhaps it stemmed from an egotistical desire to assert himself as "unique," perhaps it was just a matter of the trainer resorting to the comfort of what he understood as a coach. Regardless, it became clear early on that his Bayern team would be markedly different from Heynckes'.

In his debut match against Borussia Dortmund in the DFL-Superpokal, Guardiola swapped Heynckes' 4-2-3-1 formation for the same 4-3-3 he'd used at Barca.

More significantly, the midfield trio consisted of Thiago Alcantara behind Kroos and Muller. Schweinsteiger was benched until the final quarter of the game, and Luiz Gustavo (who normally would have been back-up for an unavailable Martinez in the Heynckes era) didn't play a minute. Bayern's midfield lacked balance, and the treble-winners lost 4-2.

His second match, against amateur side Schwarz-Weiss Rehden in the DFB-Pokal, wasn't exactly a tactical chess match. But again, Guardiola used Muller and Kroos in central midfield with just one anchor: Schweinsteiger this time.

Tactically relevant was that in this match, Martinez played under Guardiola for the first time. Yet the player who had been purchased for a record €40 million sum in order to shore up Heynckes' midfield was instead used as a substitute for central defender Dante. Tactically, the 5-0 win against Rehden would be a preview of the rest of Martinez's time under the former Barcelona boss.

It didn't take long for Guardiola to realize that his tactics were a bit too forward-minded, and on August 27, in the fourth round of the Bundesliga, he brought Philipp Lahm off the bench to play in midfield.

The captain offered defensive stability as a midfield anchor, his instincts and skills from his time at right-back making him a good fit for the role. Lahm was able to break up play and was an assured passer of the ball. Bayern were utterly dominant in possession.

Yet for all their time on the ball, Bayern often lacked a bit of urgency and pace in transitioning from defense to attack.

There was a bit of "possession for the sake of possession" about the side, and with Lahm, Schweinsteiger and Kroos forming the midfield trio in big games, the team struggled. Such was the case in the 1-1 draw away to Manchester United and 1-0 defeat away to Real Madrid in the Champions League quarter- and semi-finals, respectively.

The 2013-14 season overall was clearly a transitional period for Bayern as Guardiola experimented with midfields that would prove too conservative (Lahm-Schweinsteiger-Kroos) and too aggressive (Thiago-Kroos-Muller, for example), and with Muller and Mario Gotze as false strikers in addition to Mario Mandzukic as a classic centre-forward.

By the end of the season, it wasn't clear what Guardiola's best tactic was, and exactly what he intended to do with players like Lahm and Muller, who had been shifted around the pitch.

Despite all their domestic success, uncertainty and inconsistency caught up with Bayern in the Champions League, and they labored to the semi-finals before being put to the sword by Real Madrid with a 5-0 aggregate defeat. The Spanish giants sliced through the Bayern midfield like butter, their devastating counterattack exposing the fragility of Guardiola's possession-based system.

The Bayern that Guardiola created in 2015-16 was a very different one from his first, however, and in many ways it was much better.

The most recent Bayern achieved a much better sense of balance, and despite playing with a high defensive line, the amount of pressing from forward positions saw opponents' chances to counterattack much more limited.

Bayern harried opponents in their own half so much that undersized centre-backs Joshua Kimmich and David Alaba were able to function quite well in non-conventional roles for their positions, chasing down clearances and hopeful long balls more often than contending for headers in the penalty area.

The Bavarians also relied more on pace than before. This partly had to do with Robert Lewandowski's presence; the Poland international is much more adept in such situations than Mandzukic. He and Muller, whose position was fixed as a supporting striker, had clearly defined roles and were the driving force behind the Bayern attack.

In Guardiola's first season, wingers Franck Ribery and Arjen Robben were the main attackers, but the central players varied both in name and task.

Also in 2015-16, Bayern's midfield was far more balanced than in 2013-14. Guardiola typically used a double pivot, relying on Xabi Alonso to quarter-back the attack with his precise short- and long-ranged passing, and Arturo Vidal to provide energy both in driving the ball forward and in providing defensive cover.

Whereas Lahm-Schweinsteiger-Kroos was an example of three players with similar attributes on the ball (little pace and dribbling ability but great passing skill), Alonso and Vidal offered a diversity of skills that complemented each other very well. In some instances, one or the other would be substituted with Thiago to boost the attack with an agile creator who could dribble and create and convert chances in and around the penalty area.

It seemed that in 2015-16, Guardiola understood his team better than ever before. Rather than experimenting with several different systems over the course of the season in search of the right combination, he maintained relative consistency.

There were tweaks here and there, but the players in general seemed to understand their roles and weren't expected to make drastic changes on a regular basis.

The result was a team that, despite its flaws, looked much more tactically balanced and versatile than Guardiola's Bayern of 2013-14.

It's a shame this Bayern did not win the treble, but at least in 2015-16, the Bundesliga champions looked much closer to being the best team in Europe than they had two seasons prior.

@Mr_Bundesliga