Guardiola to take over at Bayern at the end of the season

[Miquel The Work Geordie]

What are the global viewing figures for the prem and the bund?

Because until they get close, whether you like it or not, globally it will not be looked at as favourably as the prem is.

There will be peaks and troughs of success, but cash is usually King unfortunately.

Not disputing the popularity globally between the two at all - I'm fully aware how incredibly well marketed our top flight is - what I am disputing is the argument that the cash being pumped into the league means we see the world's 'best' division. The Spice Girls were popular worldwide - if something's sold well enough, it will be popular.

I'm not anti-PL by any means, or indeed biased towards any league - but there isn't always a guaranteed parallel between expenditure and quality.

We've got some pretty exciting players in the Premier League. You could put out a team of:

Cech

Zabaleta

Vidic

Kompany

Baines

Lucas

Toure

Mata

Rooney

Bale

Van Persie

That would be pretty exciting to watch, Schweinsteiger and co. not withstanding.

Lets not bash the Premier League for the sake of it.

My post was more a riposte to the stance that huge viewing figures and mountains of cash equal the highest quality league. I'm aware we see some wonderful footballers in England - I'd personally rather watch the Bundesliga's finest as it stands, though.

Again, I'm not anti-PL, just tired of the argument that because it's big in Asia it's instantly labelled 'the best.' It's a futile debate anyway, football's subjective, surely? One man's rubbish is another's treasure and all that.

[Dan]

I must've missed the last few months where Man City failed miserably in the Champions League (in a group that included a German side), Arsenal limped through their group (which again included a German side) and Chelsea, the defending champions of Europe, were completely shown up in their European effort. And that's dining at the top table, is it? Having your domestic champions feebly exit after round one - great stuff.

In terms of quality, talent and excitement, the Bundesliga is most definitely catching up with the Premier League - if it hasn't already. The whole issue is less to do with the lustre of the Premier League fading and more to do with the rise in quality from Germany over the past few seasons. Just because the English game throws cash around recklessly - does it means we can attract the best players, or are PL sides merely paying over the odds for average ones? Loic Remy hasn't scored a single league goal for Marseille this season, and, by all accounts (ie - French journalists on Twitter ) has been dog awful. QPR give him 75k a week. That's not excitement, that's taking a player in bang average form and paying him a king's ransom - having the league with the most cash doesn't necessarily mean the best talent if the moolah is squandered.

I'm sure if you picked a Bundesliga XI and a Premier League XI, they'd not be poles apart. And I'd bet my house (well, flat) that the German side would be a better watch, too.

This is spot on. The ignorance of the Bundesliga riles me.

The PL is painfully over-rated. I'm not saying it's a bad league but I hate how people seem to think it's the best because it's where the most money is splashed. It's all hype and people buy into it because we love the thought of having Europe's strongest league.

[Hugo Sanchez]

Over rated by a country mile. Spain and barca doesn't matter who's in charge. Not going to have the greatest players in the world. Also the greatest player in the world. End up at leicester one day and we're be linked to a 38 year old messi.

[Finnegan]

Reus

Reus Reus Reus Reus

Reus Reus Reus

Reus Reus Gotze.

[Alexikokopops]

This made me chuckle:

The era of hoaxes has reached its highpoint. This is an age in which internet tomfoolery can be trumpeted as eternal truth across even the most solemn media outlets, an anonymous Twitter troll can invent a transfer story and sit back and cackle as it is regurgitated on TV and in the tabloids, but even in this chaotic environment no one has managed to successfully sucker everyone into believing a preposterous falsehood. Until now.

This time last year Bayern Munich infuriated fans by announcing they were going to reveal the identity of a "spectacular new signing" on their Facebook page, prompting supporters to charge there in their thousands only to find that the recruit in question was … some cheesy app. The Bavarian outfit were whipped with shredded virtual lederhosen for weeks after that and eventually stammered a sheepish apology. But apparently they did not learn their lesson, because yesterday Bayern bragged that they had secured the signing of none other than Pep Guardiola! "We are very pleased that we have managed to convince someone who was coveted and contacted by many top clubs to come to Bayern," deadpanned Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, as every media organisation in the world reported the club's claim as fact without anyone pausing to point out that it is highly implausible that the most sought-after manager on the planet would choose to sidestep the Best League in the World. The prank might have seemed credible if Guardiola had turned down the Best League in the World in order to return to the league with the best players in the world but instead we are expected to believe that he rejected the Premier League to go to the league with the best facilities, fans and plans: absurd!

All those German and Spanish papers commending Guardiola's choice are going to feel pretty stupid when the joke is revealed and Pep really agrees to become Chelsea's latest interim firefighter or Manchester City's resident ringmaster. Take Bild, for example: this morning they were congratulating Bayern for pulling off "the sensation of the year, the biggest coup of all time" – tomorrow they will have to apologise for swallowing the earliest April fool of all time, as Guardiola shuns the stability of Bayern and resumes measuring the whims of Roman Abramovich against the mood swings of assorted members of City's unbalanced squad.

"Guardiola chooses Bayern over the noise of England," quips El País, who'll be rolling around pretending to be hurt like the dastardly foreigners they are when the truth gives them a good wholesome tackle from behind. The columnist Santi Segurola, meanwhile, will doubtless claim mistranslation when Guardiola agrees to become Plain Old John Terry's subordinate. "Bayern Munich [are] a real club and not that artificial product all too common in modern football," prattled Segurola today before his imminent retraction. "It would have been difficult for him to have felt comfortable with the new owners of English football."

Pah! You foreign chumps carry on swallowing nonsense. We Premier League fans will have the last laugh by sticking to a steady diet of horse meat and bullplop.

[C-man]

I cant help feeling this is a backward step for him.

The Bundesliga is not the big show platform that England and Spain provide.

I can see why he has done it however, Bayern are the big German fish and with Dortmund likely to break up their side and lose their coach he should have a more simple path to trophy glory.

Joining Chelsea would have been looking up at Man Utd and City rather than looking down on everyone at Bayern.

Likely to break up and Klopp likely to leave? On what evidence?

Hummels, Subotic, Kuba, Götze, Reus, Schmelzer, Piszczek, Bender and the manager Klopp contracted till 2016 or 2017. 

You can trot out the 'contracts don't mean anything line' but quite frankly Nuri Sahin sacrificing €2m per year to return tells you all you need to know about the lure of that club.

As for the Bundesliga as a whole, it is the best placed out of all the European leagues for when FPP comes in. The progress it has made already - overtaking Italy and soon to overtake England - suggests it will be THE force in 6/7 years time. 

[Guest ttfn]

You can trot out the 'contracts don't mean anything line' but quite frankly Nuri Sahin sacrificing €2m per year to return tells you all you need to know about the lure of that club.

Or you could say that Sahin's career was dying outside of Dortmund and the Bundesliga.

Lets not forget that he had played about 5 hours of football for Madrid and couldn't hold down a place in a very average Liverpool team.

[C-man]

Or you could say that Sahin's career was dying outside of Dortmund and the Bundesliga.

Lets not forget that he had played about 5 hours of football for Madrid and couldn't hold down a place in a very average Liverpool team.

...picked by a manager who seemed to rate Joe 'sideways' Allen more highly in Sahin's actual position. Playing him one off the striker or on the wing was hardly going to help his form.

Besides, 4 goals in 13 games? Hardly shit.

[Guest Bilo]

Now step outside of the 'Our Bundesliga is so wonderful' bubble inhabited by Germans and others who would like to see a return to the violent days and in the wider World of Football the German league is looked upon as not dining at the top table of Football.

Why is that? Because the best players and the best Football is played elsewhere quite simply.

Whether you like it or not the big show in Football is in the Premier League and La Liga, the rest is a step down so Guardiola going from Barca to Bayern is a step down.

However I can fully understand why he has done it. Chelsea would have been a genuine test of his abilities whereas at Bayern he should be able to add to his silverware haul without having to stretch his abilities or take a significant risk with his career.

To be fair, everywhere is a step down from Barcelona.

It's like saying Cheryl Cole is a step down from Mila Kunis, you'd still happily enter either.

[Guest Bilo]

I don't think this is really a great example of the German league's rising status, as much as that is undoubtedly the case.

Bayern transcend German football - they are a European superpower. Realistically at this moment in time the only clubs on that level are Barcelona, Real Madrid and Manchester United.

He's just left 1, can't really manage another and the United job is reserved for Ferguson indefinitely. It's all in the timing - Heynckesvjust happens to be leaving Bayern this summer and Pep is free.

You can bet your bottom dollar that had the United job been available this summer he'd have taken it.

I think he probably will take the Manchester United job when Ferguson finally retires, so long as the Glazers don't make a complete Horlicks of their finances.

[Guest ttfn]

...picked by a manager who seemed to rate Joe 'sideways' Allen more highly in Sahin's actual position. Playing him one off the striker or on the wing was hardly going to help his form.

Besides, 4 goals in 13 games? Hardly shit.

Are we judging him on goals? In that case he did fine. But anybody who watched him at Doetmund knows its not his game.

Blaming the manager is such a poor excuse. Rodgers brought him to the club for goodness sake.

He's a good player who excelled for 18 months at Dortmund. Otherwise he's achieved absolutely nothing - he's an embarrassing footnote on Mourinho's Madrid project and failed to impose himself at Liverpool.

No wonder he's gone back to Dortmund. I would if I was him. It's not proof of the lure of Dortmund.

[C-man]

Yes, Rodgers brought him to the club. But then he proceeded to play him out of position. Ergo, you are spot on about goals not being his game. As you will no doubt know, he's a number 6 who likes to affect the game from a deep-lying position. Don't like sounding like an apologist but asking a young player, who's had a disastrous 12 months through injury etc, to stamp his authority on games in a new league from an unfamiliar role only to brand him not good enough after 13 games is poor form for me.

I would have liked to have seen him next to Lucas in the twin-6 role but with Gerrard picking the team and Allen and Henderson both big money, there was no chance of that happening.

Regarding the lure of Dortmund, I'm not convinced you'd get many players dumping €2m per year at Real Madrid/Liverpool for any other club. Yes it's his home but that's a lot of money to give up. The current crop at DO will stay together for a number of years, yet. With the possible exception of Lewa. Pushing Bayern and CL qualification year-on-year is more than enough for them at this stage.