"Guardiola killed football: there will never be another Ronaldinho"

Patrice Evra is fed up with the general trend in football to apply ‘tiki-taka’. The former Manchester United, Monaco, Nice, Juventus, Olympique Marseille and West Ham United player analysed City's Champions League defeat to Sporting CP on another former Premier League player, Rio Ferdinand's show, which led him to complain about what he sees as a constant attempt to copy Pep Guardiola.

"Pep Guardiola is one of the best coaches, but he has killed the game and, when I say that, people will say it's because of United and City: no. It's because, now, we have robots. It's because, now, we have robots. The youth teams and everybody wants to play like Guardiola. The goalkeeper has to be a ‘10’, a centre-back has to make tackles, head clearances, that sort of thing, but, now, everybody wants to play impressively, he said.

"Only Guardiola can do this ‘tiki-taka’ thing. Why is everybody copying Guardiola? We don't have creativity, we don't have geniuses anymore, we will never see a player like Ronaldinho or Hazard or whoever because he has to be young and you know, all those coaches are going to tell him that if he doesn't pass the ball, he goes to the bench. All football comes from the street," he added.

Throughout his career, Patrice Evra has been under the orders of several classic coaches who never applied ‘tiki-taka’ formulas. He worked with Sir Alex Ferguson, David Moyes - in two different phases -, Massimiliano Allegri and Rudi Garcia, among others. He retired in the summer of 2019 and, five years later, he is often seen in various programmes such as this one with his friend Rio Ferdinand, entitled ‘Rio Ferdinand Presents’.

 

November 4, 2024