Guardiola approach belittled by former Bayern Munich club doctor

Former Bayern Munich club doctor Dr Hans-Wilhelm Müller-Wohlfahrt has heavily criticised Pep Guardiola and accused him of doing “everything in his power to mislead others”.

Guardiola won seven trophies in three seasons with Bayern Munich before leaving in the summer of 2016 to join Manchester City.

But during his time in Bavaria, he had a high-profile falling out with Dr Müller-Wohlfahrt, who had been with Bayern for 38 years.

Müller-Wohlfahrt and his team left the club in April 2015, with Guardiola having blamed the doctor for Bayern’s 3-1 Champions League defeat to Porto earlier that month.

He has since returned to the club’s medical staff, but has released a new autobiography detailing his relationship with Guardiola, which has been serialised in Bild.

Thanks to Sport Witness, here are a few snippets:

‘Under Pep Guardiola, the climate changed at Bayern Munich, and it became more and more clear that he did not trust me and my team. On the one hand, he was totally uninterested in medical issues, but on the other hand, he demanded that we perform miracles.

‘Guardiola was often portrayed in the media as an innovative, if not revolutionary, coach. But at Bayern Munich he turned the clock back tremendously. He even went so far as to turn our medically thought-out, well-rehearsed preparation program on its head before the actual football training.

‘I remember one season under Jupp Heynckes, in which there were only three muscle injuries. That’s a really low number considering the demands on the players. And I do not rely on my memory or my gut feeling, but on the official statistics of the Uefa Elite Club Injury Study, in which Bayern was always among the clubs with the fewest injuries.

‘Then came Pep Guardiola. And right in the first season we had far, far more muscle injuries than in the successful 2012/13 season before. And he knew everything better: Five minutes warm-up in a rush, that had to be enough. But that could not be good. Already at the Club World Cup in Morocco at the end of his first preliminary round, every attentive spectator had to notice that the Bayern players were not fit.

‘But I simply could not reach Pep Guardiola with the way I think and work. Even my reports of injured players did not interest him. Whenever I wanted to talk to him, he immediately turned away and walked away.

‘I think Pep Guardiola is a person of low self-esteem, who does everything in his power to mislead others. He therefore seems to live in constant fear, not so much in defeat, but much more in the loss of power and authority.’

 

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