MARRAKECH, Morocco — Pep Guardiola, the coach who came back from a self-imposed exile in New York, is back on top of the soccer world.
“Two thousand thirteen is now finished and it’s behind us,” Guardiola said Saturday in Marrakesh, Morocco. “Since my arrival, I have tried to take care of the heritage of this club — now I will try to add other things that I hope will be positive. We have to turn to the future.”
With a one-sided 2-0 victory against Raja Casablanca, Guardiola’s new Bayern Munich team added the FIFA Club World Cup to four other titles it collected throughout the year. The Bavarian club’s own website accurately described Saturday’s opponent as “willing, ever courageous, but ultimately limited.”
Bayern’s Brazilian center back, Dante, showed off how nimble and quick the modern defender can be with his feet to open the scoring after seven minutes, and Thiago Alcântara, who Guardiola brought with him from Barcelona, put the game beyond the host team on 22 minutes.
After that, for all the sound and fury of the 37,774 in the home crowd, the disparity between a Casablanca side that cost less than $10 million to put together versus the $666 million champion of Germany, Europe and now the world, was evident.
“My players were a little nervous,” said Raja’s coach, Faouzi Benzarti, himself a new appointee having arrived at the mid-table Moroccan-league club on the eve of this tournament. “The king was present, but to lose only 2-0 to Bayern Munich is very honorable.”
If only the king had seen the semifinals, he would have seen the Casablanca team that was invited to be the tournament host take down Atlético Mineiro, the South American champion, 3-1. The home team players had stripped Mineiro’s star man, Ronaldinho, of his shirt and his shoes as souvenirs before leaving the field that night.
Guardiola saw the signs, and warned his Munich players to be ready to face not just a team, but a nation. He need not have worried. Bayern had enough leadership on the pitch with Philipp Lahm, enough flair with Franck Ribéry, enough adaptability from Thomas Müller, to play anyone, anywhere.
“This Bayern team is too stable, and the coach is too ambitious to arrive at such a final complacent or arrogant,” said the club’s chairman, Karl-Heinz Rummenigge.
Neither arrogant nor sated by success, Bayern Munich closed out the year as champion of everything it started. Guardiola has now won 16 of his 22 tournaments, with Barca and Bayern in his relatively short career as coach. The future awaits.
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