Pep Guardiola has never disguised his admiration for Italian football and it is revealed the Manchester City boss asked former Napoli coach Walter Mazzarri for advice on the three-man defence.
Guardiola spent time in Serie A as a player for Brescia and Roma from 2001 to 2003, still speaks fluent Italian and returns regularly to the Peninsula for his vacations.
He loves to talk tactics with the likes of Maurizio Sarri and Arrigo Sacchi, but there’s another figure he picked the brains of when he was still in charge of Barcelona.
According to Napoli expert Raffaele Auriemma on Radio CRC, the meeting with Mazzarri occurred after the Gamper Trophy pre-season friendly between Barcelona and Napoli in 2011.
“I was on the touchline reporting on that game and remember that Guardiola went over to Mazzarri for a long discussion about the three-man defence. He asked for lots of information after the match.
“In fact, Pep uses the same tactic at Manchester City now. Let’s just say Mazzarri paved the way for many of the three-man defences we see nowadays.”
Guardiola had traditionally used the 4-3-3 system at Barcelona, variations on a 4-4-2 for Bayern Munich and shuffling between them at Manchester City too.
It was only in recent weeks that the Spanish tactician changed to the 3-4-2-1, perhaps inspired in part by that discussion with Mazzarri.