Pep Guardiola Or Jose Mourinho? Bayern Munich Winger Arjen Robben Picks His Favourite Manager

Pep Guardiola Or Jose Mourinho? Bayern Munich Winger Arjen Robben Picks His Favourite Manager
11:37, 17 Feb 2019

Arjen Robben will call time on his ten years at Bayern Munich at the end of the season, as his career at the top level of football looks to be coming to a close. It has been a remarkable career for the Dutchman who has lifted the Champions League, along with countless league titles and been managed by some of the top gaffers in the game.

Pep Guardiola managed Robben for three years at Bayern as they won three consecutive league titles and the 35-year-old loved playing under the talented Spaniard. He told the Daily Mail:

“I’m a big Pep fan. I enjoy the game, I’m an attacking player and I want to play football. But of course I also realise... and then you start to think like a coach... that you have to look at the quality of your players or the team you have, and what’s the best thing to do, the best system.

“For example, when I started here with Pep Guardiola, who for me is maybe the best manager there is at the moment. Normally, at my age — I started with him at 29 — normally you say you’re not really going to improve yourself again and make steps. But with him I think I still developed as a player and made some small steps and improved some little things and that’s interesting.

“He’s just a very special guy in terms of tactics in the game and the way he improves the game. He loves football. But he loves to have the ball. He doesn’t love to run after the ball. It’s just interesting the way he lives and breathes football for 24 hours a day. It’s always difficult to say the best period — but I really, really loved it.’

Robben is also one of the few players who has been managed by both Guardiola and Jose Mourinho, playing under the Portuguese at Chelsea as a young man. He also spoke highly of Mourinho saying:

“I think we were very offensive. We played with two strikers, with two wingers. It was like a 4-4-2, a lot of offensive players as well on the pitch. But what I remember about that period is the team. It was a real team all together, the players the characters all fit together very, very well.

‘We had a great manager as well in Mourinho, who made sure that the team spirit was working well and of course for the club it was the first time that we won the league in 50 years. And for me it was a big, big step because I was still very young. I was 20. It was the first time I went abroad. You have to adapt quickly and especially if you are that young, you have to grow up very quick.”

So Robben was full of praise for both managers but it appears he enjoyed playing under Guardiola more. Calling him ‘the best manager there is at the moment’ is certainly a strong endorsement.

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