Amidst all the (well earned)
praise for Bayern Munich’s almost total dominance last season there hasn’t been
nearly enough for the player who was the last piece of the jigsaw, the signing that
turned a team that lost Champions League finals into one that won them. Without Javi Martinez they wouldn’t have
seemingly eclipsed Barcelona as the most formidable team in Europe.
‘It’s a lot of money for a water
carrier.’
So said Uli Hoeness when they
signed him, adding that he thought that at €40 million he was about €10 million
too expensive. Three trophies later it’s
a safe bet he probably doesn’t still feel the same way. In one sense you can see why Hoeness was
reticent to spend the money, after all in Luis Gustavo they already had a
defensive midfielder to slot alongside Schweinsteiger, one good enough to
perform the same role for Brazil. In
Martinez though they have a defensive midfielder currently performing the role
like no one else (in fact he’s as much of revelation as Toni Kroos is
threatening to becoming further forward in the playmaker role or Thomas Muller
as a self declared interpreter of space, it’s enough to make you wonder what if
anything Guardiola will attempt to change).
On first impressions it’s easy
enough to appreciate why Martinez is a good player. Technically he’s excellent. His long legs propel him across the ground
quickly. His distribution is as good as
you’d expect from a young Spanish midfielder.
What makes him exceptional, and quite possibly currently unique, is his
combining of this with the physical side of the game. As football has allowed less and less contact
the job of screening midfielders has become less about tackling and more about
interceptions. Javi Martinez is
excellent at both.
It’s in his positioning that he’s
truly exceptional. It can be hardest
thing to appreciate, watching on TV, of how hard it is to constantly be in the
right place at the right time both with and without the ball. Martinez has always been good at it. In the early days of his career at Bilbao he
would only very occasionally get caught out.
The arrival of Marcelo Biesla as manager and his temporary conversion to
centre back as allowed him to fine tune his positioning even further. For evidence of how important he is to
systems played with an emphasis on pressing just look at what’s happened to
Athletic without him (I also can’t help thinking that if Barcelona had signed
him instead of Bayern he’d have spent time all season at centre back, an odd
thought given that Pep will be managing him next year). Previous models of defence midfield success
in Europe have been pure water carriers like Claude Makelele or in England all
action running midfielders like Roy Keane.
Martinez shows how much the game has moved on since then. With importance placed on quick transitions goals
are scored from moves with fewer and fewer phases. Midfielders like Javi are able to win the
ball quickly and cleanly and distribute it to dangerous areas. What would have taken two players in the past
he’s able to do by himself.
Compared to other midfielders in
Europe his stats in the Bundesliga for interceptions and tackles aren’t all that
impressive. This can be attributed to
Bayern’s almost complete dominance of their league. The more possession they have the less there
is for him to win back. And his arrival
has allowed Bayern to maintain the second most possession in Europe. Last season in the league Bayern averaged 65.7%,
behind only Barcelona with 70%.
Martinez’s screening and physicality combined with his distribution has
allowed Bayern to win the ball back more effectively and move it on to
dangerous areas quickly.
It’s in his partnership with
Bastian Scheinsteiger that really makes Bayern tick. In Bayern’s 4-2-3-1 they perform slightly
different roles but have the ability to cover each other. With that formation being so ubiquitous we’ve
seen slightly varying interpretations with the two holding midfielders, the
most common is to have one focussed more on screening and the other as a deep
lying playmaker. Broadly speaking this
is what Martinez and Schiensteiger do.
Martinez’s ability to impose himself in the area in front of his back
four has allowed Schiensteiger to dictate play more than he had previously (and
with more freedom that he gets at international level with Sami Khedria
alongside him). What’s interesting about
Bastian and Javi is that on occasion they’re not afraid to swap roles;
Schiensteiger’s positioning is good enough to cover when Martinez strides
forward and Javi’s distribution is good enough for him to influence play when his
partner takes a step back.
At 6 foot 3 and deceptively
strong Martinez is imposing enough to use his physicality to influence
matches. With experience he’s learned to
stay on the right side of using it without costing his team. At Bilbao he was just on the other side of
that line, amassing 58 yellows and 5 reds during his stay there. This season at Bayern he’s kept it down to 7
yellows, probably judging it absolutely right on how close to the edge he could
get. His manner of being imposing while
demonstrating technical excellence is probably closest to Patrick Viera of
recent players. If anything he’s even
more of a complete player, demonstrated by his greater ability to read play and
step back into defence.
It was against Barcelona in the
Champions League semi finals that Javi demonstrated just how key he had become
to the way Bayern can play. For a team
that was used to possession Bayern changed their tactics completely against the
Catalans (as everybody does). Across the
two legs Bayern averaged 40% of the ball.
What they did without it was key.
In the first leg every player dropped deep to mark across the pitch,
even Mario Gomez who was positionally the nominal front man. This left Javi free to press across
midfield. He kept his basic position in
front of the back four but was free to come out and chase the ball, harrying
the Barca midfielders in a way that they haven’t had much experience of
before. Across the 180 minutes he made
eight successful tackles and five interceptions, successfully breaking up Barca’s
play and allowing his own team to launch their counterattacks. His maturity was shown after he received his
booking in the first leg. He was still able
to walk the fine line between making tackles but staying on the pitch. It’s safe to say that without his pressing
Bayern wouldn’t have been able to pick Barca off in the same way.
His long term chances of becoming
a regular in the Spain team seem assured.
Even a country with such depth in midfield talent can’t ignore his
talents forever (and it’s easy to forget that he’s only twenty four). Del Bosque has described him in the past as
the complete player. He may have
suffered from Sergio Busquets establishing himself as such a regular as it’s
difficult to imagine them playing together, especially when normally so much of
the team’s tempo comes from Xabi Alonso filling the other role at the base of
the midfield. Sooner or later they’ll
have to find room for him.
Bayern’s success this season was
derided by Jurgen Klopp as a Chinese system, meaning copying their style from
other successful teams. He was referring
primarily to their wholehearted adoption of Dortmund’s pressing, something in
the two previous season’s they were unable to cope with. One of the main reasons this was achievable was
the capture of Martinez. There’s also a
sense that Bayern have managed to co-opt some of the successful attributes of
the Spanish system, as Javi optimises the excellent distribution and desire to
win the ball back that is essential to their football. With his physical style being ideally suited
to the German league Bayern may well have found the player that gives them the
best of both worlds.
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