Winning better: How Pep re-wrote the Bayern record books

A testy, psychologically-fascinating exchange between the two managerial giants made for compelling viewing.Watch it below if you have a spare 20 minutes.Clough defended his corner carefully and tenaciously while Revie sought to uphold the honour of the players who still loved him so, as well as aiming a few digs at his rival, who had undone much of his good work in a tempestuous spell in charge of the reigning champions.Towards the end of their verbal joust came a telling exchange. Revie turned to Clough, brown sideburns bristling against a mouldy green backdrop, to ask why, having been such a vocal critic of Leeds’ uncompromising style, he took the job at all. Clough relayed what he had told the Leeds players at the start of his truncated reign: “I want to win the league, but I want to win it better.” “There’s no way you could win it better,” said Revie. “Why not?” “We’d only lost four matches.” “Well I could only lose three,” came the reply.Clough, of course, was unable to play out his dream of proving Revie wrong. But the subject of improving on greatness is a recurring one in football, and contemporaneous when applied to Arsenal's Champions League opponents, Bayern Munich.Pep Guardiola had a daunting task ahead of him - and one that even Clough would have winced at - when replacing Jupp Heynckes, who oversaw the most dominant season in the history of German football. Last term Bayern won the treble and smashed all number of Bundesliga records in the process; but Guardiola has, incredibly, managed to improve the best club side on the planet.The man who won 14 trophies as Barcelona coach has overseen tactical changes – most notably the transformation of Philipp Lahm from the world’s best full-back to a defensive midfielder of real repute – and integrated a key new signing in Thiago, who has added an extra dimension to their play from midfield.But Guardiola’s influence on Bayern has really manifested in the records they have already broken this season in Germany, and the records they seem likely to break before the end of the Bundesliga season.At the weekend, a 6-1 win over Wolfsburg extended their unbeaten run in the Bundesliga to a record 49 games – coincidentally equalling the mark set by Arsenal in 2003-2004, who in turn surpassed a record set by Clough at Nottingham Forest – but this headline statistic only scratches at the surface of Bayern’s comprehensive domination of Germany this season.The records set by Heynckes’ side last season looked near unbeatable but, as the stats below - assembled with the help of Opta – demonstrate, Guardiola has taken the German champions onto a new level.He is winning better, as Clough once strived to do.(uk.eurosport.yahoo.com)ANN.Az