Phillipe Coutinho, the Brazillian star who, despite his 11 years of playing top tier football, continues to defy categorisation.

Having been developed by Brazillian powerhouse Vasco Da Gama as something of a No' 10, he hasn't stuck to one ideal playing position. Neither to one playing style, truth be told!

He arrived at Inter in 2008 as the "next big thing" in world football and seeing his deep Samba roots, no one was really surprised. However, he chose the wrong club to nurture his magic on the field. San Siro was going into chaos and they still haven't lifted themselves out of it completely. The upper hierarchy wanted short term success rather than plans, which meant a promising young talent like Coutinho was simply shoved aside for temporary satisfaction.

He couldn't have been more in need of a move away and he did get that in the form of a loan move to Mauricio Pochettino's Espanyol. Anyone who knows European football knows pretty well that Pochettino is rather excellent when it comes to shaping the careers of young talented footballers and the Argentine immediately implemented him as a hard-working wide forward rather than a creative passing midfielder. 

I would have loved to see how Coutinho's career would have moulded if he had been developed under Pochettino but Liverpool came calling and it was a surge he was unable to resist.

 

 

You'll Really Never Walk Alone

Will Anfield be where Coutinho defines his football?

Well, the answer is both Yes and No. 

It is mostly in the early-twenties of a footballer's career that he comes to know what exactly he is supposed to be on the field. Its the time where he is just pure talent and youth, needed to be moulded with care and effort to get the most out of him.

In came Brendan Rodgers who did the job more than excellently. And what Coutinho exactly became was...Well, a lot of different things. The idea of Rodgers was to execute a 4-2-3-1 formation with Luis Suarez playing in as the No'10 and Daniel Sturridge up front. The Irishman, however, was not a fan of a singular distinctive playing style and would experiment with new formations and tactics at every opportunity possible

Over the next season and a half, Liverpool converted from a 4-2-3-1 to a 3-5-2 and even into a much-attacking 4-3-3 and finally into a 4-2-2 Diamond. The partnership between Suarez and Sturridge was wreaking havoc on Premier League defences and a young Raheem Sterling was also rising to the top with promising and convincing displays.

Liverpool under Rodgers was, well literally, tactical chaos. It didn't matter where exactly a player started the game because they would be roaming all over the pitch anyway. Impressively, however, this didn't seem to impact their performances negatively at all. 

From Coutinho, Rodgers demanded defensive contribution, which he provided pretty well and so he was allowed to attack the goal from Range, play as an attacking creative mid and even as a 10, so he was playing exactly the way he wanted.

Their talisman Luis Suarez leaving just shone more light on how integral Coutinho was to Liverpool's play. He became the face of the team and the only player who could seemingly offer genuine quality. And with no pacy player regularly making runs to the opposition box or in behind the lines left Coutinho with a clear option to shoot from range, and turned out he was very good at it.

To carry the ball into the final third with his dribbling and movement and then brilliantly drifting in from the left to his right foot and beautifully curve the ball in the top right corner became his trademark move, and Liverpool fans loved it!

Slight worry was that in notable games against deep-lying defences and tactically well-organized defensive sides, his presence, despite being the best player on the pitch, turned out to damage Liverpool's performance.

His curlers, when hit perfectly, are a beauty to watch but when he had an off-day, the same shots were like protagonist football at an entirely different frustrating level.

The arrival of Jurgen Klopp was always gonna mean a change in the footballing identity of the Merseyside club and so it did. Klopp is a strong believer of a single, disciplined and cohesive style of high-pressing football, it was entirely expected to see Coutinho dictated to fulfil a certain extensive role in the side, albeit the one of a talisman. He started permanently on the left in the German's first two seasons and that worked out pretty well for everyone. This did not affect his habit of drifting inside from the left. Only this time, he had the option of either attack the goal from distance or else use his creativity and passing to lay out a ball for Sadio Mane or Roberto Firmino, two speedy forwards who slotted in with Coutinho like a glove.

Now, this is where the diverging of the timelines take place. Liverpool bought Mohammed Salah from AS Roma and wanted to push Coutinho into a more central midfield area, not unlike Kevin De Bruyne at the blue half of Manchester. 

I personally don't see him developing the style of play and stamina required to be in such a disciplined role at Anfield but his Samba skills combined with his excellent vision and passing would have been a joy to watch, although a risky layout.

Of course, that ABSOLUTELY did not happen. Thanks to panic that Neymar inserted in Barcelona by his departure meant the Blaugrana were just hungry for a big talented Brazilliant marquee signing, his place and tactical role in the team be damned.

Some haggle over his price tag and a little lost fight to hold on to their star man, Coutinho got his "childhood dream" move to the Camp Nou and simply put, at absolutely no point in his eighteen months in Catalunya we could figure out what exactly was he supposed to do in that team.

Is Coutinho the direct replacement for the one Neymar Jr? Was he some sort of successor to one of the finest ever, Andres Iniesta? Bit of both? NO ONE KNEW!

Playing out left in the Neymar role, the front three of Coutinho-Suarez-Messi had no pace to penetrate in behind the defence lines.

He was never really gonna directly replace Andres Iniesta:- 1: Coutinho does not have Iniesta's playing style

2: Iniesta was always irreplaceable 

The DNA of Coutinho's football is to keep possession and dictate the play of his team but how on earth is he supposed to do that when Barca had the best player in the history of the sport, a certain Lionel Messi if you know him, to do that just on the opposite flank?

Valverde didn't know how to use Coutinho. Coutinho didn't know what he was supposed to do in the mighty Barcelona system. In reality, this transfer was doomed from the start.

Fast forward to September 2019 and Bayern find themselves in a similar situation.

Whereas Bayern aimed to be a club that won because they played the best football, they have become one who wins simply because they have the best footballers.

 

Sure, Borussia Dortmund have Lucien Favre’s thrilling counter-attack, but who needs that when you have Robert Lewandowski? It’s boring, it’s unimaginative, it’s limiting, and it wins the Bundesliga every year.

 

It’s exactly this kind of thought process that leads to Coutinho rather than any new tactical ideas as the potential spark to reignite a stale Bayern.

 

His role again becomes the question. He has made his opinion quite clear on the matter, stating that “of course” he prefers to play “number ten”.

 

It feels somewhat strange that he’d take this view considering it’s a role he hasn’t played in much at all since his teenage years. It’s something that Bayern seem to be indulging him with for the time being, but nonetheless, it doesn’t feel right.

 

“Of course I prefer to play number 10 but it’s the mister [coach] who decides.” 

 

Coutinho does his best work arriving into that number ten space, but in order to really shine, he generally starts from deeper or out wide, using his dribbling skills to drift past defenders and find space in the part of the pitch he wants to be in.

 

When he starts there, it leads to the movements he makes taking him away from where he does the damage.

 

There aren’t too many top sides in Europe who play with someone in the number ten role, but those that do tend to utilise players such as Dele Alli or Marco Reus — more energetic players than the old school magicians. Bayern already have a player much more of this mould in Thomas Muller.

 

 

For this transfer to work, both player and club will have to figure out just what Coutinho is supposed to be. Perhaps he isn’t anything ideal. Perhaps he is a creative number ten that he imagines himself as, but in an era where these players have fallen out of the game.

 

Perhaps he is destined to forever be someone who only delivers in brief moments rather than over ninety minutes.

 

Or perhaps he is to be figured out in Germany. Robben himself was not such a defined figure before turning up in Bavaria, spending time at Chelsea and Real Madrid switching between either flank and lacking any really distinct role.

 

That completely flipped at Bayern, and he became a player with a singular position and purpose. If the club can do the same with Coutinho, there can be no doubts they will have a player of real quality on their hands.