Bayern and Guardiola face demons

Conventional wisdom in football says that most cycles come to an end after three years of success. There are a number of reasons: players lose the drive to continue at the same intensity, opponents realize the strategies of the coach and of course, personnel come and go. To stay at the top, evolution tends to take place in organizations of any kind.

What the epilogues will say about Pep Guardiola is vague as he enters his third full season as Bayern Munich head coach. This season must be the height of his relationship with Bayern, one which delivers his best football to beat the critics and a stronger attempt at winning the Champions League.

Guardiola's two previous attempts have been tame, somewhat self-inflicted, considering the tactical decisions against Real Madrid and Barcelona, respectively. What happens this season will shape the Spaniard's legacy in Spain. And for sure, he will want to cap off his three-year spell in Germany with the most outstanding honor of them all.

A crumb of comfort for Guardiola is that his third season at Barcelona was truly the apogee of his four-year reign at the club. His work on the training ground had born fruit, the innovative high-pressing strategies came together in a brand of football that the world would define as 'tiki-taka' - a style constructed around rapid pressing of the opposition with short, intense combinations in attack.

Even though Guardiola has already enjoyed success at the Camp Nou, the team that profoundly dismantled Sir Alex Ferguson's Manchester United at Wembley has shaped the public's immediate thoughts of the Spanish coach.

The Last Hurrah

The great treble is Guardiola and Bayern's main target this season. Not since 2013 has Bayern Munich claimed the three prizes together - the league, the domestic cup and the Champions League. Winning the Bundesliga is expected to be a procession. Bayern Munich finished eight points ahead of Wolfsburg last season - even though the championship was won long before.

In managing a fourth championship in successive seasons, Bayern Munich would break new ground in the Bundesliga era. "No team has ever won the Bundesliga four times in a row," Guardiola recently noted. "It is going to be tough but that is our goal."

The end result is expected, however Bayern's state of mind for bigger challenges appears infected. The noises haven't been positive as Guardiola tries to brush off talk of an agreement with Manchester City. "Guardiola seems very irritated right now," said legend Oliver Kahn. "His constant gesturing on the sidelines makes him look dissatisfied. Everything looks like a stressful burden."

Matthias Sammer, the club's sporting director, has intervened in press conferences and according to media reports the pair is not on the same page when it comes to transfer politics. Could it all be getting too much for Guardiola? "Pep looks unbalanced like he's under extreme pressure, which he has to manage himself. If he doesn't become calmer, then he won't withstand this heavy load of pressure much longer," Kahn added.

Time to settle down and focus

It's an unwelcomed distraction ahead of kickoff this Friday, despite Bayern's best efforts to guard their coach from the limelight. But it's not unfamiliar territory at the club previously known as FC Hollywood. The same emotional capitulation was suffered by other foreign coaches like Giovanni Trappatoni and Louis van Gaal when the media pressure was turned up a notch. What transpired with current Manchester United coach van Gaal was an intense, obsessive coach who wasn't prepared to change his strategies despite Bayern finishing well off the pace.

That won't happen with Guardiola, but the general fixation with the coach is similar. Everything the Spaniard does is just as scrutinized as the Dutchman's work was. Even when the attention should be on athletic talent, it's not - Bayern has spent around 70 million euro ($77 million) on Arturo Vidal and Douglas Costa to bolster its quality for Bundesliga and Champions League targets.

Meanwhile, Robert Lewandowski could have his best season yet. Last term, the Pole conjured up 17 league goals and an impressive second half of the season when next to Thomas Müller in an orthodox attacking front-two. If Costa and Arjen Robben can stay fit and on the same wave length, then the former Robben-Ribery dynamic could be replaced seamlessly.

Defeat to Wolfsburg in the German Super Cup wasn't quite the result of poor performance. Finding the balance between tactical variation and collective cohesions remains a problem for Guardiola who appears fixed on the idea of evolving his side in the direction of Jorge Sampaoli's Copa America-winning team, Chile.

How that experiment pans out will fill column inches for the next 10 months as Bayern looks for its 26th German championship. It's already regarded as a formality, but Bayern is still its own worst enemy, and could do damage to itself should it not sort itself out before the start of the season.