by Nick Holt
Winner, David, Brilliant Orange (Bloomsbury, 2000 and 2010 editions)
The subtitle is the neurotic genius of Dutch football, and Winner’s book is a fascinating attempt to explain why the Dutch are so different and so perverse in their use and misuse of an abundance of talent. And David Winner can write.
The Football Yearbook
I am a sad, sad man and I have these going back to the 1980s when they were The Rothmans Football Yearbook. Since the title became the Sky Sports’ Football Yearbook, the content has been tailored to suit Sky’s marketing needs and stylistic demands, and for the most part this is not a good thing, but it remains the go-to source book for stats and facts, and errors are relatively infrequent.
I have also read a large number of biographies and autobiographies over the years which have influenced this book, and used innumerable websites, including the much-maligned, but now much-improved Wikipedia. (Authors seldom admit to consulting Wikipedia, but don’t believe those who say they don’t.)
A BRIEF(-ISH) GUIDE
TO TERMS AND TACTICS
This isn’t a history of football, so I won’t go into great detail about the game’s origins, but it is necessary to understand the changes in the way coaches and teams have approached the game over the years.
The first proper formation to evolve from the game’s early days of kick-and-rush was the 2–3–5 (see Figure 1; annotation of football formations dispenses with the need to include the goalkeeper, so there is no need to write 1–2–3–5). The two defenders playing in front of the goalkeeper were called full-backs, but weren’t wide players in the modern sense, but old-fashioned win-the-ball-and-clear-it types. In front of them was the centre-half, who combined tackling with distribution in a pivotal role, while the two half-backs either side of him shared defensive and attacking duties. Up front the centre-forward – usually the blood-and-thunder type – would be flanked by two wingers, whose job was to get to the byline and deliver crosses; cutting in and shooting was very rare, the only time the winger came infield was when the ball was crossed from the opposite flank. In between the wingers and the centre-forward were inside-forwards, often the cannier players who created space and fed passes through for the wingers to collect.
Figure 1: 2–3–5 formation
This method of setting out a team remained the norm until the 1920s, when innovative coaches such as Herbert Chapman at Huddersfield (later Arsenal) started to tweak the system to gain an advantage. Tweaks were frowned upon by the authorities – there was a clear English notion of how to play the game, and innovation and divergence were treated with suspicion. Playing a swift passing game like most Scottish teams (as opposed to the English preference for a dribble-based cavalry charge) was one thing, but withdrawing one’s centre-half to play as an extra defender – why, sir, that’s not the game!
Chapman developed a system where the centre-half filled in between the full-backs and the inside-forwards dropped a little deeper to link play between the defence and forwards. It is referred to by football historians as WM (see Figure 2); 3–2–2–3 if you will. Even with this system most English sides still relied on pace and power to get results; the wiles of the inside-forwards were relevant only to offer passes for swift wingers to provide ammunition for battering-ram strikers.
Figure 2: 3–2–2–3 formation
Elsewhere the game moved on; in the 1930s central European sides developed a game based on movement off the ball and bewildering, intricate passing, especially in the Central European countries, where Austria pioneered the style under their thoughtful coach Hugo Meisl. English coaches didn’t even discuss movement off the ball. In South America the accent was on individual skill rather than a rigid system. Crowds would applaud a trick or shimmy as loudly as a goal, and the game was about getting the ball to these explosive talents so they could show off their repertoire.
The traditional formation held sway through to the Second World War; the Italians won two World Cups playing a hybrid of 2–3–5 and the withdrawn centre-half, and even Meisl’s team played their whirligig football within the constraints of a strict 2–3–5 – Meisl was a traditionalist as well as a purist.
Once the withdrawn central defender became the norm, the transition to formations still familiar to modern audiences was less a case of sudden innovation than a gradual shifting of responsibilities within the formation. The Hungarians of the 1950s are often credited with “inventing” a new formation, but it was a variation on a theme rather than a massive divergence from the norm. Gustáv Sebes, the Hungarian coach, recognised that his two principal half-backs, Bozsik and Zakariás, offered very different qualities. Bozsik was a major creative force and Zakariás a hard-working ball-winner. It made perfect sense to use the left-sided Zakariás in a more defensive capacity and let Bozsik play a little further upfield where his passing could hurt the opposition. He also had a centre-forward, Nándor Hidegkuti, whose gifts were dribbling and passing, not barging the goalkeeper or thumping headers. Withdrawing Hidegkuti to a deeper role left his prolific inside-forwards Puskás and Kocsis, both expert finishers, to thrust forward, and also left the opposing centre-half with a dilemma over whether to follow Hidegkuti or stay put and let the maestro do as he pleased. The system worked to devastating effect (twice) against England immediately prior to the 1954 World Cup and banished any assumptions of British superiority that may have lingered amongst officials and press. To all intents and purposes Hungary were playing a fluid 4–2–4 (or maybe 3–2–3–2) long before this annotation was ever used in a match programme (see Figure 3).
Figure 3: 3–2–3–2 formation
Brazil in 1958 played a similarly creative variation on the same theme – though that particular front five was so outrageously talented they seemed to be everywhere at once. But Zagallo, for example, was no orthodox winger in the English style, but a complete hard-working midfield player, as adept at tracking back and helping the defence as he was at providing searching balls for Pelé and Vavá to attack. Brazil on paper lined up 2–3–5, but the captain Bellini was an out-and-out defender, and the left-half Orlando rarely wandered too far into the last third. Didi, ostensibly the right inside-forward would sit back to dictate play, with right-half Zito in tow as a minder. This allowed Pelé to play as a free second striker alongside Vavá. Left-winger Zagallo would regularly sit tight when Garrincha had the ball, where a European winger would instinctively head into the penalty area (see Figure 4).
Figure 4: 4–2–4 formation
By the 1960s all international sides played four at the back; Bobby Moore wore No.6, the left-half jersey, but he was no one’s idea of a midfield player, just a defender with excellent passing and vision. Bobby Charlton wore No.9, but he didn’t spearhead the attack, he filled the gap between midfield and attack, lurking behind the strikers to unleash his explosive shooting. Once he discarded the old-fashioned wingers, Alf Ramsey played a 4–1–2– 1–2 system that left opposing sides with a problem; the full-backs had no one to mark, and many 1960s full-backs weren’t given to exploiting that opportunity by offering themselves as an attacking option. England were able to dominate the midfield, starve the opposition forwards of the ball, and give Charlton and company plenty of ammunition to hurt the opposition (see Figure 5).
Figure 5: 4–1–2–1–2 formation
The Italians had developed a new method, the catenaccio, whereby one central defender would sit deeper than the other as a last resort, a sweeper. The system allowed for one defensive and one athletic attacking full-back; on the defensive side the winger would also be slightly withdrawn into midfield in a position that became known as the tornata. This system, especially successful at Internazionale of Milan in the early 1960s under their coach Helenio Herrera, was eventually found out. When under pressure the defensive midfielder tended to withdraw alongside the “stopper” centre-half and form a defensive back five in a very narrow 5–3–2. Intended to stifle opponents, the formation, the apogee of defensive systems, ended up stifling Ita
lian football (see Figure 6).
Figure 6: 5–3–2 formation
As football moved into the 1970s most sides were employing a variation on a theme. Four defenders, with the middle two playing either side by side or as a more sophisticated pairing with a sweeper (deep-lying) defender behind a stopper who would mark the centre-forward; four in midfield, two of them nominally wide players, one a holding player and the other a creative playmaker; two up front, one a goalscorer, the other more creative, or, in Northern Europe, a target man. The regional variations that had always stood were still relevant; the British and northern Europeans favoured a game based on pace and power and getting the ball forward early; the central and southern European countries were more technical, retaining possession and launching fast attacks when the opportunity presented itself; the South Americans relied more on individual artistry and freedom of expression – but unlike the pre-war years it was backed up by uncompromising defending (see Figure 7).
Figure 7: 4–4–2 formation
The next forty years have been about tweaks and layers of sophistication. The Dutch developed a fluidity of movement and position that their superb technique allowed. The Germans added a level of stamina and athleticism no one had seen before. The Soviets, especially under the Dynamo Kyiv manager Valeri Lobanovsky, introduced a pressing system. Pressing was a tactical device that used fitness and teamwork to allow the team to play higher up the pitch and reduce the space in which the opposition could play. It was the first system in which the development of a workable offside trap was an absolute necessity, as it left space behind the pressing team’s defence. Liverpool in the seventies and eighties allied British strength and aggression to European possession and movement, but – alarmingly – British national managers failed to do the same. Argentina used three central defenders for the first time, with wide midfield players as auxiliary full-backs, and soon everyone copied them, until it was discovered that using an old-fashioned winger destroyed the system and forced it back into the shell of 5–3–2. Some English sides reverted to launching the ball forward to turn the defence around – with great success (Watford, Wimbledon) at home, but continental teams dropped deep and gleefully accepted the wasted possession when British sides tried to translate it to international level (see Figure 8).
Figure 8: 3–5–2 formation
The favoured formation of the better sides as I write is four at the back, three in midfield – either two deeper plus a playmaker (Martínez and Schweinsteiger behind Thomas Müller for Bayern Munich) or one holding player plus a runner and a playmaker (Makélélé-Vieira-Zidane for France in 2006) – and two wide attacking players flanking a mobile centre-forward (see Figures 9 and 10).
Figure 9: 4–2–3–1 formation
Figure 10: 4–4–1–1 formation
All through the last decades of the twentieth century the game underwent steady shifts. This was down to one principal factor: speed. The speed at which the world moves, speed of foot and the speed at which the game is played. Nutrition, conditioning, managing injury, psychology – all the scientific advances made in the world were affecting football, too. Coaches became analysts as well as scientists, aided by first television and later computers. Set pieces became more important – it was no longer just about letting your best striker of a ball have a pot-shot, but about positioning players cleverly to anticipate where the ball ended up if it was parried or cleared. Footballers have to think – not something with which they have traditionally been associated – as well as act on instinct. No longer is it acceptable for a defender to simply defend and clear the ball (if he does, he’s probably British), no longer are there work-shy goal-hangers whose sole purpose is to put the ball in the net and no longer are there wide players who hog the touchline and wait for the ball so they can skin their fullback. The defender must be able to control the ball and find a colleague, the striker must offer movement and create space for advancing midfield players and the winger must track back and help the full-back.
Modern football is played at such a hectic pace and in such confined space (every team uses pressing now, it is a standard rather than a tactic) that it is no longer about a rigid formation, but about creating space and time within the maelstrom of a match. Touch is assumed (except in Britain), power and fitness are a given. The four things that set teams apart now all begin with P.
• Possession is nine-tenths of the law (or something like that) – keep the ball, the opposition can do nothing.
• Pressing means, if you do lose the ball, you can win it back (and possession is nine-tenths of the law).
• Positioning means you are in the right place to receive the ball and, if it is lost, the right place to defend (press) and win it back (possession being nine-tenths of the law).
• Pace is the wildcard. There is very little any team can do about pace if deployed intelligently.
Will it all change again in the next few years? Will some clever coach find a way to counter Spain’s immaculate retention of the ball, like Di Matteo and Heynckes did when they respectively frustrated and overpowered the much-vaunted Barcelona team? Yes, it will change, it always does, and like all the other times we won’t really notice what changed until a few years down the line.
THE ORGANISATION OF FOOTBALL
This is a guide to some of the organisations mentioned in the book, with a (very) potted history where relevant.
FIFA
Fédération Internationale de Football Association
FIFA is the game’s primary international governing body, formed in 1904 and headquartered in Zurich, Switzerland. It has 209 national associations affiliated.
“I share the tendency of fans to attribute most of what is good about the game to the people who play it, and most of what is bad to those who govern it.” So wrote Ulrich Hesse-Lichtenberger in his book Tor! (a history of German football aimed at non-Germans). It is a generalisation – footballers have proved themselves greedy and unworthy of the adulation heaped upon them and the game’s administrators have made good decisions as well as bad – but it is a sentiment most writers share, and with good reason. Decisions made for the benefit of politicians, sponsors and TV channels are rarely good news for the ordinary fan, and FIFA are enslaved to these money-wielders. They have proved themselves incompetent, pusillanimous and greedy, and senior officials, including former President João Havelange, have been found guilty of corruption. They are presided over by an incumbent President whose inane contributions to crucial debates within the game would be crass coming from a teenager, never mind the leader of a wealthy and influential body. Apart from that they’re fine.
FIFA Presidents:
Robert Guérin (France), 1904–06
Daniel Woolfall (England), 1906–18 (his death)
Jules Rimet (France), 1921–54
Rodolphe Seeldrayers (Belgium), 1954–55 (his death)
Arthur Drewry (England), 1955–61 (his death)
Stanley Rous (England), 1961–74
João Havelange (Brazil), 1974–98
Sepp Blatter (Switzerland), 1998–incumbent
UEFA
The Union of European Football Associations
UEFA is the most wealthy, and remains marginally the most influential, of the continental agencies within FIFA. UEFA was set up in 1954 with twenty-five members, a number that has expanded considerably since the break-up of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia.
UEFA has had only six Presidents: Ebbe Schwartz (Denmark, 1954–62), Gustav Wiederkehr (Switzerland, 1962–72), Artemio Franchi (1973–83), Jacques George (1984–90), Lennart Johansson (Sweden, 1990–2007), Michel Platini (2007–incumbent). Both Wiederkehr and Franchi died in office, Franchi following a motor accident. Johansson’s tenure was noted for the hard-nosed commercialisation of European football, including the expansion of the European Cup into the modern Champions League format, increasing revenue and opportunity for the larger clubs and creating the gulf that exists today between the haves and have-nots.
It took UEFA a while to organise a European Championship and it started as an itsy-bitsy sort of competition, not really warming up fully until the Finals expanded to eight teams in 1980 and then sixteen for the 1996 event in England. The 2016 Finals in France have gone over the top in the onwards and upwards search for revenue and will see twenty-four sides challenging for the trophy, almost half of UEFA’s fifty-four-strong membership.
European Championship Finals
* Spain were the first team to retain the trophy, generally regarded as the hardest international competition to win outside the World Cup.
CONCACAF
The Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Football Association
CONCACAF was formed in 1961 by the merger of the organisation that governed North American football, and the CCCF, which organised (I use the word loosely) football in Central America and the Caribbean. Ramón Coll Jaumet of Costa Rica oversaw the merger, and handed over the reins to Joaquín Soria Terrazas of Mexico in 1969. In 1990 Terrazas was succeeded by Jack Warner of Trinidad and Tobago. This fine, upstanding pillar of society, a government minister in Trinidad until 2013, was president for twenty-one years until he agreed to stand down and withdraw from football amid allegations of corruption. Who knows if they will stick, football is such a murky business, but at least Warner is off the world stage, hopefully for good. His accuser and former ally Chuck Blazer, the General Secretary of CONCACAF, was suspended in May 2013 and is under investigation by the FBI.
