65 replies to this topic

[Bzzzz]

Prague = WW1

and he's right.

[beefham]

Unleash the Rhodes and this will be moot!

[George Saint]

Thats a very British outlook, and explains why we are all shyte at football. Its time to finally admit that we are completely wrong about football, we need to adapt and completely change our way of approaching the game.

You're moving the goalposts, so to speak. I was talking about the obsession with formations - not our approach to the game. And I'm not saying the formation is completely irrelevant, just that I think it's given way more emphasis than it deserves.

The reason Spain win is because their players are superior footballers, which is a result of years of learning and training to play the game in a certain way - not because someone sticks a nice diagram up on a board and says "you're playing 4-1-3-4-5-2-4-5-6-4-2-2-1-2 today", or whatever.

The Spanish players - and Germans - and Italians - and Portugese - and Brazilians - and Argentians - I could go on - have a better first touch than our players. They dribble with the ball better than our players. They move into space and play with more intelligence and awareness than our players. Comparing Spain and England is like comparing chalk and cheese. Our players (and I mean English and Scottish when I say that) are found wanting when it comes to the basic skills of the game. If it takes you 5 seconds to control a ball, instead of 2 seconds, then you are more likely to get closed down or tackled.

Changing the formation isn't going to solve anything. We need to change the culture of our football - which in fairness, I believe the English FA has now finally recognised. Some people used to say that we should stick to playing our 'British' high intensity game as the key to success - 'they can't live with us when we play like that', was the argument. I think this has been proven time and again to be flawed nonsense. If you can't get the ball back from the opposition, and you can't keep it when you do get it back, then you have little chance of doing 'high intensity' anything.

[albathebrave]

Thats a very British outlook, and explains why we are all shyte at football. Its time to finally admit that we are completely wrong about football, we need to adapt and completely change our way of approaching the game.

The passing game? there is nothing new about the way spain play football. Triangular set up, nearly always a man to pass to.

[Bannannan]

There's a difference between not playing with a forward and not playing a forward.

Exactly.

[Kirk]

They are both the same concept, it's churlish to imply otherwise.

The difference being that the Spaniards have the players to actually make it work and some of them play a similar system at Barcelona, it's exceptionally difficult to master.

We on the other hand never had and probably never will have the players to make it work. It was the football equivalent of jumping into your Fiesta, putting on the shades, and pretending you're driving a Ferrari.

Spain and barca do not and have not played 4-6-0 they play 4-3-3 for the most part, just because spain didnt have an out and out striker doesnt mean there was no1 up front, Fabregas was being played as the striker with Silva and Iniesta (i think) on the outside.

Putting aside the fact that you and I couldnt agree on anything, but thats nonsense, we had absolutely no one in their half for the vast majority of the game, we had one breakaway in the whole game.

Leveins 46 and Spains 433 are two completely different systems, to even compare them is madness.

Yes you are correct, reeky has clearly been at the acid.