Still shouldn't pass the ball across the box. It always annoys me. Even Pep speaks about playing vertically (not a long punt forward chaps) but I very much doubt modern teams would get the 'M'&'W' formations or know quite how to deal with the Revie plan.
Tactics are always evolving but we still keep throwing out the babies with the bathwater and because people get snobbish about old ideas, for instance, the way to beat a high press is a ball over the top for a fast forward to run onto. Shock! Horror! Not a long ball! But it works. Ask Ollie Watkins and Aston Villa how they beat Liverpool last season.
I'm sure some of you fellow wrinklies have tuned in to The Big Match Revisited. Hard to believe it's the same game as now but both have their own appeal in very different ways. Whenever Crawley signed a ball player he was usually kicked to the floor so quickly it was like playing with 10 men. Think it's far better quality now but not necessarily more exciting
Thad, a player you may find interesting who until recently I didn’t understand the point of is Sergio Busquets. Now this is a player that if he was born 15 or 20 years earlier would not have had a career at the top level let alone a professional football. He is the perfect example of defensive midfielder that plays through technical and tactical ability rather than physical attributes of strength and power and his tackling skills are at best poor, his heading skills are very basic at best too. There is no way he would have fitted into pre 2000 football of up and at ‘em. If you look at his game, which I enjoy watching clips of on YouTube, you can see how his spacial awareness and positioning allow him to as you say set traps and think 2 or 3 moves ahead and be in the right place to intercept the ball or close down the player or even sometimes make the tackle if really needed, but ideally there is no need to tackle as he has forced the mistake. Sometimes he is simply there to be available for a pass when his teammate wins the ball. This is part of the modern art of pressing and defensive play that has changed the game.
Conversely, to beat the modern press Busquets is very calm under pressure and has great close control and is able to either do a piece of skill to get past the player or draw the opponent in and pass the ball quickly. There are various other intricacies to his game as well. A very fascinating player in my view, a player who appears to be pointless, but does lots of simple things well.
Blimey Alex, spot on, he is a player I have admired for a long time now with the phrase: "he does bugger all, but he does it brilliantly".
I first saw him at the Nou Camp about a dozen years back. In fact, it took me a while to realise the intelligence, simplicity & economy of his play was pivotal to the team dynamic, at first I thought it was too slow & a bit reckless, as it ran counter to some of the basics that I had grown up with, where the emphasis was always about "pace & space".
Alex, You may be surprised to know that there was a time before Sky invented football, where youngsters had it drummed into them that: - You never pass square across your own area - You never give the ball to a team mate who is being marked and if you broke the code there were dire consequences - if it was not punished on the field, then it definitely would be by your own team...!
I've always thought that all great teams have at least one player that isn't spectacular, but is great at doing the basic stuff consistently and never lets the team down, thus enabling the flashier players to show their talents. For example the Man United team of 2006-09 wouldn't have achieved what they did without having players like Carrick and Fletcher to do all the 'dirty work'
I'm sure some of you fellow wrinklies have tuned in to The Big Match Revisited. Hard to believe it's the same game as now but both have their own appeal in very different ways. Whenever Crawley signed a ball player he was usually kicked to the floor so quickly it was like playing with 10 men. Think it's far better quality now but not necessarily more exciting
Couple of obvious distinctions:
- Player physique... they were a totally different shape back then, the only mention of "weights" would be when they got 20 filter tips with their next pint.
- Back pass to the Keeper... when you see the old games, you realise that it happened far more frequently than you imagined at the time & masked an awful lot of sloppy defensive play.
- Back pass to the Keeper... when you see the old games, you realise that it happened far more frequently than you imagined at the time & masked an awful lot of sloppy defensive play.
And, rather more bafflingly, always seemed to get a round of applause from the crowd. Why was that? Were we that easily pleased in those days?