@ COACH: Lets talk Tactics!

Discuss World Football here. Continental football, International Leagues, and players.
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Re: @ COACH: Lets talk Tactics!

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Laterality, the art of moving the opponent from side to side, like the hips of a Ottoman belly dancer. The endpoint, hypnosis. The aggressive press has been key arsenal on the battlefield and rather surprisingly, the ability to play through it, has been absent throughout. How the extra man at the back has translated to concession of possession and poor ball retention, defies all reason.

Rather than an invitation to populate the midfield and author overloads, the third man at the back has been deployed with defence in mind. What Loew did to Germany borders on high treason. Three is every bit the magic number being denied it’s hat and wand. Let not the flogging of Ukraine bind Gareth blindly to the back four. A return to the three, brings the trophy home.
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Re: @ COACH: Lets talk Tactics!

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Coach wrote: Sun Jul 04, 2021 9:49 am Laterality, the art of moving the opponent from side to side, like the hips of a Ottoman belly dancer. The endpoint, hypnosis. The aggressive press has been key arsenal on the battlefield and rather surprisingly, the ability to play through it, has been absent throughout. How the extra man at the back has translated to concession of possession and poor ball retention, defies all reason.

Rather than an invitation to populate the midfield and author overloads, the third man at the back has been deployed with defence in mind. What Loew did to Germany borders on high treason. Three is every bit the magic number being denied it’s hat and wand. Let not the flogging of Ukraine bind Gareth blindly to the back four. A return to the three, brings the trophy home.
Laterality is the first platform for new passing lanes, and the road to perfidy for the geggenpress!

Its not about side to side movement of the ball. It's about constantly resetting the platform for the passing game.
Last edited by txj on Mon Jul 05, 2021 4:30 am, edited 1 time in total.
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We watched this very boring video, 500 times, of Sacchi doing defensive drills, using sticks and without the ball, with Maldini, Baresi and Albertini. We used to think before then that if the other players are better, you have to lose. After that we learned anything is possible – you can beat better teams by using tactics." Jurgen Klopp
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Re: @ COACH: Lets talk Tactics!

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Gadfly wrote: Sun Jul 04, 2021 1:52 am TXJ,

Let me take a stab to see if I understand what you are getting at. By lateral movement, are you referring to side play and then suddenly switching inside to strike or are you referring to wing play? In any case, England tactically and systematically, may be better than the Danes. England has abandoned their traditional helter skelter style of play and adopted the Brazilian 1960s style, play it slow, draw the opponent and strike when there is a pocket of space to do so. England are doing this because their central three, Rice, the Yorkshire Pirlo, and Mason Mount, have the wherewithal covering the central area, and the Captain Kane, who has since the tournament began, found mostly in the midfield as a false nine. Interesting for me is how England scored their first goal against Ukraine. That was an interesting old school, Brazil of 1970 versus Italy, their fourth goal.
Lateral movement here is the ability to constantly reset the base of the passing game and therefore stretch the press to the point that the center cannot hold.

Southgate has used his squad expertly. But the football still lags behind a bit, helped in part by the ineptitude around him, re Herr Loew.

The next games should be interesting...
Form is temporary; Class is Permanent!
Liverpool, European Champions 2005.

We watched this very boring video, 500 times, of Sacchi doing defensive drills, using sticks and without the ball, with Maldini, Baresi and Albertini. We used to think before then that if the other players are better, you have to lose. After that we learned anything is possible – you can beat better teams by using tactics." Jurgen Klopp
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Re: @ COACH: Lets talk Tactics!

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@Tx, Nagelsmann's 3-2-4-1, is the young trailblazer suffering from Pepitis?
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Re: @ COACH: Lets talk Tactics!

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Coach wrote: Sat Feb 19, 2022 5:35 pm @Tx, Nagelsmann's 3-2-4-1, is the young trailblazer suffering from Pepitis?


Sometimes it pays to be simple..
Form is temporary; Class is Permanent!
Liverpool, European Champions 2005.

We watched this very boring video, 500 times, of Sacchi doing defensive drills, using sticks and without the ball, with Maldini, Baresi and Albertini. We used to think before then that if the other players are better, you have to lose. After that we learned anything is possible – you can beat better teams by using tactics." Jurgen Klopp
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Re: @ COACH: Lets talk Tactics!

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Cholo Simeone after the CL game today:

"It's nice to see City play, the patience they have to play. In the same way that they talked about being patient at half-time, waiting for their moment, we also waited for it. With different weapons, we were both looking for the same thing".
[/quote]



Interestingly, this is where I depart from European football.

The idea of 'waiting for their moment'...

A reductionist approach, where the focus of the game is in minimizing errors and tactics about the moment in which the ball turns over...
Form is temporary; Class is Permanent!
Liverpool, European Champions 2005.

We watched this very boring video, 500 times, of Sacchi doing defensive drills, using sticks and without the ball, with Maldini, Baresi and Albertini. We used to think before then that if the other players are better, you have to lose. After that we learned anything is possible – you can beat better teams by using tactics." Jurgen Klopp
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Re: @ COACH: Lets talk Tactics!

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"Often, people with a large vocabulary are very intelligent, and they manage to praise you with disrespect," Simeone said. "But those of us who maybe have a smaller vocabulary, we're not so stupid.

:rotf: :rotf: :rotf:

Atleti finally get a dose of their own medicine..
Form is temporary; Class is Permanent!
Liverpool, European Champions 2005.

We watched this very boring video, 500 times, of Sacchi doing defensive drills, using sticks and without the ball, with Maldini, Baresi and Albertini. We used to think before then that if the other players are better, you have to lose. After that we learned anything is possible – you can beat better teams by using tactics." Jurgen Klopp
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Re: @ COACH: Lets talk Tactics!

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For all the world’s pretty little passes, Herr Eintracht stuffs his frankfurter all the way in. Battered.
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Re: @ COACH: Lets talk Tactics!

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The truest of journeys takes one back to its start and yet a beginning all new. Fully recovered from the Hollywoodesque, quasi-tactical AfCON and well relapsed back into audience of the clashing titans positional and anti-positional play, Football, what a game.

Having traversed the two ends of the spectrum, from one end of the cosmos to the other like an Uberless extraterrestrial, the cosmic dust and tales from the outer limits breathes life back into this most delightful of discourses. Where to begin?

Where Eagles soar: a treatise on the tactical considerations requisite to spreading of the eagle's wings? Closing the gap: A critique on the tactic and strategy of AfCON?, The fall of the house of Bayern?, Why City wont win the league (contentious)?Ancelotti's anti-positionalism, the Magic of Girona? So many matters for debate, yet perhaps the most apt starting point, given the fall of Queens and rise of Kings since the last post, 4-4-2: The return of the King.

As Democritus adroitly conferred, 'nothing exists except atoms and space...'. Electrons busily course their orbits, circle upon circle upon circle. Cyclicity, natures natural code. Any point in the circle assigned the beginning, is the end, is the beginning once more. And thus that once passed comes back anew. In a world that seems far more removed from the social mediatropolis of now and its litter of Gen Zedites, all footballdom stood in solemnity, hands holding tight rosary beads, crucifixes and various other religious paraphernalia, hoping for, praying for, miracle at the foot of the king's bed. Silence broken abruptly by the chime of bells, 12 exact, a scatter of birds about the clock tower and a deafening wail heard throughout all the footyverse. 4-4-2, the king is dead.

Body laying in wake, the fractions unfolded like a clenched fist stretching its fingers, each scurrying to seize power. In the game of thrones, 4-3-3s, 4-2-3-1s, 3-4-3s, 3-4-2-1s, rickety old 3-5-2s, silver hair and cataracts, resurfacing like the octogenarian African MP's presidential candidacy. All in pursuit of power.

Though adorned in gold and medallion, as a 3-2-4-1 confided to the box midfield, "deny it to a King? then happy low lie down, uneasy lies the head that wears the crown".

As the crossing of trigger points sparked the press, the capture of possession and swift transitions rich in verticality, posed increasing problems for the 3-2 defensive split. Man City's facing of more shots this season than ever before under Guardiola shows the oxymoron in Restverteidigung. No rest for the rest defence, only insomnia. (Maupay's opening goal vs Man City).

Where comes the question, comes the answer, turning the "Rest" around, flipping the mattress of sorts. The 2-3 defensive setup has paraded itself in some of the EPL's richest regalia and rightly so, the 3 allows for quicker engagement of the counterattack and greater ease in defending laterally. The 2 CBs protect the centre. The rest outside of the "Rest" arrange themselves in a 5 of sorts creating the 2-3-2-3/2-3-5 in the attacking phase.

With space at a premium, space is the battleground for the most coveted of entities, the transition. Whilst possession of the ball allows the holder control, longevity in this regard lessens chaos, allowing the opposition to adopt their defensive shape. Attack vs Defence transpires, a clash of titans that doesn't exclusively favour the more titanic. Thus the importance of transition is made all the apparent. Winning the ball back, being able to transform into the attacking shape with such expedience the opposition cannot revert to their defensive shape in time, creates chaos.

The pressing system is the pluripotent stem cell in what has become a beautiful sport of science. And there, in the point of engagement, the rubicon where infantry meets infantry, where sword meets shield, where the frenzied gallop of the war horse careers into the comotion, there where princes and pretenders fall, there cometh the King once more. From Mancunia to London Town, Germania to Gaul and beyond, an 8 steps up beside the 9, 7s and 11s drop back to flank the 6s (6 and 8). The pressing shape is assembled. Silence falls across the crowd. And then a bow in perfect unison. The 4-4-2 is back. Long live the King.
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Re: @ COACH: Lets talk Tactics!

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A lot to chew on here, hence the recourse to poetry: How to Eat a Cow.---in stages..

First the term "space at a premium".

In full mimicry of Don Putin: NYET!
Or Mazi Ebubedike: MBA!

Not even Flavour- premium or nothing...

The dimensions of a pitch might be fixed. 105x68m, the championship excepted....

But within said dimensions, space is nothing but a concept.

Its dimensions only limited by the size and/or extent of one's imagination...

You can grow it; or you can shrink it. In linear proportion with the imagination...

We are BIG in Texas, cus we think BIG. And especially, we cut the steak only one way- BIG!
Form is temporary; Class is Permanent!
Liverpool, European Champions 2005.

We watched this very boring video, 500 times, of Sacchi doing defensive drills, using sticks and without the ball, with Maldini, Baresi and Albertini. We used to think before then that if the other players are better, you have to lose. After that we learned anything is possible – you can beat better teams by using tactics." Jurgen Klopp
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Re: @ COACH: Lets talk Tactics!

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@Tx, if the playing field is of finite dimensions, then there are limitations to space. Tactical deployments further limit availability and thus it’s for the thinking man/woman to conjure configurations to exploit space. One would go as far as saying the greatest thinkers create the illusion of both time and space, bewildering the opposition with an abundance of each. Or so it seems.

The change in pressing structures, return and re-crowning of the King (4-4-2) is, as exponents have inferred, intended to offer occupation and coverage of space. Able bodied for the press and of Dhalsim flexibility to permit swift change into both defensive and attacking formation. Long live the King!
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Re: @ COACH: Lets talk Tactics!

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PS: Hull City, MKM Arena, 7696 square metres, largest in all the lands. 0ver 7 and ‘arf thousand square metres of gladiatorial contest. No hiding places. Roof? Hardly, let the elements do their best.

What was that about Texas? Big. Hull City, bigger.
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Re: @ COACH: Lets talk Tactics!

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"I had in the back of my head that now they had Kim [Min-jae], now [Dayot] Upamecano was getting fit so they had four centre-backs; they could make a back three. Thomas [Tuchel] has played brilliantly with that system so we were ready to control that as well. From the 4-2-3-1 to the 3-4-3 and I think we have controlled well, to find the right moment when to press, when to wait, who could have the ball, who could not have the ball, and defensively for me it was an outstanding performance." - Xabi Alonso

I understand the concept of the press, and of course the counterpress.

But too much of it, as the Spaniards best describe it, is- pierna perdida. Wasted leg...

To borrow from the immortal words of Vernest "Quick" Brown, aka Eddie Murphy in Harlem Nights, "It's not how many people you shoot. It's who you shoot."

Its not so much the formation. They are nothing but numbers...Its how you deploy them.

Its not so much how many you deploy.

The more important question is "où est Joey"?
Hiding in the bushes....

The press is an art form. Yes its an exercise in physicality and athleticism. But in its best expression, its the art of domination of space. And will...

The when; the where; and especially the positioning...
Not every trigger yields a fatal shot...
Form is temporary; Class is Permanent!
Liverpool, European Champions 2005.

We watched this very boring video, 500 times, of Sacchi doing defensive drills, using sticks and without the ball, with Maldini, Baresi and Albertini. We used to think before then that if the other players are better, you have to lose. After that we learned anything is possible – you can beat better teams by using tactics." Jurgen Klopp

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