Ironically, the most unrelentingly boring and defensive style of soccer is to be on offense most of the game, by maintaining possession and doing nothing with it. I say "ironically" because teams that maintain possession and "build slowly" usually receive credit for aspiring to play beautiful attacking football. When it works, and the offense circulates the ball around in nimble interchanges until they pounce on an almost imperceptible defensive error and pry open successively larger holes by quick intelligent passing until they have a high-percentage shot on goal, it can be sublime. This is how Barcelona played some of the most beautiful football of all time. It is often compared to picking a lock, since this slow, methodical style gives the defense time to sit back and prepare for you, which means you are attacking a defense at its best and most organized.
However, many Barcelona-wannabes aren't as great as Barcelona was, and for them the practical function of maintaining possession and "attacking" is not to score but to prevent the other team from scoring. (Spoiler alert: this is the punch line of the essay.) A team that spends most of the game "on the attack" may produce nothing but boring, sterile, fruitless possession, while their opponents spend relatively less time on offense, but more productively, because when they get the ball they directly attempt to do something with it.
For those who follow MLS, yes, I am an Austin FC fan. Fingers crossed that our new signings add some quality to our attack.
There was a college hockey rivalry between North Dakota and Minnesota years ago that had this crazy contrast of styles.
You'd have games with North Dakota with 12 shots on goal (crazy low numbers) and Minnesota with 40 or more shots on goal. The results, the games were still 3 to 4 and so on and very competitive.
North Dakota would setup and just pass and pass. Minnesota would hang back defensively and wait for them to take their shot and try not to make a mistake. Minnesota would get into the offensive zone and just pepper away with shots at the goal and North Dakota would buzz around trying to scramble for that puck.
It was amusing because it was such a contrast of styles with each end of the rink playing entirely different. And yet they were very close / fun games. Fortunately in hockey it doesn't really slow things down quite like soccer when you take your time.
As you say, teams have learned to defend against the tiki taka style of offense by playing a very compact organized defense. This leads to this whole slow, boring game. However, in a way that's already old-fashioned. Teams have moved on from that and started to play more gegenpressing. Here the philosophy is to win the ball early in the opponent's possession so they're unorganized defensively (because they were organized for attacking). This is for example how Liverpool plays.
Many people classify it as defensive soccer, but the idea behind it is actually very attack oriented. So much so that at the extreme end some people advocate for deliberately losing the ball (on the opponent's half), with the idea of winning it back quickly. The idea here is to force the opponent into having to attack and thereby ruin their defensive structure.
I guess the main point is that tactics in soccer are continuously evolving with coaches trying to find weaknesses in their opponent's style and thereby developing new strategies for others to react to.
> This is how Barcelona played some of the most beautiful football of all time.
I'm going to go out on a limb and say having way more money than almost all of your opponents had something to do with it too. Oh, and having Messi might have been of some importance as well.
I'd like to see some data that shows I'm wrong, but I haven't seen anything to suggest it's helpful to possess the ball at midfield. If anything, you open yourself to easy counterattacks. Possessing the ball in front of the other team's goalie is a different story, but of course that is many times harder to do.
Agreed, Barcelona between 2008-2012 had several of the greatest players on the planet at the time, and almost all had come through their own academy. Messi, Iniesta, Xavi, Puyol and Busquets. Plus in Guardiola, one of the greatest managers of all time.
Possessing the ball in midfield isn't useful if the opposing team is entirely between you and the goal. If, however, you pass through the other team's forwards to your midfield, then it's different; you've taken some of the opposition out of the game for a time.
On the other hand, your midfield will be immediately under pressure and they have to do something with the ball. All too often, you see midfield players simply pass it back to the back four, resulting in a gradual press rather than risking an attack.
Possessing the ball in midfield means you have an opportunity to move the ball closer to the opponents' goalkeeper, or the option of keeping it safe so that the opposition don't possess it near your goalkeeper.
Having the ball in midfield over a period might only give you a very marginal chance of scoring at the end of it, but not being able to get the ball back is an absolutely massive disadvantage for an opponent that needs to score.
> not being able to get the ball back is an absolutely massive disadvantage for an opponent that needs to score
That depends heavily on who you're playing. There's no such thing as possessing the ball for the entire game. A team with a strong counterattack only needs one pass to be off the mark to score.
Perhaps the key is that possession and attacking are not actually as connected as it seems to the casual observer. If you get the ball back in your own box, are you defending or attacking?
My problem with the tiki-taka is exactly what you describe. Pass it around but do very little, wear out everyone's patience while you wait for a gap to open up. Even recent versions of Barca and Spain have felt this way at times, the difference between doing it positively and negatively seems to be pretty razor thin.
The evolution from this seems to be to overload just one side of the pitch (or effectively just a quarter of it, instead of the entire opposition half) while leaving a wide attacker on the other side for a quick switch of play.
The defending team is then forced into either committing more defenders into the overloaded side (and leaving 0 or 1 defenders to cover the lone winger) or staying symmetrical and thus likely not impeding the buildup enough.
This is basically how Italy played in the Euros, overloading the left and leaving Chiesa open on the right thus creating valuable opportunities for him to take on a defender 1:1 with lots of space behind them.
This is probably the best you can do if you want to have high possession without constantly running into brick walls.
Spinazzola was one of Italy's best players until he got injured. He practically acted like an extra player, converting from a back to a forward as the team pushed on. Again, overloading the left.
The Italy-Spain match was one of the best I've ever watched. But if Spinazzola hadn't gotten injured, I think Italy wouldn't have had to rely on penalties for Spain and England.
You can think of different football styles as differents areas of a multidimensional space. Depending on your players strength, an area is better suited for your team. But the thing is, each of those area has a local maxima.
You excelently described barcelona style circa 2010. But to play it and expect to win you need Iniesta AND Xavi BOTH. because you have to be able to take advantage of those 4 to 8 opportunities in a match against a top opponent. Those player must have the psychological strength to not flinch when the opportunity present itself, must have the technical ability to execute what they want and you need at least 2 of them if you want to pursue intelligently whatever tactical advantage you gain. In the spanish team you had iniesta, xavi and silva.
Those player are exceedingly rare and are not simply good technical players, the share a common understanding of the "chess game" they are playing . The danger is if you don't recognise you don't have those player, possession football puts you at a disadvantage against a team with offensive talent, organisation and defensive will ! ( think France 2018 )
> You excelently described barcelona style circa 2010. But to play it and expect to win you need Iniesta AND Xavi BOTH.
I agree, although at the risk of extending this to the entire midfield/defence, a deeply technical holding midfielder to create the midfield passing triangles with Xavi/Iniesta in Busquets is crucial.
>On the other hand, some probing may be so subtle that it takes an expert to see it.
But it underwhelms the fans, and bores the team-neutral audience, because unless they read the game at that level of nuance - that the team is just passing it around the box.
I think maybe Cruyff had a point when the article mentions:
Unfortunately, I abandoned the book after a long paragraph on page 89 in which Cruyff explains why, in his opinion, the most important thing in football is not victory, but entertaining the crowd.
My personal opinion that the refereeing has been woefully inadequate and getting worse, and VAR which was an attempt to improve things has actually made things worse. Does the sport even matter when one mistake by an official drastically changes the outcome. High scoring sports like basketball mitigate this issue most of the time because the better team is likely to win by more than 1 or 2 points.
I'm boycotting football until after the next World Cup, but it was nice to hear that the Euro finals was one of the best refereed matches in a long time. Pity the ref. himself retired afterwards.
I think the goal of any sport should more be engagement than entertainment. For entertainment, go to a circus, movie, or theater.
Also, any sport at top level suffers from common people not being able to see what’s happening. That’s unavoidable. For example, at Olympic level, a hurdler having to shorten a pace by a few cm at one hurdle can make a decisive difference. In gymnastics, I doubt any layman can, given a video stream, rank the top competitors the way the jury does (would be an interesting experiment to do)
Also IMO, rules that more reliably let the better team win work against engaging the crowd.
Nothing better for user engagement than that ‘goal’ in the 1966 World Cup final at Wembley.
Thanks for the response. I'm more troubled by sport now because I understand it better.
I totally agree with you on the inability to comprehend something, it also means you can shout at the TV because of the commentator rather than the referee.
It applies in all fields of expertise. There are/were perhaps only a few people who can perceive the nuance between a gold plated flute note and a silver plated one.
On the flip side even though there may be somewhat contrived bits, the "Faking It" TV series was also interesting coming from the 'opposite' approach.
It comes down to what you want out of sport/football - some opt for the technicalities and prowess of the game and its players, some opt for the associated drama and emotion.
One of the things that troubles me the most is - why did I entangle my emotional wellbeing with the outcome of a result enabled by a whole bunch of people I have never and am never likely to meet? We outsource our emotional state and join in a group experience of exhileration and despair often based on non-local events.
As someone not entirely suceeding in ignoring football until 2023, I am glad I came across this:
It depends I'd say. Bayern played a lot like this in 2020, which also lead them winning the Champions League. The key difference to what you describe was that they circulated the ball waiting for a chance to play an extremely fast attacking leading to a goal. Like an explosion after a few rounds of slow passing.
I totally disagree, bayern 2020 made every pass and run with the intent to score, almost never to hold the ball.
Every pass is intended to open your defense. If you react well they try something else. If you don't well ... sorry for you.
Just look at their chapions league final goal. Or even look at their 2021 first match against PSG. Barcelona was in the strangulating business. Bayern was in the smashing things open business.
That was indeed brilliant. Loved to watch that. Explosive attack, instant chaos. Wonderful football. Reminded me of Bayern playing under Heynckes, very similar in style.
The key thing here is: Bayern has the best striker in the world, Lewandowski. So they will keep passing the ball around, until the opportunity arises to pass to him, and he knows what to do with such gift. Spain in the Euro tried to play the same tactics, but they lack a good striker, making the whole game incredibly boring.
I love watching defensive football, teams like Atletico Madrid defeating the Barcelona in the 15-16 Champions League finals.
What I hate watching is the time-wasting, injury faking shenanigans that defensive teams also do. Unfortunately, it's a part of the game due to football's insistence on using a running clock, which makes zero sense from a competitive aspect and needs to be changed.
> Unfortunately, it's a part of the game due to football's insistence on using a running clock, which makes zero sense from a competitive aspect and needs to be changed
Can anyone explain why this is, either than historic reasons like "it's the way it has always been done."? It seems a bit odd in today's world that they don't have a clock that everyone can see and the ref having the ability to signal to stop and start it.
And perhaps it's just accepted but I've often found it strange too that in extra-time the ref will usually let play continue through the time while a team is on the attack and only ending the game after the defense has killed the threat. It seems like a lot of discretion for a single person, the ref, to have.
> Added time was introduced because of an incident which happened in 1891 during a match between Stoke and Aston Villa. Trailing 1–0 and with just two minutes remaining, Stoke were awarded a penalty. Villa's goalkeeper kicked the ball out of the ground, and by the time the ball had been recovered, the 90 minutes had elapsed and the game was over
If you didn't let the ref continue the game to their discretion it would make time-wasting tactics even worse. At least now if a team is adjudged to be taking the piss with the timewasting the ref can just mentally tack another minute or two onto the game. It's good that there isn't a "hard stop" that will end the game even if an attack is in full flow.
Right but what I’m saying is why can’t the ref just stop the clock with a hand signal when the ball isn’t in play and restart it when it is? Every other sport with a clock that I’m aware of does this.
Well I guess my question would be are those sports really better for it?
Anyone who has watched the fourth quarter of an American football game will know how paramount clock management is to that sport. Even more infuriating (for me) is basketball where the losing team is constantly stopping the clock with fouls to prevent the winning team from running down the final seconds... the last "minute" of the game can feel like an eternity.
At least soccer's timekeeping has the benefit of being simple. It works the same way whether a match is being played in the park or in a huge stadium. Personally I prefer it to having a clock that stops and starts like other sports have.
The fact that a foul stops the clock isn't really the problem. The problem is the cost/benefit in that scenario favors stopping play with the intentional foul. Remember that the only reason stopping the clock even helps is because the foul (essentially) ends the opponent's possession. With a slightly different penalty (like a free throw but they keep the ball) that strategy is no longer viable.
I think that's an apples to oranges comparison though. Clock management is part of the game in basketball and American football - teams are given timeouts and use tactics to stop the clock so they can setup a new play. In soccer, this doesn't exist and with an official clock that everyone could see and that the ref starts and stops (like they assumingely do today) the game would play like it does today. Just that the clock stops and restarts would be visible to everyone.
For instance, the ref wouldn't have to stop the clock for basic throw-ins, setting up corners, etc as that's part of the game. So long as it's done in a timely manner. But for flops/injuries, setting up bookings, substitutions, etc they could stop the clock and restart it when action resumes as they do privately today.
It just feels like having a single person secretly control the clock and make what appears to be arbitrary calls as to how much time is added and when play is officially over is odd.
I guess my point is the game could be played exactaly as it is today but there would be transparency on the game clock. The game isn't that tied to tradition using VAR after all.
> Well I guess my question would be are those sports really better for it?
Depends on your definition of better. Better for simplicity? I suppose. Better for entertainment? Arguable. Better for competition? No.
Right now, the rules incentivize time wasting. If you're up goal in the 85th minute, you should fake an injury or take 30 seconds for a goal kick because it improves your chances of winning. Other sports have solved this decades ago because of how flawed it is. Hell, even tennis, a sport that doesn't utilize a clock, added a serve clock due to players attempting to waste time to their benefit.
> At least now if a team is adjudged to be taking the piss with the timewasting the ref can just mentally tack another minute or two onto the game.
But anyone who regularly watches football knows that stoppage time is ridiculously inconsistent. A half can have 3 goals and VAR reviews and only have 4 minutes of stoppage time. Then within those 4 minutes, the winning team will take 30 seconds per goal kick and then the ref will blow time at 4 minutes on the dot.
Again, it makes zero sense from a competitive aspect.
A starting and stopping clock is one of the things I absolutely can't stand about American football. Games last entirely too long because of it. One of the things I like most about soccer is that games start and end quickly, and I can do other things with the evening. When I was a student in Europe I could meet up with some friends at a bar after class and be home in time for dinner.
It’s definitely been considered but football has some entrenched traditions and this change would be hard to get through. I don’t think fans would want it.
The rules state that the referee should add on any wasted time at the end, but it rarely seems to happen particularly accurately.
FIFA is currently trialing a 30:00 half with a countdown clock that stops when play is interrupted. Along with that throwins would become kickins, teams have unlimited substitutions, a yellow card would result in a five minute penalty similar to hockey, and the ability to self-kick (dribble) on set pieces.
The trials took place at the end of July this year at a youth tournament.
Good defensive football is a joy to watch. It's a feat of organization and doesn't necessarily mean the teams don't score at all, or don't score good goals.
Someone like Antonio Conte has a pretty defensive style and his teams often rank very low (good) in goals conceded, but they are also almost always in the top 2-3 teams in terms of goals scored.
More recently, Thomas Tuchel's defensive reorganization of Chelsea this last season completely changed their approach to the game and won them the Champions' League.
If anyone is interested in the historical development of football tactics there's a pretty good book that covers it called Inverting the Pyramid, by Jonathan Wilson.
The title of the book refers to the broad trend going from a few defenders and lots of strikers to the modern game with the opposite.
The funny thing is that the name soccer is of English origin[1] and is the more precise term, since it's short for Association Football. However, when one just says football it could be any number of ball games that involve using the feet at least some of the time[2].
The first point is true; the second less so. If you use the term "football" most of the world will make the assumption you mean football, as opposed to any national derivatives of it or other games.
What's more fun is the theory that "football" is not about how one contacts the ball but more about how one plays on foot rather than on a horse. The term "football" was derisive towards the games peasants play vs nobility playing games like polo.
As with most organically adopted words, nothing is clear cut, but there's quite a lot of evidence that the foot in football is about being on foot rather than on a horse.
defensive football is beatiful no doubt. but there's certain coaches like Diego simone, who take it to the extreme and end up implementing terrorist football. end of day, I would rather watch a defensive team, with creative flair upfront. not the current state of football with endless passes while trying to retain possession.
However, many Barcelona-wannabes aren't as great as Barcelona was, and for them the practical function of maintaining possession and "attacking" is not to score but to prevent the other team from scoring. (Spoiler alert: this is the punch line of the essay.) A team that spends most of the game "on the attack" may produce nothing but boring, sterile, fruitless possession, while their opponents spend relatively less time on offense, but more productively, because when they get the ball they directly attempt to do something with it.
For those who follow MLS, yes, I am an Austin FC fan. Fingers crossed that our new signings add some quality to our attack.