For all you formations experts

[smithdown]

Get onto this and explain how it all works

 

 

Ta

[johngibo YPC]

Team without formation win f*** all

[Damian_de]

Easy one this - make the pitch small when the opponents have the ball, make it big when you have it

[smithdown]

Easy one this - make the pitch small when the opponents have the ball, make it big when you have it

 

"OKAY LADS? NOW GO OUT IN THE SECOND HALF AND DO IT!"

 

More details required. Show your working out.

[Zoob]

On 12 seconds the Dutch team pay homage to school-boy football, by having every outfield player within 15 yards of the ball.

[Sion]

any modern team would batter them

[Coyler]

That team was crying out for a Dirk Kuyt.

[Murphman]

That side were fabulous on the ball, Uruguay were pure f*cking animals. I for one don't miss the old days when cloggers could marmalise flair players with impunity. As for the formation?

 

Easy, 4-4-2 with the odd variance as the situation dicatated,

 

F*ck off Gibbo.

[Zoob]

Not a patch on the innovative 4-4-4 formation that Roy Hodgson's Switzerland used in the 94 world cup

[John am Rhein]

I for one don't miss the old days when cloggers could marmalise flair players with impunity.

 

What?!?!?

 

That was always the essence of the game.

 

Not a patch on the innovative 4-4-4 formation that Roy Hodgson's Switzerland used in the 94 world cup

 

I advocated a 6-5-7 formation back in the 80s. Massively successful until someone spotted its fatal flaw.

[smithdown]

 

I advocated a 6-5-7 formation back in the 80s. Massively successful until someone spotted its fatal flaw.

 

 

That it was already being used by Portsmouth's hoolies?

[surf]

What?!?!?

 

That was always the essence of the game.

 

 

 

I advocated a 6-5-7 formation back in the 80s. Massively successful until someone spotted its fatal flaw.

 

 

you´ll get overrun in midfield against a team playing 7-12-4

[smithdown]

you´ll get overrun in midfield against a team playing 7-12-4

 

 

would you play zonal or man to man marking at set pieces?

[drdooom]

would you play zonal or man to man marking at set pieces?

 

Both, depending on what the situation dictated.

[pipnasty]

Holy are you

Holy are you

There is no god but 4-4-2

Praise be the lord

[Bailo]

Holland couldn't shoot for s*** could they?!

[goodrobotusses]

If I recall from Inverting The Pyramid the 70s Dutch side played 1-3-3-3 - basically a 4-3-3 with a libero. Really cool to see their "aggressive offside trap" in action there, though it couldn't work with the modern interpretation of the law.

[Nerik]

On 12 seconds the Dutch team pay homage to school-boy football, by having every outfield player within 15 yards of the ball.

 

Funnily enough it is the same concept. Football at top level was traditionally always played with players keeping their positions, area of the pitch, man marking etc. Schoolboys will chase the ball wherever it is. Now what the Dutch did was start off the trend that has led to modern football. What they did back then was a cruder, more extreme version of today's game. The game today is mostly played with the concept of BALL ORIENTED DEFENCE. Basically when a player has the ball there will be 2-3 players closing him down. Rather than marking a player that he could pass to, the main emphasise is to block off as many options of playing the ball as possible. That Dutch team was so ahead of it's time it is unbelievable. Until today those concepts and also the way of developing skills in the way the Ajax school did are still cutting edge.

 

I've only watched clips of the game, but some people claim that Liverpool's 3-0 victory against Newcastle in the FA Cup final in the same year was another early display of total football.

[John am Rhein]

Holland couldn't shoot for s*** could they?!

 

what, and risk losing possession???

[smithdown]

Funnily enough it is the same concept. Football at top level was traditionally always played with players keeping their positions, area of the pitch, man marking etc. Schoolboys will chase the ball wherever it is. Now what the Dutch did was start off the trend that has led to modern football. What they did back then was a cruder, more extreme version of today's game. The game today is mostly played with the concept of BALL ORIENTED DEFENCE. Basically when a player has the ball there will be 2-3 players closing him down. Rather than marking a player that he could pass to, the main emphasise is to block off as many options of playing the ball as possible. That Dutch team was so ahead of it's time it is unbelievable. Until today those concepts and also the way of developing skills in the way the Ajax school did are still cutting edge.

 

I've only watched clips of the game, but some people claim that Liverpool's 3-0 victory against Newcastle in the FA Cup final in the same year was another early display of total football.

 

 

Fine post.

 

Deffo watch the 90 minutes of the 74 final if you get a chance. You will begin to feel sorry for Newcastle.

[Damian_de]

What they did back then was a cruder, more extreme version of today's game. The game today is mostly played with the concept of BALL ORIENTED DEFENCE. Basically when a player has the ball there will be 2-3 players closing him down. Rather than marking a player that he could pass to, the main emphasise is to block off as many options of playing the ball as possible. That Dutch team was so ahead of it's time it is unbelievable.

 

Apart from maybe the Russians at the same time, some of whom were also playing a pressing game. I think they were teams that could only have existed at the time that they did - the first era where there was enough knowledge about the physical preparation of the players to get them fit enough to play a pressing game when they didn't have the ball, and probably not co-incidentally, a period rife with sports -doping offences. Plenty of the Ajax players have admitted being given various pills during that period, and the state of sports 'science' in Russia at the time is well known.

 

Not to mention the fact that the offside rule being different allowed them to take amazing advantage of the difference in the condition of the players between the sides.

 

None of which is meant to take away from the achievements of Ajax, Holland, or the Russian teams. I also enjoyed watching that footage, as I hadn't seen it before.

[Nerik]

Every now and then a team comes along that changes football and Holland did that in the 70s. Same like Hungary did in the 50s and co-incidentally the doping allegedly worked against them in the 1954 final when it was claimed the Germans were on drugs.