Games of 2010: 40-31
Dani Alves, key in Barcelona's victory over his former club Sevilla
Here’s the first in a four-part series reviewing the matches of the year.
As ever, the focus is upon tactics rather than entertainment or importance, though naturally the ‘bigger’ games are featured prominently. It’s also limited to games that were covered on ZM, though that includes most of the contenders for the game of the year.
40. Chile 1-0 Honduras
A game of little relevance in the grand scheme of things, but a good encounter nevertheless. After a slow, defensive start to the tournament, Marcelo Bielsa’s side were the only ones looking to do something different in their opening match. They pressed high up the pitch, sent an incredible number of players forward into attack, and should have scored far more than one goal. Bielsa also maintained a strict policy of having a spare man at the back, resulting in three separate formations, always after Honduras had just changed their shape.
39. Barcelona 5-0 Sevilla
The interesting point here was how high up the pitch Daniel Alves played. Usually, he is an attack-minded right-back, but in this game he practically played as a right-winger, forcing back Diego Capel into his own third, and pushing Sevilla so far towards their own goal that they were unable to play out from the back. The usual heavy pressing (and a Sevilla red card) helped, but what was essentially a routine hinted at another subtle change of system for Barca.
38. Brazil 2-1 North Korea
There was a tremendous amount of excitement about seeing North Korea in this tournament. Their overwhelmingly defensive system (which was broadly a 5-3-2 but more specifically a 3-3-2-1-1) was nothing if not original, and shut out a clearly superior Brazil side for the opening half. The Korean side’s weakness was that it wasn’t able to track the Brazilian full-backs well, and Maicon surged forward to open the scoring with a superb swerving strike.
37. Chelsea 0-3 Sunderland
Chelsea haven’t won since this game, which either indicates that it wasn’t as much of a shock result as we initially thought, or that it was such a big blow that they’ve been unable to recover. Steve Bruce ordered his midfielders to close down relentlessly, whilst using Kieran Richardson on the right flank to man Ashley Cole. Two strikers were used to put pressure upon Chelsea’s makeshift backline, and Sunderland ran riot.
36. Cesena 2-0 Milan
Cesena have now faded and find themselves in the relegation zone, but the newly-promoted club’s first two games this season were remarkable. First they claimed a 0-0 away at Roma, then took on Milan and deservedly triumphed 2-0. Massimo Ficcadenti knew how to get at Milan in their 4-3-3 shape – Milan’s wingers didn’t track full-backs, and the defence was vulnerable to counter-attacks. The two goals summed this up perfectly in one of the finest tactical victories of the year, and showed that Milan had to move away from 4-3-3 to compete in Serie A this season.
35. Arsenal 2-3 Tottenham
Arsenal were 2-0 up at the break, before an astonishing comeback. Harry Redknapp switched from 4-2-3-1 to 4-4-2 at half-time, introducing Jermain Defoe to provide pace upfront and ‘narrowing it up’, to use his words. Arsenal’s charitable defending played a part and there were inevitable questions about whether Arsenal switched off at 2-0 up, but Redknapp deserves credit for being brave enough to change things.
34. Germany 4-0 Australia
Germany hit four goals three times in the tournament. This was the least memorable of the three, but it was a superb opening to their tournament. Pim Verbeek got his tactics completely wrong – he fielded two midfielders upfront in a 4-4-2 / 4-6-0 formation and ordered his side to press all over the pitch. Unfortunately, Germany had a numerical advantage in midfield and therefore Mesut Ozil was free to wander between the lines and cause mayhem.
33. Tottenham 2-1 Chelsea
The scoreline doesn’t reflect the overall dominance Spurs had here, and how well they played their 4-4-2 against Chelsea’s 4-3-3. Redknapp wanted to play direct, to get the ball out to the wingers as quickly as possible. Chelsea’s full-backs’ response was to stick tight to them, but they ended up playing too far up the pitch, leaving John Terry and Alex exposed to the pace of Jermain Defoe. Add in another great Gareth Bale performance, and Spurs were fantastic.
32. Barcelona 0-2 Hercules
The shock of the year. Hercules came and sat back very, very deep, making it impossible for Barcelona to play through balls, and made it difficult for Barcelona forwards to create space by dropping deep. The diamond midfield closed down in the centre whilst shuttling from side to side to close down the full-backs, whilst Nelson Valdez played just off David Trezeguet and grabbed both goals.
31. Tottenham 3-1 Inter
It’s not like Inter didn’t have warning about Gareth Bale – he’d scored a second half hat-trick in the first game between the sides. Therefore, Rafael Benitez’s failure to prepare here was somewhat surprising, and Bale took full advantage – giving Maicon the most torrid game of his career to claim two assists. It was a superb all-round performance from Spurs, though, with Luka Modric the other standout player.
Games of 2010: 40-31
This is great. thanks ZM
Looking forward to the top 10. Would be great to see a “top 10 players of 2010″ from a tactics point of view. The player of the year awards by uefa/fifa tend to lean towards the big stars.
Pretty sure the Manchester derbys will feature in the top 10.. with the 4-3 match coming first
The 4-3 match was in 2009.
and the others have been crap.
yeah i like this. but plz dont make the wc final nr. 1…
trust me, ZM wouldn’t dare make the WC final match of the year. “As ever, the focus is upon tactics rather than entertainment or importance.”
I suspect Barca – Inter will come no.1, or the reverse one.
I would kinda be astonished if it weren’t Camp Nou game. It was a unique game, and I really mean it.
What is unique about a team parking the bus for 90 minutes and hanging on for dear life? The first leg was maybe unique since it was a perfect game by Inter and they gave a good beating to one of the best sides in recent memory, but I fail to see what was extraordinary in the second leg besides the second barca goal getting called off
You do remember Inter were playing with 10 for over 60 minutes? It was a master class catenaccio by Mourinho’s side.
It’s probably worth mentioning that it wasn’t catenaccio. Barcelona’s side with Alves playing higher probably resemble a catenaccio more than Inter in that game.
Inter’s setup around their goal was something completely different from what Catenaccio really is. What you said would be proper if you wrote it at goal.com or alike, but not here
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Is that all you took out of that Camp Nou game? Jesus! What are you doing on this site? Frankly, first half was much less interesting tactically, but I will never forget the image of the game in the second.
It was not just defending deep in their own half and getting players behind the ball, which is often seen. This was extraordinarily deep defence with 6 men standing on the 16th metre from the goal, and 3 men serving as a frontguard 8 meters further down the pitch. Haven’t seen that before in my life.
Barcelona’s tactics, skill and patience allowed them to effectively besiege Inter almost in their own penalty area. Haven’t thought this could be possible on international level. The sole question of how to setup such a siege machine is intriguing. Were they too secure with their 2-3-5? Was 1 player at the back, enough? Should they exploit more the fact that youngster Jeffren was constantly free on the left flank, while Pedro/Alves were always marked by Mountari on the other flank?
On the other hand, Internazionale’s tactics made Barcelona toothless. Barcelona were making the ball circulate, looking for a space somewhere between the opponent players, but hardly found any. How so?
There is so much more to these small tactical subtletes, but more important thing is that this match provided material to analyse in context of a few fundamental questions in football.
1) Is having possession not enough to score as many goals as you like/need?
2) Is that game – paradoxically – the final evidence that it’s easier/better to attack than to defend in football? I cannot remember a team playing so cohesively in defence – yet, Inter has lost the game (0-1), and could only afford it because of 3-1 in Milan. I cannot imagine a better physical and tactical display in defence coming from football players – yet, they allowed Barcelona three 100% chances (without counting fantastic save from Julio César in the first half), which would all be converted to goals in 8 out of 10 matches. In case of 2-0 for Barcelona, Inter would be unable to transform effectively into attacking mode late in the game.
The Inter @ Barca match wont be number one. Because ManU and Chelsea did basically the same thing in the 2008 and ‘09 CL semis respectively to even better effect (both scoreless draws).
It’s probably worth noting that Verbeek’s general idea wasn’t as far off as the result might indicate. Isolating the German defense from the two central midfielders in what is essentially a 4-2-4 is smart if you have the quality to pull it off, which Australia clearly lacked.
Giving Per Mertesacker plenty of time on the ball has been somewhat of a running gag in 2010 but Verbeek didn’t make plans for Arne Friedrich, who learned his trade as a full back. The perennially underrated former Hertha BSC captain is deceivingly quick for a centre back and while you won’t see him dribble past opponents he’s got more than enough technique and composure to not give the ball away easily.
I’m not sure the Socceroos’ manager had any more promising options available though, his squad was the weakest in arguably the most difficult group by quite a margin. He should probably be commended for not turning to a completely negative approach.
The real issue was the fact that he left behind Scott McDonald, claiming the striker didn’t fit in a two striker formation, then he went and attempted to play two strikers in the biggest game of all. He deviated from the 4-2-3-1 he used all campaign with great success (one goal conceded in the whole of Asia’s qualifying) to the strange mismatch of a formation he used against Germany.
Perhaps just an Australian perspective, but it was the worst game I have ever watched.
I expect Mainz’s victory over Bayern to be in the top 10.
The great games have tactical lessons, and I think those are the ones to expect in the top 10. Brazil v Chile, Barca v Villarreal, and Man U vs Arsenal (January) were the first I thought of. Looking back to the awards section last summer, Man U v Chelsea, Barca v Inter, Chelsea v Inter, Barca v Valencia etc…
The Chile vs Spain and Paraguay vs Spain matches are at the top of my head for number one. Just very interesting to see two sides trying something different to combat tiki-taka rather than parking the ole bus.
Too bad Germany and Holland were not as aggressive; would probably have made for a better spectacle.
Maybe Germany vs Argentina is an excellent example to show how big a difference tactics and formations can make.