10 ways tactics changed
If you could travel back to the mid 90s and ask 100 football fans who the best finisher in the Premiership was, you’d find a majority telling you the answer was Robbie Fowler. He wasn’t tall, he wasn’t fast, he wasn’t strong and he wasn’t mobile, but if you gave him the ball, he...
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Although this doesn’t directly concern on-field tactics, the concept of squad rotation has become almost mandatory for the top sides in Europe, and has a large impact on the team selection of the managers concerned.
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There isn’t a great deal to say about this one – it pretty much does what it says on the tin. In the past ten years, pace has become arguably the most important quality for young footballers.
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The great attacking players of the late 1990s were easy to pin down to specific positions. Gabriel Batistuta, George Weah and Ronaldo were central forwards; Zinedine Zidane and Manuel Rui Costa were central playmakers; Luis Figo, Ryan Giggs and Marc Overmars were wingers.
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England’s first competitive fixture of the 2000s saw them start with the Neville brothers in the full-back positions. England’s first competitive fixture of the 2010s will see Ashley Cole and Glen Johnson there – the shift in that position from solid, reliable players to pacey, positive players could not be more marked.
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