Past features
It’s easy to forget what a mess Brazil were in just months before the 2002 World Cup. They had their worst-ever qualification campaign for the tournament, and Luiz Felipe Scolari only took over in June 2001, with Brazil sitting outside the qualification places. Scolari struggled through – he lost his first game, but Brazil...
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…and by the same token, if you don’t get shots on target in football games, you don’t score goals.
You don’t really need chalkboard analysis to describe how bad Liverpool are, but here is some evidence for you.
In their past two away games, Liverpool have had a grand total of two shots on target. One...
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In part one, we looked at the differences between the Premiership, La Liga, Serie A, the Bundesliga and Ligue 1 in terms of passing. Here, we turn to crossing.
Firstly, the number of crosses attempted per game in the five leagues:
Serie A sees by far the highest amount of crosses, with the Bundesliga trailing significantly. There’s...
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Everyone knows that Arsenal went unbeaten in 2003/04, but it’s worth pointing out that Chelsea only lost one game the next season, a surprise 0-1 defeat away at Manchester City. OK so, Jose Mourinho had inherited a great squad, which had been added to over the summer with the likes of Cech, Drogba, Carvalho...
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It’s often argued that the major European leagues are becoming increasingly similar, and there are no longer significant variations in tactics. What are the reasons for this? An increased number of foreign players and managers? More television coverage of foreign competitions? A greater number of European matches? Globalisation in general?
That debate is for another...
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