[HN Gopher] In praise of defensive football
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In praise of defensive football
Author : animalcule
Score : 56 points
Date : 2021-08-01 14:15 UTC (1 days ago)
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| unabridged wrote:
| I've always wanted to see soccer played with two balls on the
| field. I think it would be many times more interesting.
| ardit33 wrote:
| haha... that would be wild. I bet it would look more like a
| middle school kids game, with two groups of each team chasing
| the two different balls.
| kome wrote:
| Great article! Thanks for sharing. This is potentially a great
| introduction to football for people who doesn't care about
| football (like USians)
| User23 wrote:
| 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].
|
| [1] https://www.lexico.com/explore/whats-the-origin-of-the-
| word-...
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_types_of_football
| mellosouls wrote:
| 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.
| phamilton wrote:
| 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.
| jonwinstanley wrote:
| I like this theory but in England, the standardised game
| was played mostly by the wealthy nobility around the years
| 1850-1880.
|
| Working class people, such as in the teams from mill towns
| like Preston, Darwin and Blackburn joined the FA cup later
| on.
| [deleted]
| dkarl wrote:
| 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.
| dekervin wrote:
| 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 )
| pertymcpert wrote:
| > 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.
| Someone wrote:
| I don't see the continuous probing of a defense as "doing
| nothing".
|
| A boxer will feint a zillion attacks, too, before going for the
| real one. That's not "doing nothing".
|
| It only becomes sterile if the team in possession of the ball
| plays the ball around without doing real probing.
|
| On the other hand, some probing may be so subtle that it takes
| an expert to see it.
| dkarl wrote:
| True, my team might be compiling a detailed dossier of each
| opposing team's defensive weaknesses so we can make a clean
| sweep of the league next year.
|
| If so, we are playing our cards very close to the chest.
| duxup wrote:
| 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.
| protomyth wrote:
| Well, UND having Ed Belfour did help to keep the scoring
| down.
| hencq wrote:
| 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.
| hansoolo wrote:
| Is "gegenpressing" used in English?
| bodyfour wrote:
| It has been since Jurgen Klopp started working here.
| lordnacho wrote:
| 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.
| vp8989 wrote:
| 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.
| barrkel wrote:
| 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.
| bachmeier wrote:
| > 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.
| notahacker wrote:
| 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.
| jonwinstanley wrote:
| 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.
| barrkel wrote:
| 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.
| shoto_io wrote:
| 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.
| 988747 wrote:
| 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.
| sveme wrote:
| 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.
| heyheyhey wrote:
| 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.
| nemo44x wrote:
| > 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.
| bodyfour wrote:
| From wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_foo
| tball#Duration_...
|
| > 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.
| nemo44x wrote:
| 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.
| bodyfour wrote:
| 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.
| heyheyhey wrote:
| > 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.
| nemo44x wrote:
| 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.
| bmm6o wrote:
| > _Even more infuriating (for me) is basketball_
|
| 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.
| heyheyhey wrote:
| > 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 the 4 minutes, one team will waste time
| by taking 30 seconds for a corner or throw in and then the
| ref will blow time at 4 minutes on the dot.
|
| Again, it makes zero sense from a competitive aspect.
| tomc1985 wrote:
| 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.
| jonwinstanley wrote:
| 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.
| dzonga wrote:
| 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.
| approxim8ion wrote:
| 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.
| jabl wrote:
| 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.
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