Heroes & Villains, the Aston Villa fanzine
Heroes & Villains => Heroes Discussion => Topic started by: alanclare on October 06, 2010, 09:20:04 AM
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In today's Times Cesc Fābregas criticises the win-at-all-costs mentality in the Premier league and believes that it is of no help to England's international cause. Here are some quotes from the article:
In Spain we believe in one style of football. The way we play is most important. Its not just about winning, its about how you do it. If you lose, you go again. You will never play the ball long or do things you are not used to. We want to win by playing football.
No Spanish teams would play like Bolton. Here in England it is all about passion the fans love it when there are hard tackles and you play long balls and counter attack. But if you do that in Spain they will boo you. Even if you win.
One of the things you see a lot in Spain is children playing football on the street with their friends. You fall on the floor, you hit a wall, you sometimes break some windows, but you get back up and that is the beauty of football in Spain.
In Spain they make you study and have discipline. You can be a good footballer, but if you dont study, if you dont behave, if you dont have the discipline to get to training on time then they dont care. If you think youre better than the others, theyll put you on the bench straight away.
Mentality and self-belief are really important. I can give you two examples of players who have won everything Xavi and [Carles] Puyol and they are the first to be on the training pitch and the last off. And you see them and think, These guys have won everything, they could do what they want and we would not say anything. They could choose the easy way, but they choose the hard way.
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He's off to Barcelona next season then.
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I must say though I think Fabregas looks like a greasy pervert, he does touch on a couple of interesting points here. Nonetheless, I don't agree with the 'Bolton' bashing. However, I believe the ideas of discipline/etiquette/respect are extremely important. The reason I border on unrational dislike for most of the England national team - JT/Lamps/Ashley Cole - is because they come across as egotistical smeg heads who do not even know the meaning of the word respect.
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One of the things you see a lot in Spain is children playing football on the street with their friends. You fall on the floor, you hit a wall, you sometimes break some windows, but you get back up and that is the beauty of football in Spain.
yes, but only after writhing on the floor in agony for 15 minutes, begging for the floor to be sent off, then jumping straight back up in complete recovery, as soon as a decision has been made...
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They have had a golden generation like France did 12 years ago, and now he's an expert on how to play the game. How many times at previous comps have they fluffed?
But the purpose of the article is right, young talent in this country is poorly developed and the ones who do get to clubs care more about money/fame than about playing.
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The way Spaniards play football reflects thier society in general, extremely respectful and pride in their achievements. They don't tend to have high profile footballers in drugs and cheating on their wives scandals. This is where our football is fundementally wrong. Until footballers get back to respecting everything from the referee to the supporters to the clubs they play for then we will never compete with the likes of Spain.
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He was just on SSN praising the PL and England!
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I don't like watching the way Bolton (in the past), Blackburn or Stoke play - personally, I'd rather watch paint dry than sit through a season of that.
However, it does make me laugh to hear Wenger and Fabregas (to a lesser extent) whingeing about it.
What it comes down to is that Wenger's side play great football but they have a major issue when they come up against physical teams, who frequently get the better of them.
The answer is to adapt the way you play to overcome it, not to whinge on about it like the first obligation of all teams is to play against Arsenal in a way which enables them to play to their strengths.
If you play in the English league with a team of players of the physical constitution of Samir Nasri or Rosicky, you will win nothing. I don't know why Wenger seems to have forgotten this in recent years. It's as though he's forgotten how important Patrick Viera was for them.
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We hear the phrase 'golden generation' a lot. France had there's, as did Holland without winning the World Cup, and now Spain's. We also heard it about England, but were they not good enough or just threw it all away as they we more in love with money than playing for their country?
Bit of both, probably.
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The way Spaniards play football reflects thier society in general, extremely respectful and pride in their achievements. They don't tend to have high profile footballers in drugs and cheating on their wives scandals. This is where our football is fundementally wrong. Until footballers get back to respecting everything from the referee to the supporters to the clubs they play for then we will never compete with the likes of Spain.
I understand the point you're making and am not criticising it, but the Spanish teams of the '60s / '70s / '80s were renowned for their phyiscal approach - The Beast of Barcelona being a notorious example. Yes, they have cleaned their game up but I think it's dangerous to draaw too much of a social parallel in all of this. Having said that, most of the British footballers at the top of the game are not going to win any prizes for role-modelling.
In a related way, the FA could learn alot from the approaches of Germany and Spain from both a footballing and administration perspective ... but they have to want to and at the moment they are too in love with the money to care enough.
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it's a bit rich saying its not good for the national team when you play for a club with virtually no Englishman on the payroll
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It's as though he's forgotten how important Patrick Viera was for them.
And Gilberto Silva, Sol Campbell, Lauren, Emmanuel Petit. He didn't seem to mind these players kicking lumps out of the opposition back when Arsenal were winning things did he?
The sooner Fabregas buggers off the better in my opinion.
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The way Spaniards play football reflects thier society in general, extremely respectful and pride in their achievements. They don't tend to have high profile footballers in drugs and cheating on their wives scandals. This is where our football is fundementally wrong. Until footballers get back to respecting everything from the referee to the supporters to the clubs they play for then we will never compete with the likes of Spain.
I dont think it's just our footballers doing it. I just think our red tops report/ sensationalise it a lot more.
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For everything Fabreagas says that may or may not be true, the one stat that screans out at you i the comparison of qualified coaches in England compared to Spain. Was it something like 250 compared to 3,000? That's not about the conduct of young men, how the professional clubs play or a reflection of the social situation in the country. It's about having people who know what they're doing teaching kids the basics of ball control and movement.
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I don't like Chelsea as a club, but I do like the way they play. They are close to the perfect combination of pace, power and subtlety. They can knock it around, but they are punishing with their physical play, and in the penalty area, very clinical. It's all good and well watching Arsenal knock it around all day long, but you've got to be able to mix it up and be ruthless when need be. Wenger's arrogance at not accomodating that philosophy is his undoing.
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I don't like watching the way Bolton (in the past), Blackburn or Stoke play - personally, I'd rather watch paint dry than sit through a season of that.
However, it does make me laugh to hear Wenger and Fabregas (to a lesser extent) whingeing about it.
What it comes down to is that Wenger's side play great football but they have a major issue when they come up against physical teams, who frequently get the better of them.
The answer is to adapt the way you play to overcome it, not to whinge on about it like the first obligation of all teams is to play against Arsenal in a way which enables them to play to their strengths.
If you play in the English league with a team of players of the physical constitution of Samir Nasri or Rosicky, you will win nothing. I don't know why Wenger seems to have forgotten this in recent years. It's as though he's forgotten how important Patrick Viera was for them.
the thing that amuses me the most when wenger whinges about other teams being overly physical, is he conveniently forgets the likes of dixon, winterburn, adams, keown, petit, vieira, bergkamp, and the likes, kicking lumps out of teams and gaining arsenal under wenger, 90+ red cards...
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They have a crop of good players and finally do well at a couple of tournaments after decades of failure which would even have embarrassed England. So Fabregas decides to get all romantic about kids playing football in the streets (paella for goalposts?) and they are going to have a conveyor belt of world class talent coming through. Well listen up Senor Cesc, the streets of Madrid aint like Rio, the streets of Barcelona aint like Sao Paulo. Enjoy your success while it lasts, Spain will fall back just like the French did and you will not have sustained success of decades like the Brazilians.
Frankly, I have little time for the Spaniards and isnt somewhere I would take a holiday. Right through from a fat waiter managing the scousers back to the wrong side winning the civil war, I really dont like them (apart from Carlos Cuellar of course). In fact, I hope my ancestors were there sinking the bloody armada.
Basil Fawlty had the right idea how to treat a spaniard.
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For everything Fabreagas says that may or may not be true, the one stat that screans out at you i the comparison of qualified coaches in England compared to Spain. Was it something like 250 compared to 3,000? That's not about the conduct of young men, how the professional clubs play or a reflection of the social situation in the country. It's about having people who know what they're doing teaching kids the basics of ball control and movement.
I think you were referring to this article in the Guardian:
Football coach shortage paints bleak picture for England's future Only 2,769 English coaches hold Uefa's B, A and Pro badges
Spain has 23,995, Italy 29,420 and Germany 34,790
England is miles behind leading European countries in turning former professional players into Uefa-quailfied coaches.
As England fans grasp for indicators of how their team will perform at the World Cup, Digger can reveal statistics that will lead only to pessimism.
Three years ago an official report concluded that coaching is the "golden thread" leading to international success, but new Uefa data shows that there are only 2,769 English coaches holding Uefa's B, A and Pro badges, its top qualifications. Spain has produced 23,995, Italy 29,420, Germany 34,970 and France 17,588.
Between them those four nations have provided eight of the 12 finalists at all the World Cups and European Championships since 1998. England, meanwhile, have not appeared in a tournament final in 44 years.
There are 2.25 million players in England and only one Uefa-qualified coach for every 812 people playing the game. Spain, the World Cup favourites, have 408,134 players, giving a ratio of 1:17. In Italy, the world champions, the ratio is 1:48, in France it is 1:96, Germany 1:150 and even Greece, the Euro 2004 winners, have only 180,000 registered players for their 1,100 coaches, a ratio of 1:135.
Three years ago Richard Lewis the Rugby Football League chairman who was commissioned to lead a joint youth-development study for the Football Association, Premier League and Football League concluded: "It is no coincidence that sports achieving success on the international stage place great store on quality coaching not just at the highest level but right throughout the athlete and player development pathway."
He recommended that "the system of coaching and player development should be so enhanced that there is an increasing stream of better young players qualified to play for England players who have been better coached from a very young age, and who have the technical, physical and mental skills to succeed at the very highest international level."
Yet in the two years following Lewis's Review of Young Player Development in Professional Football, comparatively few had progressed on the coaching pathway. Uefa's census in July 2006 found there to be 1,430 Uefa B-qualified coaches in England, 397 with the A badge and only 45 with Pro licences. In the October 2009 study those numbers had crept up to 1,759, to 895 and to 115 respectively.
Spain have almost as many Pro-licensed coaches as there are English coaches of any stripe: 2,140 as against 2,769. Again, the ratios of available Pro-licensed coaches to players show an alarming gulf between England and the top-ranked football nation 1:190 in Spain, 1:19,565 here.
At the current rate of progress it will take 123 years for England's resource of Pro-licensed coaches to match Spain's today.
Gordon Taylor, the chief executive of the Professional Footballers Association, told Digger: "There is a link between coaching and quality. The timing of this is really important: the World Cup will bring this to a head, particularly if England do badly. How you do internationally is a proper reflection of your nation's youth development."
Taylor considers it an embarrassment that despite the wealth of the English game there is such a poor resource of qualified coaches. Indeed the PFA grew so frustrated at the lack of leadership shown by the football authorities that it has introduced its own coaching department in an attempt to turn today's players into tomorrow's coaches.
The League Managers' Association has also been forced to go it alone. Its chief executive, Richard Bevan, said: "Historically there has been a significant lack of investment in the provision of management support and training programmes for the development of young coaches and managers. We are embracing the corporate world for funding after recent proposals were declined by the FA and the Professional Game Board, which was immensely disappointing." There are hopes that the proposed National Football Centre at Burton-on-Trent will provide impetus to coaching development. But the funding to develop the site has still not been secured, suggesting English success could still be decades away.
I agree with Toronto about Chelsea. It may not be the sexy football of Arsenal but they have all right ingredients to have the perfect team for the PL. As for Barcelona, they are becoming the most boring side in the world to watch. Millions of passes and scared of shooting, at least Arsenal play a bit more direct and I'd actually thought they'd toughened up this season but typically, when they don't get all three points, they blame the opposition. Wenger, after all these years in the PL should realise you have to win the midfield battle before you can move on to the sexy stuff.
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Everybody want's to play the the spain way yes easy on the eye and they are successful but the success wont last forever.
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I must say though I think Fabregas looks like a greasy pervert, he does touch on a couple of interesting points here. Nonetheless, I don't agree with the 'Bolton' bashing. However, I believe the ideas of discipline/etiquette/respect are extremely important. The reason I border on unrational dislike for most of the England national team - JT/Lamps/Ashley Cole - is because they come across as egotistical smeg heads who do not even know the meaning of the word respect.
That made me laugh out loud at my desk :)
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In today's Times Cesc Fābregas criticises the win-at-all-costs mentality in the Premier league and believes that it is of no help to England's international cause. Here are some quotes from the article:
In Spain we believe in one style of football. The way we play is most important. Its not just about winning, its about how you do it. If you lose, you go again. You will never play the ball long or do things you are not used to. We want to win by playing football.
No Spanish teams would play like Bolton.
I'm guessing he's never seen a video of the Super Cup 2nd leg.
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I don't like watching the way Bolton (in the past), Blackburn or Stoke play - personally, I'd rather watch paint dry than sit through a season of that.
However, it does make me laugh to hear Wenger and Fabregas (to a lesser extent) whingeing about it.
What it comes down to is that Wenger's side play great football but they have a major issue when they come up against physical teams, who frequently get the better of them.
The answer is to adapt the way you play to overcome it, not to whinge on about it like the first obligation of all teams is to play against Arsenal in a way which enables them to play to their strengths.
If you play in the English league with a team of players of the physical constitution of Samir Nasri or Rosicky, you will win nothing. I don't know why Wenger seems to have forgotten this in recent years. It's as though he's forgotten how important Patrick Viera was for them.
I don't like Wenger, never have done. However on the physical argument he definitely has a point. Two of his players in the last 3 years have had their leg held together only by a sock. That should not happen under any circumstances.
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I don't like Wenger, never have done. However on the physical argument he definitely has a point. Two of his players in the last 3 years have had their leg held together only by a sock. That should not happen under any circumstances.
Spot on. The Premier League has had at least 12 double leg-breaks as a direct result of a challenge from an opposition player, so we're excluding horrible freak accidents like David Busst. Out of the other big 5 leagues of Europe in the same time period, since 1992, the second highest is France with 2. The problem is almost never malice but is almost always stupidity, rashness and a lack of actual tackling technique.
To be fair to Wenger, he always says that he admires the competitiveness of the English game, but it's the mad challenges he doesn't like. We have a very different idea of what is acceptable to the rest of the world, and it's a key reason why we don't produce as many technically good youngsters as the rest of Europe: if they're not certain that their technique and ability to change direction won't be protected from leg-breaking challenges, they're naturally discouraged from doing it. It's changing, thank God, but too gradually for my liking.
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Thing is its only now that Spian have all his success, yet their teams have been playing that way for years. before then it was the great Dutch teams that excelled at club level but never won anything at international level. England are always there or thereabouts - save this years poor World Cup - so mourning our death because a freaky good Spanish crop of players is neither her enor there. In anothe rgeneration it could be Portugal, Germany, or us.
10 years ago we were hearing about the brilliant french and their system, now its someone elses turn. Football is cyclical like everything else in lfe. If we play like the Europeans it doesn't mean that we'll suddenly start winning World Cups.
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10 years ago we were hearing about the brilliant french and their system, now its someone elses turn. Football is cyclical like everything else in lfe. If we play like the Europeans it doesn't mean that we'll suddenly start winning World Cups.
Funnily enough, the continentals have won quite a few World Cups between them. We've won one, under a particularly good tactician and with three particularly great players in the shape of Banks and the two Bobbys. We've not only not won any major tournaments since, we've almost never played well. Seeing as we're the only ones who play our 'style' and others who play a more technical style tend to win, it's fair to say we're doing something wrong.
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10 years ago we were hearing about the brilliant french and their system, now its someone elses turn. Football is cyclical like everything else in lfe. If we play like the Europeans it doesn't mean that we'll suddenly start winning World Cups.
Funnily enough, the continentals have won quite a few World Cups between them. We've won one, under a particularly good tactician and with three particularly great players in the shape of Banks and the two Bobbys. We've not only not won any major tournaments since, we've almost never played well. Seeing as we're the only ones who play our 'style' and others who play a more technical style tend to win, it's fair to say we're doing something wrong.
If you're going to lump the whole continent agaionst us then yes they will have won more World Cups. SAs for our 'style' you telling me that the West gernay team in 1990 played with flair? The West germany of 1974 were not noted for their joie de vivre on the pitch either. in fact they beat the far technically superior French. What about Italy's triumphs in 1982? And again in 2004. Was that substance over the Italian catenaccio style?
Sometimes we are too quick to berate our game and think everyone elses is better. Yes, in periods they are, and the best Europen nations win the most tournaments usually because of their defensive qualities rather than Spanish - or Barcelona - like flair and imagination.
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England do not play a defensive and stifiling team like the Italians... Indeed they until very recently haven't put much value in a good holding midfielder. So they did play a different style ;)
It's not flair good teams have; it is technical ability.
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This 'holding' midfielder is a load of bollocks. Midfielders are midfielders. Some don't compliment others some do. In 80-82 we had bremner doing the donkey work and mortimer trying to get forwrad and Sid pulling the strings. Its a myth that all of a sudden one player sits and one player attacks. That type of midfield would be murdered.
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It's not just technique. We've been hugely deficient in two main areas: technique and tactics. And besides, to play catenaccio for instance you need excellent technique in defence, you need good passing to get away on the counter, you need above all else tactical discipline and intelligence. Besides, that Italian side of '82 had wonderful technical players: Bruno Conti, Marco Tardelli and so on - these are excellent players. Same goes for the '06 side - we do not have players anywhere near the brilliance of the technique of Del Piero, Totti or Pirlo. West Germany in '90 weren't a flair team, but then nobody was - and they had slightly better technique than us, and that was a particularly good team we had there.
As for tactics, I think you've just proved me right with this "midfielders are midfielders" comment. So when Ferguson, Mourinho, Wenger, Sacchi, Capello, Houiller even - when they talk about holding midfielders they are wrong, but you are right. I see.
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The way Spaniards play football reflects thier society in general, extremely respectful and pride in their achievements. They don't tend to have high profile footballers in drugs and cheating on their wives scandals. This is where our football is fundementally wrong. Until footballers get back to respecting everything from the referee to the supporters to the clubs they play for then we will never compete with the likes of Spain.
I dont think it's just our footballers doing it. I just think our red tops report/ sensationalise it a lot more.
Exactly, they don't really care as long as they still do it on the pitch. Blame the papers for build them up, knock them down style of reporting.
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We hear the phrase 'golden generation' a lot. France had there's, as did Holland without winning the World Cup, and now Spain's. We also heard it about England, but were they not good enough or just threw it all away as they we more in love with money than playing for their country?
Bit of both, probably.
And Scotland had their golden generation when Strachan was in his prime
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Due to the lack of 0% Villa in the title I for one second thought that you know...Cesc might want to partner Steve Sidwell in our midfield and win us the League Cup.
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Due to the lack of 0% Villa in the title I for one second thought that you know...Cesc might want to partner Steve Sidwell in our midfield and win us the League Cup.
Not in this world
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Due to the lack of 0% Villa in the title I for one second thought that you know...Cesc might want to partner Steve Sidwell in our midfield and win us the League Cup.
Not in this world
Ok...he might want to win the pot along with Cuellar then.
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It's not just technique. We've been hugely deficient in two main areas: technique and tactics. And besides, to play catenaccio for instance you need excellent technique in defence, you need good passing to get away on the counter, you need above all else tactical discipline and intelligence. Besides, that Italian side of '82 had wonderful technical players: Bruno Conti, Marco Tardelli and so on - these are excellent players. Same goes for the '06 side - we do not have players anywhere near the brilliance of the technique of Del Piero, Totti or Pirlo. West Germany in '90 weren't a flair team, but then nobody was - and they had slightly better technique than us, and that was a particularly good team we had there.
As for tactics, I think you've just proved me right with this "midfielders are midfielders" comment. So when Ferguson, Mourinho, Wenger, Sacchi, Capello, Houiller even - when they talk about holding midfielders they are wrong, but you are right. I see.
You don't need good technique to play catenaccio football at all. Just defenders who can read the game. For your Conti and Tardelli (neither defenders) you already mentioned our two Bobby's so that evens that score. As for the Italians you then mentionmed I think you mistake greast technique for great players. The technique of Pirlo is no better or worse than Rooney or Gerrard. Its just that someytimes we want to see that it is because we believe everything that is foreign is best because of the foreign 'revolution' that changed our football in the 90s.
Its funny when you list the gaggle of managers they all are foreigners. Just because they invented the phrase 'holding' midfielder doesn't mean that players have not played that role previously. Before it wasn't one players job specifically to protect the back 4 and then get the ball off them. Now, that is only the case in a diamond formation. The diamond formation was actually a Terry Venables creation but you won't find that because its more interesting to talk about how great foreign managers are and their ideas.
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The diamond formation was actually a Terry Venables creation but you won't find that because its more interesting to talk about how great foreign managers are and their ideas.
Really? That's news to me. Where's Ryu and his famous number 10 when you need him..
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You don't need good technique to play catenaccio football at all. Just defenders who can read the game. For your Conti and Tardelli (neither defenders) you already mentioned our two Bobby's so that evens that score. As for the Italians you then mentionmed I think you mistake greast technique for great players. The technique of Pirlo is no better or worse than Rooney or Gerrard. Its just that someytimes we want to see that it is because we believe everything that is foreign is best because of the foreign 'revolution' that changed our football in the 90s.
Its funny when you list the gaggle of managers they all are foreigners. Just because they invented the phrase 'holding' midfielder doesn't mean that players have not played that role previously. Before it wasn't one players job specifically to protect the back 4 and then get the ball off them. Now, that is only the case in a diamond formation. The diamond formation was actually a Terry Venables creation but you won't find that because its more interesting to talk about how great foreign managers are and their ideas.
Funny, I missed the bit where Sir Alex Ferguson was foreign. Or have the SNP got their way and I just haven't heard about it?
I really don't care where somebody's from, I really don't, only whether or not they're right or wrong. Foreign coaches, English coaches, whatever - it's the ideas that count (and by the way, the diamond midfield was actually invented in Brazil in the 60s. It wasn't a success, as we were to find out 30 years later when Venables tried to implement it). We have had a tactical naivety and deficiency among many of our coaches. It hasn't often mattered within the confines of English football, where everyone had the same deficiencies and cancelled each other out. Occasional greats like Ferguson have papered over the general cracks that exist (even Ferguson wasn't that tactical until he brought in Queiroz - before the 3-2 defeat to Real Madrid in 2000 he was 4-4-2 whatever the situation. That game forced him to rethink, and great coach like he is, he adapted and is now one of the best tacticians in the world).
As for technique, how anyone can think that Pirlo isn't better technically than Gerrard or Rooney is beyond me. Even within Italian football he is generally thought of as brilliant. And ok, I mentioned Italian midfielders, you're right, so how about Gaetano Scirea, sweeper and converted inside forward, or Claudio Gentile, a niggly, sneaky bastard for sure but also as good a passer out of defence as you're likely to see. Besides, they didn't play catenaccio, that was the '60s. In the '80s they played a system imaginitively called "the Italian style", which had much more emphasis on possession and trying to score goals. And that's just the particularly defensive Italians - everyone else who's had success has had better emphasis on technique and possession than ourselves.
An example of the English myopia, that technique is somehow dangerous and not to be trusted over energy and thrust, is often lamented on here: how on earth did Sid Cowans not go to that World Cup in 1982? Now there was a player technically the equal of the likes of Pirlo (maybe not Xavi, but it's closer thing - certainly much better than Gerrard), and he didn't go. Nobody else would have omitted him.
A word on the Fabregas interview: someone mentioned how he was being hypocritical talking about "the Spanish way of playing" as Spain during the 60s, 70s and 80s was easily as brutal as England. This idea isn't wrong - Spain was tremendously brutal, but maybe this is Fabregas' point: Spain learnt that it had to protect its better technical players from scything, dangerous tackles, that referees had to be more strict with anyone who's lost control of their body in a challenge, in order to get the best out of what they had. When they combined this with exceptional youth coaching, they reaped the rewards. We'd do well to do the same.
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But the Fabregas article doesn't allude to that.
It's pretty much along the lines of "this is what we've always done and we'll continue to play this way whether we win or not."
Which sounds fine in theory, marking Spain out as longstanding paragons of virtue. But conveniently ignores the fact that hatchet men like Goikoetxea and co were lionized. Even today it's still seen as OK in Spain to get away with whatever you can to turn the game in your favour. Similar (but not as entrenched) as the mindset in Argentinian football.
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I think it's a different type in Argentina to Spain though, although modern Spain is more like Argentina. It's things like diving, moaning to the ref, even (in Argentina in the '60s) carrying pins around to almost literally needle opposition players while the ref isn't watching. In England, it's less calculated, more brutish and macho, the "hard tackler" being revered rather than the likes of David Albelda (who is, frankly, evil), much more noted for craftiness than for injuring opposition players. But this is a tangent, I feel.
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I'ts funny how people talk about how the english game is this and that and the premiers
only the best because of the foreigners. When you look at the 1960's english clubs won most of the european competitions and also the country was world champions.
We will play our way and it will be our time again, matter of time.
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I don't like Wenger, never have done. However on the physical argument he definitely has a point. Two of his players in the last 3 years have had their leg held together only by a sock. That should not happen under any circumstances.
Spot on. The Premier League has had at least 12 double leg-breaks as a direct result of a challenge from an opposition player, so we're excluding horrible freak accidents like David Busst. Out of the other big 5 leagues of Europe in the same time period, since 1992, the second highest is France with 2. The problem is almost never malice but is almost always stupidity, rashness and a lack of actual tackling technique.
And one of the worst culprits in recent times is a Dutchman! (I read the other day that De Jong has broken 2 players legs in the last 6 months).
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This 'holding' midfielder is a load of bollocks. Midfielders are midfielders. Some don't compliment others some do. In 80-82 we had bremner doing the donkey work and mortimer trying to get forwrad and Sid pulling the strings. Its a myth that all of a sudden one player sits and one player attacks. That type of midfield would be murdered.
My take on the holding midfielder is that the "tackle from behind" rule changed the shape of midfield. Due to this rule - that took a while to be interpreted consistently - I think you need a midfielder to "hold" so that he is face on the oppositions' attackers, either tackling players or shepherding the play to less dangerous areas.
The tracking back tackle (a la say Bryan Robson) is much more difficult now that the player is more than likely going to give away a foul (even if getting the ball) and maybe a yellow card.
There's still room for other types of midfielders but its risky to not at least one holding midfielder.
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The British clubs in the 60s were not 'mostly' European champions. In fact, the two British clubs who won the European Cup in the 60s didn't play a particularly English game, influenced as they were by the old Scottish school which practically invented pass and move (Stein and Busby were of course Scots, and were more likely to cultivate players of the style of Johnstone and Best), and the Spurs side who won the first European trophy for a British club played a brand of football under Bill Nicholson that was fundamentally influenced by the Hungarians who came, saw and conquered all at Wembley. It's interesting to see that the teams who played the most 'English' style - especially Wolves - got nowhere and often got humiliated by the continentals. Indeed, Liverpool can trace their great European successes back to a bootroom meeting after losing to Red Star in the '73-'74 season. Shankly, already from the Scottish school of pass and move, decided that even greater sophistication was required, and Paisley took up the work thereafter.
As for the English team that won the World Cup, they did so rather like Inter won the Champions' League last season - a couple of wonderful individuals and terrific tactical discipline and flexibility. The latter was the real secret, because we've always had some terrific technical players (though not enough, and almost in spite of ourselves sometimes), but we've rarely been much cop at tactics. Whenever a major innovation is made by a pioneer like Chapman or Ramsey, the trend has always been to follow their conclusion slavishly rather than their method. We're not the only ones - Argentina are given to the same flaw - but we're among the most guilty of it. This is how W-M and 4-4-2 in their respective days came to be such religions.
VS, I agree that De Jong is a horrible player, perhaps the most horrible. However, I can't think of many leagues where he would have as few yellow and red cards as he does in England the way he's been going. He wasn't this bad in Germany, and he's got progressively worse during his time here.
I agree, Dante. The tackle-from-behind rule meant that tackling had to be done much more face-to-face than before, requiring defending players to be goalside of their attackers.