Fàbregas Interview in the Times

[eric woolban woolban]

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

[eamonn]

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.

[lovejoy]

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

[*shellac*]

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.

[peter w]

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.

[Rudy Can't Fail]

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..

[Monty]

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.

[KevinGage]

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.

[Monty]

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.

[littlevillain]

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.

[VillaZogmariner]

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).

[Dante Lavelli]

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.

[Monty]

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.