Champions League tough to follow
A spirit of chaos and adventure swept through this season’s Champions League, serving up a record number of goals and almost nonstopdramawhenthe top teams collided. It was club soccer at its most thrilling. Fans might never have had it so good.
So can the World Cup, supposedly the zenith of the international game, come close to matching it? History suggests we shouldn’t get our hopes up, despite most of the world’s best players on show in Russia.
“National teams often lag behind the clubs, and it’s understandable why,” said JonathanWilson, author of “Inverting the Pyramid: The History of Football Tactics.” “There’s a tendency to keep things pretty simple at international level.”
Wilson’sprediction for the next few weeks in Russia?
“I think there will be a lot of games featuring teams with eight men behind the ball andjust seeingwhathappens,” he said. “It could be pretty unedifying.”
This viewpoint stems from the simple notion that international coaches don’t get as much time with their players as their club counterparts, and that it’s much easier — especially for the weaker nations — to organize a compact defense than a fluid attack.
There are other factors in play, too. There’s no transfer market in international soccer, so it’s harder for coaches to mold their ideal team. The best coaches are often found in the club game because of the financial riches. And there’s often an in-built conservatism at major events.
Carlos Alberto Parreira, Brazil’sWorld Cup-winning coach from 1994, is now a member of FIFA’s technical study group— formerplayers and national-team coaches who will analyze games and produce a report later this year — and he predicted an approach that will see teams “defend with as many players as possible” and play on the counterattack.
“Very compact teams, with lots of players behind the ball, closing downspace and playing at pace on the attack,” Parreira said.
FIFA, of course, is hoping for a festival of soccer over the comingweeks, following on fromaWorld Cup in Brazil in 2014 that the governing body’s panel of coaching experts said sawteams “play positively and do everything to win a game rather than merely ‘not lose.’”
There were 171 goals that tournament at an average of 2.67 per game, tying the record set in France in 1998. In 2002, 2006 and 2010, the average did not get above 2.52.
In this season’s Champions League, however, there were 401 goals at an average of 3.2 per game — rising to 3.6 per game in the knockout stage. Itwas the highest total since the tournament’s rebrand in 1992, with only the 1975-76 European Cup delivering more, as coaches saw attack often as the best form of defense.
Don’t expect tactical surprises in Russia. The club game has left international teams in its wake since the 1960s, beforewhich nations — like Hungary with its 3-2- 1-4 in 1954 and Brazil with its 4-2-4 in 1958 — arrived at World Cups deploying innovative formations that dumbfounded opponents.
The mostcommonformations this summerwill be 4-23-1, which was widely used in 2010 and 2014, and the 4-3-3 used by Liverpool and Real Madrid on their runs to the Champions League final. However, the threeman defense has made a comeback of sorts this year, and England, Argentina and Belgium areamongthose set to adopt it in Russia.
Most coaches will play with one out-and-out striker and want to dominate midfield. Having a pressinggame is the vogue — Brazil, under forward-thinking coach Tite, is the latest high-profile nation to do so, joining the likes of Spain, Germany and England — but that requires time to perfect and master, even at club level.
“No team will win the World Cup without pressing,” Wilson said. “But I think there will be a far greater tendency to sit deep and try to absorb pressure, because it’s easier.”