Tactical Innovations In Football: How Modern Teams Gain An Edge
The English Premier League is renowned for its fast-paced energy football, the tactical prowess of Pep Guardiola, Jürgen Klopp et. al., and the individual technical quality dripping from teams like Arsenal and Manchester City.
This wasn’t always the case, with English football once seen as the backwater of the European game. 4-4-2, long balls, lots of running; that pretty encapsulates the country’s former footballing reputation.
But now, the league features the richest clubs in the world, some of the best managers, and plenty of Ballon d’Or nominees. This mixture of nationalities, styles, and footballing backgrounds have allowed for an amalgamation of tactics, resulting in trend-setting innovations that have cemented the league as one of the finest in football.
The Ball-Playing Goalkeeper
Lev Yashin, Gordon Banks, Dino Zoff, Oliver Kahn. They are all fantastic keepers, but they probably would not reach the heights they once did if placed in today’s game.
That’s because the best keepers in the world offer something more than just being able to keep a clean sheet. The toolkit is far more expansive, and the requirements are different.
The modern-day goalkeeper has to be just as good with their feet as their hands. Players like Ederson and Alisson Becker could be, well, players.
Football fans will remember how quick Pep was to drop Joe Hart. How it’s expected that his team builds from the back, starting from the keeper. Many teams that have a number 1 that’s a shot-stopper and nothing more, of course, but they’re not at the top of the Prem.
Jürgen Klopp and the Gegenpress
The Premier League has Pep, but it also once had Klopp. His heavy metal football captured the imagination, and not only as an effective antidote to Pep’s more controlled tiki taka.
Klopp’s style is built on counter-pressing, the famous gegenpress style first developed by coaches like Rinus Michels, Viktor Maslov, and Ernst Happel.
The crux of the strategy is to transition to an aggressive pressing of the ball as soon as possession is lost. The key is not allowing the opposing team to ‘settle’ before they can set up their attacking formation for an effective build-up.
The style is suffocating and is particularly effective against teams that are not great on the ball. The lack of time, and the push to make a decision, all lead to mistakes that players like Salah and Diaz will punish with ruthless efficiency.
4-4-2, Reinvented
Most football fans have all had a good laugh watching Mike Bassett: England Manager, with 4-4-2 featuring as the ultimate representation of Englishness in football.
Yet as a serious option for the modern-day Premier League? No, of course not. Enter the tinkerman himself, Claudio Ranieri, once at Chelsea, now at the helm of Leicester City.
The chances at the start of the season? 5,000 to 1. Yet using a reinvented, yet simple, version of 4-4-2, the Italian manager showed that the basic concept of counterattacking can work, even against the likes of Pep Guardiola and Arsene Wenger.
The system was built on a compact and consistent core, combined with speed up and energy upfront. Essentially, a counter-attack built to frustrate and hit opponents that dominated possession.
The False Nine
The concept of a false nine has been around for a long time, with the origin story tracing back to the famous Corinthians squad of the 1890s. The modern iteration, however, is far removed from this OG version.
In essence, the false nine wears the number on their back but does not play like the ‘traditional’ striker. Alan Shearer and Gabriel Batistuta types need not apply.
Johan Cruyff was arguably the first modern manager to use the false nine with great effect, employing Michael Laudrup as the nominal striker in the original Dream Team.
The influence of Cruyff on Pep is clear, with the Catalan featuring as Barca’s captain for many years. His Dream Team II famously employed Messi as a false nine, receiving balls between the lines, and using his dribbling and passing abilities to slice through opposition setups.
The trend continues with Manchester City, with players like Sterling, Silva, Torres, Gündogan, and de Bruyne all playing with the figurative nine on their backs at one point or another. Haaland’s arrival has changed the face of Pep’s approach, by necessity, with the striker more of a Shearer than a Fabregas.
What’s Next?
Football will always be evolving. Ten years ago, fans thought that tiki taka was the pinnacle of the game, the purest form of its execution. Yet even Pep has moved from the style he employed with his Dream Team, with antidotes to his tactics requiring a v2.0, if you will. With the arrival of innovative tactical minds like Arne Slot and Mikel Arteta, we have much to look forward to.
Image: Freepik.com
