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The debate over footballing 'philosophies'


PloKoon13

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Question: Jose, given you're at home and you need to out-score them if you're going to go through in 90 minutes, will we see a slightly different approach tomorrow to the one you've used in the last two games, or are you happy to keep things tight even if it goes 0-0, extra time, then penalties?

 

 

Mourinho: You know, in this moment, football is full of philosophers. It's full of people who understand much more than me. Is full of people with fantastic theoretical philosophies. Amazing. But the reality is always the reality.

A team that doesn't defend well doesn't have many chances to win. A team that doesn't score lots of goals, if it concedes lots of goals is completely in trouble. A team without balance is not a team. And after that, I can't say much more than this.

When Atletico has the ball we have to defend. When we have the ball we have to attack. When they hae the ball we have to try to stop them from scoring. When we have the ball we want to try to score. And this is the football that I know, Opponent has the ball, you have to work. Defensively, you have to be organised. You have the ball you have to try to play, according to the qualities of your players and according to the qualities of your opponent.

You know, I remember to say in my first period here, if you have a goalkeeper like Petr Cech that puts the ball in the opponents' box. If you have a striker like Didier Drogba that wins every ball in the air, why do you play short? Because you are stupid. If your opponent is very fast in counter-attack and they want space behind your defensive line, if you give them that space, you are stupid.

So when a team plays strategically and thinks about the qualities of his team and the qualities of the opponent, 10 years ago, 20 years ago, 30 years ago... good team. Intelligent team. In this moment, depending on the coach and the club, obviously, the critics, they speak. But, no problem.

 

 

 

 

I thought this discussion deserved its own thread. Where do you stand when it comes to beliefs about style of play? There is a great deal of absolutism regarding this in the modern game (Guardiola's belief that possession is paramount, José's 'we didn't want the ball' speech while at Inter, Wenger's various tantrums) and even in the past (cantenaccio, Michels, Cruyff and 'total football') but I would imagine most of us lie in the middle somewhere, and many of us don't care at all, or at least can see the beauty in both.

 

How do you see 'parking the bus'? As an intelligent tactical ploy, a compromise, or a cop-out entirely? Is the best way of breaking a team down to starve them of the ball or to invite them forward and nail them on the counter-attack? Should a team's strategy be dictated entirely by the squad available to them? What do you think?

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In my opinion, there's a huge difference between 'parking the bus' (playing with zero ambition of doing anything i.e. hoofing the ball clear with no attack), and being patient, defensive and looking for the perfect counter attack moment. Real Madrid in the first leg aganist Bayern had around 25% possession. Last night they had 30%, scoring 3 of the goals from set pieces and one from a counter attack. They were sitting back and waiting. because they scored more goals, are they any different? No they are not.

Chelsea against the biggest sides are usually very much a counter attacking team.

The 'parking the bus', 'anti-football' barbs are literally nothing more than fan frustration / jealousy. Every team would love to be able to categorically shut out an opposition when they have to.

Edited by Zola
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West Ham played the true "parking bus" tactic perfectly at the bridge. I have always felt that "parking the bus" means exactly that, just defending and nothing else, whereas we play the tactic by countering fast and aiming to win the game. There is a massive difference, in my opinion. 

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We are probably 1 20/30 goal-a-season striker away from being the most Dynamic team in the world.

 

This season we have demonstrated how we can adapt to a game when we expect to be on the back foot. Its when we are expected to break teams down that we have struggled.

 

Jose's style is to play against an opponents strengths. he knows exactly what he is doing when the chips are down and what players suit what game.

 

I blame the poor results against Villa, West Brom, West Ham, Sunderland Etc on our inability to produce a world class striker to be honest. Going off topic perhaps a little but for sure, we are so Dynamic.

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Intelligent tactical ploy. If you walk away with 3 points when you were expected to get 0, then you've performed beyond expectations. This idea that unless football is pretty it isn't worthwhile is just snobbishness. It wasn't long ago that it was widely accepted that champions are the teams that grind out wins week after week regardless of their performance. I think the whole Pep/Barca thing has sent half the footballing world delusional.

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I like to see Chelsea win. 

 

If it's battering a team 8-0, great.

 

If it's grinding out a 1-0 thanks to a fluke own goal, I'm still just as happy. 

 

Football is all about winning, the more games you win the more success your team has.

 

Maybe I'm too simplistic in my opinions but I tell you what, give me that night in Munich over anything Arsenal have "achieved" in the last 9 years. 

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Jose absolute nailed it on the head. Most of you know I am hyper-critical of Michael Cox, the Zonal Marking editor, who attempts to elevate simple patterns into some sort of higher morality. Referring to tactics as philosophies rather than style changes means that the subsequent analysis and debate descends into ideology, rather than fact.
 

For example, statements such as

As if anyone bar barcelona fans truly found barcelona smothering teams to death enjoyable to watch.

 

used as evidence to reflect on the success/failure of a particular style are just as delusional and grounded in prejudice and pettiness as Rodger's or Mourinho's comments about anti-football and 19th century tactics.


The problem with this sort of ideology-based debate is that it ignores nuance and frankly, evidence and arrives at pre-determined conclusions. The idea that Barcelona of 2011-2 played the same way as they did in the early Guardiola years is not grounded in anything but stereotype, and the difference can be demonstrated both statistically and in observation. Guardiola's failure to embrace the counter-attacking game as necessary was their downfall and the quick transitions and hyper-energetic pressing from his early teams dissipated into a pale reflection by the time they faced us in the CL.

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I thought this discussion deserved its own thread. Where do you stand when it comes to beliefs about style of play? There is a great deal of absolutism regarding this in the modern game (Guardiola's belief that possession is paramount, José's 'we didn't want the ball' speech while at Inter, Wenger's various tantrums) and even in the past (cantenaccio, Michels, Cruyff and 'total football') but I would imagine most of us lie in the middle somewhere, and many of us don't care at all, or at least can see the beauty in both.

 

How do you see 'parking the bus'? As an intelligent tactical ploy, a compromise, or a cop-out entirely? Is the best way of breaking a team down to starve them of the ball or to invite them forward and nail them on the counter-attack? Should a team's strategy be dictated entirely by the squad available to them? What do you think?

Good post mate, simple for me really, results are absolutely everything. Whatever the team, whatever the players, whatever the style of play, if you're not winning the fans shouldn't be happy. There, of course, has to be some balance in the team as Jose says, if a team parks the bus they will not win the game, unless they look to go forward when they do gain possessions a team will not score and I think that's where the big difference between Chelsea's defensive style and west hams, for instance, defensive style differs. After our heavily criticised win at the weekend and the much praised win for Madrid last night, I think it's clear that other people's perceptions are influenced by the team playing.

Possession football has recently been labeled as 'proper football' or the 'right way to play football' but I feel this is a stance closed minded people have taken and one they have been told by the media, when teams like Barcelona or Bayern pass the ball from the back, make short passes and move into space they can score beautiful goals, but this mainly happens when teams let them, they play fairly weak opposition in the league and can therefore penetrate them easily, making them look class. But when these teams come up against tougher defences, the ones that let them pass the ball around the back but don't let them make key passes through the middle they struggle and make the game look extremely dull.

As for counter attacking teams,I personally feel that when two teams both want to counter attack in the same game it makes for the best viewing. When a team can be dangerous from defending a corner it makes the game very interesting, you can see a team under pressure one minute then creating a chance the next. It can played at a very high tempo and can lead to players in space charging at the oppositions defence. It's good to see a chance come from nowhere, when a pass unlocks a defence and suddenly a player is in, but when it's 3 on 3 from the edge on one box to the edge of another, there's nothing quite like the excitement and anticipation of a great counter attack.

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Maybe I'm too simplistic in my opinions but I tell you what, give me that night in Munich over anything Arsenal have "achieved" in the last 9 years. 

 

You're not simplistic, you're being realistic.

The evidence is also quite clear on this front. Arsenal don't batter as many teams as their fans would like us to believe, nor do they play as expansive a game as they would like us to believe. Their game, much like Bayern or Real, is based on lightning quick counter-attacks.

Their lack of success, best demonstrated this season, is not down to their tactical approach because other teams have the same approach with success. It's down to their character or lack thereof, a lack of a culture and desire for success best exemplified by a manager who will blame just about anyone and anything but his own incompetence for failure.

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Most teams play on the counter attack its for me the most efficient way and best way of winning a football match. Even Liverpool this season have gone from a possession based team to a quick counter attacking team and there results have improved. Give me a counter attacking team over a possession based team any day. I find watching Bayern, Barca, Spain etc rather dull and boring. I also really dont mind us playing park the bus football in certain games, i find it intriguing tactically and also funny trying to watch teams break down a very strong defence. Its like watching a Floyd Mayweather fight and trying to see if someone can break down his defence.

 

I also really like watching Ath Madrid play especially the way they press and people call them boring and negative. I honestly would rather we were very strong in defence than scoring lots of goals but concede loads aswell i would never feel comfortable with that. I dont even find us that defensive although i would prefer our fullbacks to me more attacking, we our the third highest scorers in the league even above pretty football Arsenal, second highest shots on target and an average possession of 54.6 hardly defensive.

Edited by jack_super_class
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I don't care if we win all our games 1-0 and every goal is a deflected header from a set piece, so long as we win i'm happy.

 

If you get a result then you deserve it, so long as you haven't been aided by sh*tty officiating or cheating, those are the only issues for me in football right now. 

 

Our win at Liverpool? Deserved.

Our wins vs Bayern and Barca? Deserved.

 

Barca's win in the 2009 semi? Not at all deserved.

Liverpool's win in the 2005 semi? Not at all deserved.

 

It's unbelievable the amount of nonsense i've had to hear lately about bus parking and anti-football. How about we shift the spotlight to appointing ref's from Liverpool to games with massive significance to Liverpool, and Chris Foy's absurd record in Chelsea games.

 

Oh wait, when we bring up ref mistakes it's making excuses and sour grapes. But when someone complains about another team defending well suddenly every man and his dog has a right to tell someone they're playing the sport the wrong way.

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I've been hearing a lot over the past week about how boring Chelsea are, that we are anti-football or whatever, but I thoroughly enjoyed the match on Sunday and was gripped from start to finish. The best attack in the league clashed with the best defence and the defence won (again), and the combination of relief and satisfaction I felt when the final whistle blew was amazing. That feeling is why I watch football, I genuinely couldn't give a sh*t about watching teams attempt to string 100 passes together. Our aim as a football team is not to entertain the "neutrals" (and I don't think there are many true neutrals when it comes to Chelsea anyway) but to give the fans a reason to celebrate by beating rivals and winning trophies, I wouldn't swap that for all the possession stats in the world.

 

The idea that we are all about defence is rubbish anyway; there's no doubt that our defence is the strongest part of our team but we've actually scored more goals than Arsenal this season despite having a supposedly goal-shy strike force, and it's not like we set up like we did against Liverpool every week. More often than not it's the other team who "parks the bus" against us.

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This whole debate is silly. At the end of the day you do what you need to do, within the laws of the game, to come out ahead of your opponent. There is not a sport or game in the world where this is not true. Jose is a master because he never forgets this. If your opponent thrives on possession and passes through the middle then you clog the point of entry and prevent them doing this. If your opponent sits back and lets you attack them, you don't leave yourself vulnerable to quick counter attacks.

 

You win because that is all that matters. Chelsea isn't playing the game to entertain neutrals. Chelsea is playing to entertain the fans of Chelsea and nothing entertains us more then winning. Or at least its that way for me.

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The biggest thing that saddens me about the whole "anti-football" bollocks is that being excellent defensively is now seen as a negative. Its as much a part of the game as attacking is, yet it is almost now frowned upon.

As for the tika-taka sh*te, its a very negative style of play in my opinion, a percentage based system where its all about having the ball and not taking risks. Bores me senseless.

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Football is a game. There's no right or wrong way to play it. Teams can play it any way they see fit, within the rules. Some ways are more aesthetically pleasing perhaps, but then beauty is always in the eye of the beholder. The 1980s Wimbledon team had as much right to play their way as Pep's Barcelona did theirs. All this talk of philosophies, anti-football and playing football the right way (I really hate that phrase) is pretentious beyond belief. Is there such a thing as anti-golf or anti-darts? It's snobbery, and it's notable that it usually comes from people associated with the most entitled, arrogant clubs, particularly when they lose.

 

It's all nonsense anyway. Under Mourinho, we almost always go for the win, we just don't do it suicidally. As for the philosophical teams, talk of playing a certain way is just PR and mythology on their part. When required Fergie was happy to send out a team packed with cloggers to get a 0-0 away from home. Arsenal and Liverpool fans have short, selective memories given the style they've both had success with in the past. And I'd say Barca's established philosophy of diving, playacting, cynical fouls and imaginary card waving is much more against the spirit of football than booting it long to a big man up front.

 

In the aftermath of Sunday's match someone made a comparison with Muhammad Ali's win over George Foreman which I found interesting. Ali knew if he went hell for leather, he'd get knocked out, and if he fought his usual fight he'd tire too quickly. So he counterpunched, fought off the ropes, rode out the hairy moments and let his opponent get tired and frustrated. It made for a pretty dull and uneventful fight, until the legendary finale and that's all anyone remembers now anyway. No one ever accused Ali of "anti-boxing". It was his most celebrated win.

 

The reaction after Sunday is really just thinly-veiled sour grapes because we dared to beat the anointed champions by defending and attacking more effectively than they did. In essence, we outplayed them, and they didn't like it one bit. Rodgers mentioned two buses but it was actually three. One was parked in front of our goal. The other two coasted through their non-existent defence and won us the game. That's a good enough philosophy for me.

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We are forced to play possession based football in most of our games, at least until we score anyway. With the exception of barca, and bayern, every team plays a combination of both depending on circumstance.

The big area we need to improve in, is scoring goals, at times we struggle to break teams down, and we aren't decisive enough when we do counter.

You only have look at the madrid team mourinho left behind to see what the end goal is. They can dominate possession and play attractive football, and they can also dig in and be deadly on the attack.

In a couple of seasons time we will be lethal, but with the lack of fite power we have at the moment, its difficult to be clinical.

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Back in the 1950s Wolves won everything in sight and beat some of the leading Continental teams by playing a long passing game. In 1954 Wolves won the League and West Brom, who played a short passing game came second. Before long the London journalists, jealous of Wolves success, decided that it was because they were playing football the wrong way.  

 

 A few years ago I read that Wolves in those days booted the ball upfield where big powerful forwards fought for it. I wondered who these big powerful forwards were. John Hancocks or Norman Deeley - both 5 foot 4 ? The gentlemanly Jimmy Mullen? The Schoolmaster Dennis Wilshaw:?  The frail (in those days) ball player Peter Broadbent?:  Such is the rubbish written by journalists about the right and wrong way to play football...yes theyve been doing it for years.

 

What time and numerous examples have proven is that there is no "correct" way to play this game. You can be successful by playing a high possession game or by being direct. You can do it by pressing high up the pitch or by defending deep. You can use width or you can go narrow.

 

Whether you succeed or not depends on how well you execute whatever your plan, and that depends on two factors. One is how good your opponent is at stopping you. The other is how good your players are at executing the plan (which, of course, is also dependent on whether you select the right plan for the players you have: if Tony Pulis played “long ball†with Barcelona/Bayern Munich or if Pep Guardiola played “tiki taka†with last season’s Stoke it probably wouldn’t quite work out). Even the good (not great) teams like the Fabregas-era Arsenal, came unstuck.

 

Just as a personal observation, I've always thought that a deep-defending counter-attacking strategy is the easiest  way of gaining success but bearing in mind what a results orientated business this is ... that suits me just fine.
 

Edited by Tambling Dice
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Football should be played to the strengths of the players you have at you're disposal. With barca under pep it was the tiki taka and let's not deny they done it and they done it well. Bayern last year were a power team and quick and direct. That suited the players they had. Under jose we are a solid defensive team that counter attack and don't concede many goals. That suits our players!

 

There isn't a right or wrong way to play the game no matter what people tell you. The people complaining are just frustrated that we keep getting the results. If it was their team doing the same they would be loving every minute of it just like we are. When managers play a style of football that doesn't suit the players they have it is bad managing and it often leads to them getting the sack. If jose tried to turn us into possession based team I have no doubts it would go tits up. 

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I like to see Chelsea win. 

 

If it's battering a team 8-0, great.

 

If it's grinding out a 1-0 thanks to a fluke own goal, I'm still just as happy. 

 

Football is all about winning, the more games you win the more success your team has.

 

Maybe I'm too simplistic in my opinions but I tell you what, give me that night in Munich over anything Arsenal have "achieved" in the last 9 years. 

A lot of people seem to have the win at all cost mentality but are unwilling to accept the consequences that come with it, such as diving. I wish there was more consistency, it would prevent players getting hounded and refs having their judgement influenced by reputation rather than what's actually happening on the pitch.

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A lot of people seem to have the win at all cost mentality but are unwilling to accept the consequences that come with it, such as diving. I wish there was more consistency, it would prevent players getting hounded and refs having their judgement influenced by reputation rather than what's actually happening on the pitch.

I'm not for winning at all cost, diving and cheating isnt on.

I was more referral to the style of football played.

If its route one or tiki taka, as long as Chelsea win at the end of it I don't care.

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