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SOCCER ACTION is Going FREESTYLE
As Euro 2012 approached, the time for intense tactical analysis had arrived. Much of the talk that summer had been dominated by the usual questions: Which team will win? How do you stop Spain? And what on Earth does Cristiano Ronaldo use to style his hair? But most of the discussion ahead of the matches centered on what formation each team would employ. Through the first 28 games in Poland and Ukraine, teams had used five distinct formations, a greater spread than at any Euro tournament since 1996, according to UEFA's technical report. We've seen 4-4-2, 4-2-3-1, 3-5-2, 4-3-3, 4-6-0 and even something roughly akin to 10-0-0. (See the England vs.Czech Republic match). Here's the problem: For all practical purposes, formations in soccer don't really matter anymore. "Formations are dying out," said Sloven Bilic, head coach of Croatia. "It's increasingly difficult to mark the movement of the players, with respect to the ball, just by assigning numbers to each line." But it may be that this historic game, which has been played in pretty much the same form for close to 150 years, is now at a point where every responsible way of deploying 11 players on a field has been exhausted. For traditionalists, this will be a difficult idea to swallow. Formations were introduced in the 19th century to impose order on a sport that was still largely a lawless free-for-all. Ever since, the way a team is assembled on the field has been seen as critical to the outcome of matches. In a sport that has no timeouts, few stoppages and is often decided by individual acts of spontaneity, formations are one of the few ways coaches can shape the action on the field—and justify their stratospheric salaries. "I love nothing more than to talk about the technical side of soccer," said Italy coach Cesare Preandelli. They also give people on television something to talk about—and justify their less-stratospheric salaries. But more players and coaches say soccer is still largely an exercise in chaos. Juanma Lillo, a former head coach in Spain's La Liga, is seen as a sort of soccer swami for pioneering the 4-2-3-1 formation that has been employed by six of the 16 teams in Poland and Ukraine. He says the whole notion of formations is "overvalued" in a sport that still basically boils down to 22 players chasing a ball up and down the field. "I would like to demystify this," Lillo said. "The formation is only the first snapshot. After that, the players are always on the move because the ball is on the move, so the formation no longer exists. In any case, [a team's] style of play is related to an idea, not to a geographic positioning on the pitch." Alexi Labs, the former U.S. international who played in Italy's Serb e A, supposedly the most sophisticated league in the world, said that formations are a suggestion for spacing, but little more than that. Once the match starts, teams take a quick glance at how their opponent is lined up and adjust, but give little thought to the numbers after that. "The way the outside world thinks about formations is completely different from the way a player thinks about it," Lalas said. A formation gives a group of players an idea of how they might want to view themselves on the field, but it's never a decisive factor in the game. "Players come to the forefront and that's why teams win, not because of their formation," Lalas said. "Goals happen because someone makes a mistake and someone does something instinctual, not because they were lined up in a certain formation." It wasn't always this way. In soccer's infancy, as the game spread into new countries and was adopted by different cultures, fresh ideas about how to maximize the collective talents of 11 players stationed across a soccer field were instrumental in transforming the sport and the way it was played. When Scotland lined up in a 2-2-6 formation in the first international game against England in 1872, it heralded soccer's evolution from a game dominated by dribbling into one where passing was king, ltaly won back-to-back World Cups in the 1930s with a 2-3-2-3 system that emphasized defensive solidity, and the 4-2-4 alignment helped Brazil to conquer the sport in the 1960s by accentuating individual skill and physical fitness. The most radical tactic in the Euro Cup had been Spain's use of a 4-6-0 formation in which Cesc Fabregas operated as a "False Nine," lining up as a centerforward, then dropping back into the midfield. This is hardly a new development. Smart coaches have been baiting opposition central defenders with this tactic ever since Nandor Hidegkuti operated as a deep-lying forward for the great Hungary team of the 1950s. "These systems have been around for decades," said Tony Cottee, a former England international and now a soccer analyst. There are no new ideas out there." In an era when the top teams are filled with studs such as Portugal's Cristiano Ronaldo and Germany's Mario Gomez, who combine lightning speed with punishing size, soccer has become a game about getting a ball onto a player's feet where he has space to operate, wherever it exists. Make a pass and sprint into space is the basic plan that most of the best teams follow. Defenders try to combat it with compact blocs in the middle of the field. At some point, most teams look like they are playing with nine defenders and one striker. "In the end, [the formation] doesn't matter," said Italy midfielder Thiago Motta. "Even Spain play with two wide players up front but then they come inside to play as central midfielders. In the end, we all change." Spain coach Vicente Del Basque said all that matters for his team is for each player to be committed to passing ball in the same "tiki-taka" style and moving into spaces. "We get criticized for our system, but we've won and we have that to show for it," Del Bosque said. Ireland defender Richard Dunne, whose side endured a 4-0 drubbing at the hands of the Spanish, said La Roja could have essentially lined up in a 5-5-0 formation and the result probably would have been the same. "It's not how they line up, it's how they keep moving the ball all around," Dunne said. "You get so spun around and the next thing you know they're sending it up the side and somebody's open. There's nothing you can do." technique. It is key to emphasize to players to not be flat-footed when they receive the ball; they should be on their toes and ready to receive. Clegg is the current sportswriter for The Wall Street Journal and former Sports Editor for the European edition of The Wall Street Journal. Futterman is a senior sportswriter for The Wall Street Journal. He covers the US Men's National Team and international sporting events.
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SOCCER ACTION is Going FREESTYLE
