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Post by greenman on Jan 5, 2024 12:22:37 GMT
Football comes in cycles. It is as simple as that. Most teams play a similar style of football today for two reasons: a) it does actually work, b) it is in fashion. 25-30 years ago, virtually everybody played 4-4-2 with pacey wingers playing as out-and-out wide men and some variant of 'big man', 'little man' up front. At the end of the 2000s, start of the 2010s, 4-2-3-1 was in vogue. Controlling possession and space in midfield was becoming more important, so 4-4-2 fell out of fashion because the extra man in midfield in 4-3-3 or 4-2-3-1 was too beneficial not to use. Everybody wanted a tricky little number 10 to play behind the striker; David Silva, Mata, Ozil, Coutinho, Oscar, etc, etc. Spain won three international tournaments in a row essentially playing the tiki-taka style Pep pioneered. In the last decade football has become much more physical. Players are fitter than ever before. Those tricky number 10s I mentioned above are also now expected to contribute to the press - think about how much deeper players De Bruyne or Ødegaard play for their teams now compared to attacking midfielders of yesteryear. Pressing as soon as you lose the ball has always been a thing, but modern conditioning and fitness regimes mean that maintaining that intensity for 90 mins is actually possible now. Best way to beat the press is the never lose the ball to begin with, and let the opposition tire themselves out chasing your short passing game. That's basically the style that predominant today. Everybody plays it because, broadly, it works. I'm sure at some point in next 15 years, a few really bright coaches will find a way to counter this modern style of football. And I'm sure that after a few high-profile upsets at the top level of the game because of it, managers lower down the pyramid will begin to imitate it too. Until eventually so many teams play it that it will become the new de facto orthodoxy. The, one day, the coaches of the 2050s will be figuring out how to beat that, and the cycle will go on forever. Modern conditioning and fitness is less do with the ability to keep pressing and more to do with 5 subs. I would like to see a return to one sub and see how the game goes then, I suspect there would be no need for this messing about passing from the keeper as space would open up over the course of 90 minutes.
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