Let's talk tactics

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Excellent article and a tactical discussion, (now that we have a manager that actually understands tactics), is a discussion well worth having.

Having said all of that calling anything the anti football crew, like Mourinho and Simeone, do pressing renders the word meaningless for me. If it isn't high pressing than it really isn't pressing in any meaningful way, it is just defending and counter attacking.

The Poch, Guardiola, Biesla, Klopp, Enrique, Tuchel, etc. press are real pressing and they all come from total football and Cruyff. These teams want the ball because they can use it. They can press because the press demands abandoning a rigid shape and interchanging positions to at least some degree in order to press and hunt. Dortmund, Barca and Spurs all have versatile players that can play everywhere and interchange because truly pressing demands that.

Here is a different article which I can link if someone would be kind enough to like my first post... this one.

These days, pressing has come to seem as fundamental a part of the game as grass, white lines and goal nets. But this, too, was a Dutch invention.

cruyff_cigarette.jpg


It developed at Ajax in the late 1960s because of one of Cruyff's energetic and ferocious teammates, Johan Neeskens, whose job was usually to harass the opposition's playmaker. Neeskens' victims usually tried to escape by retreating ever deeper into their own half. Neeskens, following his instincts and the emerging spirit of the team, followed. Michels, noticing this, incorporated it into his developing philosophy and told the whole team to follow.

Ajax began hunting in packs deep in the opposition's half of the field. Playing a high offside line inevitably followed. If the whole team was camped in the opposition's half, the last thing you wanted to do was to run all the way back to your own half if you lost possession.

Taking the idea one stage further, Cruyff invented the sweeper-keeper. In old football, a goalkeeper's job was to stay on his line and stop shots. But in the run-up to the 1974 World Cup, Cruyff persuaded Michels to pick Jan Jongbloed, a goalkeeper who liked to roam far from his line and was unusually good with his feet. His style, now routinely copied by goalkeepers around the world, allowed the Netherlands to press even higher up the field.
Good post mate.

This is one of my fav video clips. Literally every single time I watch it, it puts a smile on my face.
 
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This is the full article from earlier: How Cruyff Invented Modern Football | 433 NEWS

Pressing requires better players, or at least more technical players than the opposition, because regardless of how fit they are, you can not keep it up indefinitely, Essentially the amount of pressing you have to do is in direct proportion to the amount of possession you have during a game. So a crap team that cannot hold on to the ball will not be able to sustain their pressing if they are doing it 70% of the game. Whereas Barca, as good as they are at it, only has to do it in smaller spurts as they have the ball the vast majority of the time.

So the true press is the natural result of playing real attacking total football. The team attacks together pressing into the final third holding the ball, probing and attacking. Naturally when you lose possession you are almost forced to press as the logical method of defending, because all of your players are high up the pitch contributing to the attack. This is also why Spurs consistently leads the league in yellow cards in the opponents half, we can't let them break, our only choice is to press or foul! But it all originates from the ambition and belief to play the game the right way, attack, be the aggressor, be superior, play total football and truly to dare is to do!

This also speaks to why I would refuse to call Atletico, who occasionally ventures into the attacking third to press, or Mourinho teams or any of these other counterattacking teams "pressing teams" because a true pressing team, like Spurs, wants to play the game, or as much of it as possible in the attacking third. That is an attacking team, that is a pressing team.

So looking at the little wrinkles and differences in how the real football clubs like Dortmund, Barca and Spurs press is useful and illuminating. Looking at how the small minded defensive clubs like Jose's Manchester United, Real Madrid and Atletico "press" is wasteful.
 
There's literally nobody who has studied football tactics who thinks the Dutch or Ajax in particular invented, or first started using consistent high pressing. There's no question that by the mid-70s the Cruyff led teams were using it very effectively and in dominant fashion, but they were far from the originators.

Viktor Maslov at Dynamo Kiev in the early 60's was the first to use it on a consistent basis, likely in part influenced by the Soviet ice hockey tradition where the concept of "forechecking" had been existence for a while (that originated in the 30s in the NHL) and was really starting to come to the front of the sport. Maslov's player and disciple Valeriy Lobanovskyi took up the mantle in the late 60s and really pushed the concept of aggressive pressing even more.

An Austrian (Ernst Happel) influenced by football from the east a bit more than western managers was then managing Den Haag and introduced pressing to Dutch football. By 1970 he was managing Feyenoord and won the European Cup (the first major European trophy won by a Dutch team - Ajax followed in 1971). While Ajax went on to master the concept with a brilliant team, they weren't even the first in their country to use the system or win a major trophy with it ... they just ended up being the best at it.
 
Yeah, good players make everything easier, that's for damn sure.
There's an article in last month's 442 that suggests it's bad players that make the difference. You are only as strong as your weakest link.

Our weakest first team member this season is better than our weakest last season. It's why more successful teams don't buy at the top end of the market, but get a few middle of the road players instead.
 
There's literally nobody who has studied football tactics who thinks the Dutch or Ajax in particular invented, or first started using consistent high pressing. There's no question that by the mid-70s the Cruyff led teams were using it very effectively and in dominant fashion, but they were far from the originators.

Viktor Maslov at Dynamo Kiev in the early 60's was the first to use it on a consistent basis, likely in part influenced by the Soviet ice hockey tradition where the concept of "forechecking" had been existence for a while (that originated in the 30s in the NHL) and was really starting to come to the front of the sport. Maslov's player and disciple Valeriy Lobanovskyi took up the mantle in the late 60s and really pushed the concept of aggressive pressing even more.

An Austrian (Ernst Happel) influenced by football from the east a bit more than western managers was then managing Den Haag and introduced pressing to Dutch football. By 1970 he was managing Feyenoord and won the European Cup (the first major European trophy won by a Dutch team - Ajax followed in 1971). While Ajax went on to master the concept with a brilliant team, they weren't even the first in their country to use the system or win a major trophy with it ... they just ended up being the best at it.
Liverpool in the 80's were good at this rush was their first defender. Nothing is really new.
 
There's an article in last month's 442 that suggests it's bad players that make the difference. You are only as strong as your weakest link.

Our weakest first team member this season is better than our weakest last season. It's why more successful teams don't buy at the top end of the market, but get a few middle of the road players instead.

Coaching has made two of our previously weaker players (Walker and Rose) into two of our stronger players.

Vertonghen is now probably our weakest player.

It would seem our squad is capable of dealing with all but the worst injury crisis as well - except maybe against the very top level Champions League teams.
 
Coaching has made two of our previously weaker players (Walker and Rose) into two of our stronger players.

Vertonghen is now probably our weakest player.

It would seem our squad is capable of dealing with all but the worst injury crisis as well - except maybe against the very top level Champions League teams.

Not doubting the fact they have gotten better, that is there for all to see, but I think the most important thing is that we're playing to their strengths more than their weaknesses.

For instance, if we played without the ball like atletico madrid or JM's Chelsea, both of those players would look a lot more out of place.
Since we don't though, we can use their stamina and speed like it should be, by closing down from the front and having them play defense looking at the opponents goal more often than not. Neither of those players are still particularly good at defending turned towards our own goal.
 
It gives a new perspective on AVB's failed high-line.

I remember a lot of people's stubborn insistence at the time that the high-line doesn't work in England or against English teams, despite repeated examples of English teams being humbled by the high-line in European competition or international play.

I like to think that there is an alternate universe where AVB was a little more flexible with his ethos and understanding of the limitations of the players at his disposal, was better supported by his chairman in the transfer market and didn't rise to the bait that the press handed him week in week out.

Who knows what could have happened.
 
Worthwhile article on Pochettino's tactics and what style of football he prefers. I think the charge that he is much like Simeone/AVB is probably fair, and those complaining we aren't as traditionally attacking as we'd like Spurs to be may have a point. This is effective football, clearly, but is it football the way we want? The Rolling Stones may have a song about this and Levy may have made a choice using the same logic:
Tactics Tuesday: Why are Spurs struggling this season?
 
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