World Football Thread XII

[Lawrence of Arabia]

sven's an idiot - he had 5 years to figure out who to play in the middle and he couldnt do it. he never had the balls to make a decision to leave out a star midfielder and thats what cost england. (4-5-1 what sorta **** is that?)

[Imran Siddiqui]

France plays a 4-5-1.

[alva]

Nothing wrong with that system...with the right players.

Doesn't work for England and frankly, not that good for France either (Henry is nowhere playing his normal level because of it).
He should have dropped Lampard but I'm sure that if he lost then, he'd be hanged...between a rock and a hard place, he was.

[reismark]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
I'd rather not see any of the diving duo (Italy or Portugal) make it to the end.

Mind hearing an "Amen!"?

Totally agree with you - rooting for a Germany/France finale.

[Lawrence of Arabia]

no, france plays 4 - 2- 3- 1 with two holding midfielders (viera - makelele) and the triangle Ribéry - Henry - Malouda with Zidane in the middle. the triangle can all go fast. england in contrast plays with beckham (slow) and one holding midfielder. beckham aint gonna beat anyone down on the right side, ribéry will. when you arn't fast and cant beat anyone 1 on1 you cannot support your lone striker. lauching balls up the field isnt going to work when its 4 on 1 and yours striker gets mugged before the midfield can come up to support. dribbling the ball up the field and then wall passes can spring your striker free. drawing multiple defenders to you before passing it to your lone striker will ease the task for him and make it workable.

[BeBMan]

Me too.

[Imran Siddiqui]

france plays 4 - 2- 3- 1

Yeah, a 4-5-1. You aren't silly enough to believe that a 4-2-3-1 is a totally different formation, are you?

Just because England doesn't play a smart 4-5-1 (Beckham should have taken over for Lampard) doesn't mean France doesn't as well.

[Lawrence of Arabia]

Yeah, a 4-5-1. You aren't silly enough to believe that a 4-2-3-1 is a totally different formation, are you?

Just because England doesn't play a smart 4-5-1 (Beckham should have taken over for Lampard) doesn't mean France doesn't as well.

yeah its totally different. with two holding midfielders, your attacking middles can take more risk

england doesnt have the players/type of players to play a 4-5-1. which is why sven is an idiot. and thats why england plays a 4-5-1 poorly. beckham shouldnt even be on the field.

france also plays 4-2-3-1 poorly, but zidane seems to have rolled back the clock to 98 for at least the a few matchs.

[BeBMan]

Damn, some idiot just crashed his car into the fanzone here in Berlin, injuring ca. 20 people.

[Thedrin]

Posted by Imran Siddiqui
Yeah, the one game he gets subbed early is the one game England doesn't score a goal.

Without Beckham, England probably gets slammed in the 2nd round, if they even make that far. What was he, like 50% of their goal scoring (either through scoring or crossing).

Beckham gets waaaaaay too much grief when without him England goes home much earlier. Put Lennon in for Lampard and slide Becks over if you must, but to slag off Beckham after what he did for the otherwise awful English team is just bull.

Self fulfilling prophecy (or something like that): England need Beckham to score goals since their midfield fails to function as an attacking unit from open play. The primary reason why the midfield fails to function as an attacking unit is because Beckham plays.

Lampard had a nightmare yesterday (and for much of the World Cup). As such he should have been the player to make way for Hargreaves in midfield allowing Crouch to stay up front. However, he has been persistently been a better performer than Beckham for England and going into the World Cup his starting place was deserved.

Lampard certainly played badly yesterday and was lucky to even start the game never mind play the whole 120 minutes. However, we primarily notice players having a bad game when they make mistakes on the ball. Unlike Lampard, Beckham was never looking to look to get into good positions to recieve the ball from his team mates. Unlike Lampard, Beckham did not track back once in the first half to do his defensive duties - in fact Lampard regularly ended up doing Beckham's defensive duties on the right hand flank.

Beckham doesn't get enough grief. In fact looking at the papers this morning there is barely a mention of how poorly he has played.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by Lawrence of Arabia

Yeah, a 4-5-1. You aren't silly enough to believe that a 4-2-3-1 is a totally different formation, are you?

Just because England doesn't play a smart 4-5-1 (Beckham should have taken over for Lampard) doesn't mean France doesn't as well.

yeah its totally different. with two holding midfielders, your attacking middles can take more risk

england doesnt have the players/type of players to play a 4-5-1. which is why sven is an idiot. and thats why england plays a 4-5-1 poorly. beckham shouldnt even be on the field.

france also plays 4-2-3-1 poorly, but zidane seems to have rolled back the clock to 98 for at least the a few matchs.

If you want to define a 4-5-1 so narrowly (how many midfielders are there in a 4-2-3-1... yeah, 5), England never played a 4-5-1 either. They played a 4-1-4-1, with Hargreaves or Carrick (or sometimes Gerrard) as a defensive midfielder. Though in the last game Hargreaves played more a free role in his defensive midfielder role.

Sorry, but NO ONE plays a straight 5 across in a 4-5-1. They always play with at least 2 rows of midfielders, so that whether it is a 4-2-3-1, 4-3-2-1, or a 4-1-4-1, it is still at its base a 4-5-1.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by Thedrin
Self fulfilling prophecy (or something like that): England need Beckham to score goals since their midfield fails to function as an attacking unit from open play. The primary reson why the midfield fails to function as an attacking unit is because Beckham plays.

Lampard had a nightmare yesterday (and for much of the World Cup). As such he should have been the player to make way for Hargreaves in midfield allowing Crouch to stay up front. However, he has been persistently been a better performer than Beckham for England and going into the World Cup his starting place was deserved.

Lampard certainly played badly yesterday and was lucky to even start the game never mind play the whole 120 minutes. However, we primarily notice players having a bad game when they make mistakes on the ball. Unlike Lampard, Beckham was never looking to look to get into good positions to recieve the ball from his team mates. Unlike Lampard, Beckham did not track back once in the first half to do his defensive duties - in fact Lampard regularly ended up doing Beckham's defensive duties on the right hand flank.

Beckham doesn't get enough grief. In fact looking at the papers this morning there is barely a mention of how poorly he has played.

Beckham gets FAR more than his share of grief. It's almost shameful on the part of the English media. Ever since he left for Real Madrid, it's like he is public enemy #1. The times Lennon was on the pitch the only goal came from, you guessed it, a Beckham cross.

The only reason the midfield functioned at all as an attacking unit is because Beckham was putting in nice crosses. Lampard was a disgrace and Gerrard did play decently, though it was HIM who was doing the defensive work, NOT Lampard. Gerrard was the one who was told to stay back to cover for Lampard's offensive runs, not the other way around (unfortunately for England).

Without Beckham, the team would have struggled to get out of group stages, even with Lennon's speed on the outside.

Realistically, Beckham was improperly used. Put him more inside, for ****'s sake... especially with Lampard being crap.

I know there is this irrational hatred of Beckham in England, but to put the blame on his shoulders is utterly moronic (Sven and Lampard are far more to blame). Put Beckham inside in place of Lampard if you want speed on the outside.

[Thedrin]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui




If you want to define a 4-5-1 so narrowly (how many midfielders are there in a 4-2-3-1... yeah, 5), England never played a 4-5-1 either. They played a 4-1-4-1, with Hargreaves or Carrick (or sometimes Gerrard) as a defensive midfielder. Though in the last game Hargreaves played more a free role in his defensive midfielder role.

Sorry, but NO ONE plays a straight 5 across in a 4-5-1. They always play with at least 2 rows of midfielders, so that whether it is a 4-2-3-1, 4-3-2-1, or a 4-1-4-1, it is still at its base a 4-5-1.

But there are so many different variations of 4-5-1 that to use that simple title does nothing to explain how the team plays.

4-2-3-1 is an excellent description of how France play, though in truth 4-5-1 -> 4-2-3-1 would be better since when defending the entire midfield forms a flat wall and when on the offence Viera and Makalele stay a bit back while the wingers and Zidane move quickly forward.

[SpencerH]

Another World Cup and yet another disappointing World Cup for the England supporters.

My (dead) Garndma could've played better. Its not like they dont have the talent. They just sucked as a team! There was no movement off the ball, no fire, no inspiration to win. They reminded me of some kids teams I've watched who havent learned what it takes to win.

You'd think England could find a manager who could build a team that could actually play (or take penalty shoot-outs). They seem to be able to do it in the premiership!

I thought the some of refs decisions were absolutely bizarre (although the ref for the France-Brazil game was worse thank **** that last dive by Ronaldo didnt result in a score). Unpunished portuguese diving/acting won them the game.

Kudos to France and Zidane. I was hoping that that team would turn up to beat the pants off of Brazil and, as we now know, they did.

I still wonder what the catalyst was for the French turnaround (especially given Englands poor performance)? It may sound strange, but I think my earlier comment may be true ie neither Zidane nor the rest of the team wanted him to go out with so poor of a last performance.

They now have the bit between their teeth and I think they'll win.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by Thedrin
But there are so many different variations of 4-5-1 that to use that simple title does nothing to explain how the team plays.

4-2-3-1 is an excellent description of how France play, though in truth 4-5-1 -> 4-2-3-1 would be better since when defending the entire midfield forms a flat wall and when on the offence Viera and Makalele stay a bit back while the wingers and Zidane move quickly forward.

Indeed.. that's my point. This stems from LoA saying how the 4-5-1 never works because it is a defensive formation, but my argument is that there are many variations on the formation. He used the US as his example, but the US played a 4-1-4-1 going by a narrow definition.