In Praise of Defensive Football | Hacker News Reader

In Praise of Defensive Football

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99 pointsThevet18 comments

The author seems to confuse attacking football with an open style of play. Often, attacking football involves as much co-ordinated movement as a more defensive style of play, which can be as exhilarating to watch if not more so. It is also worthwhile to observe movements made by the "attacking" team during defensive transitions. Football is like a buffet; everyone can help themselves to what they like. It is this quality which makes the game beautiful.

Exactly. The author needs to look at how managers like Guardiola or Klopp set their teams to attack like a co-ordinated symphony. In contrast, defensive managers like big sam set up their team in two banks of 4 with full backs never moving up the pitch. As a spectator, I enjoy watching beautiful attacking football more.

He sort of ends the article touching on that point, noting that "total football" like Cruyff (and Rijkaard or Guardiola) practiced at Barcelona is "defensive" in its attack:

> “But in any case, it’ll be fine, don’t worry,” he said. “Just remember that when a team attacks with a lot of players, at the end of the day, it’s only to keep its opponent away from the goal.”

Total football (Cruyff) and its spiritual offspring Tiki Taka (Rijkaard, Guardiola), is wrongly confused to be simply "attacking football". The emphasis should be in "total". The philosophy is still highly defensive, but rather than zone marking and sporadic (and effective!) counter attacks, it focuses on defending by starving your opponent out of possession. They'll happily pass it around without creating much danger, but carefully getting close enough to you so that you have to move to defend. This (allegedly) wears you out mentally and physically, at which point -if the is effective enough- they take advantages of either a loss of concentration, or an opening that you have created.

When a team like Rijkaard's or Guardiola's Barcelona lost the ball, they had created calculated openings through which they want to direct your counter attack. They're also usually prepared to apply high pressure in the first few seconds / touches of the ball, so as to regain possession quickly. It's beautiful to watch when it works, it's facepalm worthy when it fails (see Spain vs Russia in this recent World Cup).

Interestingly, critics of Total Football and Catenaccio styles share the same criticism: that it's boring.

Once you pay more attention to off-the-ball movements and tactics in teams playing Catenaccio or Total Football styles, you begin to appreciate the art form for what it is: highly tactical and strategic. It also doesn't hurt if you've got kick ass attacking players that can execute a counter attack to perfection.

In my (humble) opinion, total football and tiki taka is not as effective nowadays because today's top teams are on an entire different level in terms of physical fitness, endurance, and mentality. Just compare today's average footballer's physique to those 20 years ago...

I remember last summer I was watching my favourite club playing against the team who was by the time 2nd on league. It was a thriller. One of the most exciting and beautiful matches I've ever seen. Both played beautiful football and had their changes. Still there were 0 shots during the game and it ended 0-0 as you can guess. I talked to my friend after match and he said he's never seen a more boring game. I was so confused that I only nodded and agreed. How on earth did he miss all the beauty in the game?

This article made my day. Thanks for posting it.

This seems to me like the eternal tech discussion about the beauty of, say, Haskell vs. what it produces in the real world. For some people, the intrinsic elegance of the language is enough, while for others the language is just a means to an end.

While I can perhaps appreciate the perspective that a game of football could be beautiful to someone when there are no shots, to me the movement and positioning and passing are all means to an end: setting up scoring opportunities. In general, I get sort of annoyed by things divorced from reality: math and science need their engineering, programming languages need their killer apps, and football strategies need their goals!

Some of the best sporting contests I remember have been low scoring affairs, even in games that typically score much higher than soccer.

A score in a typical rugby league match would 6-16, 24-18, 32-30, etc, but my favorite game of all time was 2-0. This was an annual State of Origin match which is already an extremely tense and hard fought grudge match, but this one was just sitting on a knife's edge from kick off to full time with both sides possibly only a small mistake away from throwing the game away.

Another stand out was the 2011 Rugby (different sport to rugby league) World Cup final where New Zealand beat France 8-7 with only a single try each. France just kept coming and just about had the ball to themselves for last twenty minutes but the NZ defense miraculously kept them out of field goal range.

Similarly with soccer, many of the best games are that one where your team miraculously keeps out a barrage of good shots on goes on to win or to eek out a draw.

Hey HN, I translated this! Very happy to see it on the front page. Please feel free to ask me any language/text-related questions.

No questions. Just wanted to say it's a good translation. I wouldn't have know it wasn't written in English first. Unfortunately my Hebrew is non-existent so I couldn't check the accuracy :-)

Thanks! There were good editors involved, too.

Thanks for translating!

I feel like, because I only speak English, I miss out on a lot of excellent football writing like this; it doesn't seem to be that common in English.

Do you have any recommendations of great football writing I might not be aware of?

I don't feel like I know too much about the subject, but Knausgård's book (mentioned in the article) is really good.

Yes, great article. Many people today like to say there is only one kind of good football (soccer for the Americans), that is free flowing, attacking football. I dont think so, I think the best game is the one that goes according to the manager's plan.

A good example is Manchester United's Jose Mourinho, who despite being criticized for being too defensive, I think he organizes his teams to counter the strengths of the opposite team and exploit their weaknesses, which, in my opinion is the way to go.

"Attack! Attack! Attack, attack, attack!" A chorus heard from Old Trafford when the fans have become bored from the "negative" play. Strategically, The Special One is good, if not the best at parking the bus. Probably better than Big Sam, but that's a lot to do with the player's ability too though. Managerial-wise though, he has killed just about every team he has managed. I used to like him until his trend of negativity with players became a thing and not a one off. I am a much larger fan of Pep or Klopp. Not just because of their style of play, but the way they manage in a positive manner. I like the energy Conte brought as well, but just the caustic environment that club is wore him down.

How does one read the actual charts? Some symbols are clearly shots on goal, but others seem like tackles or potentially passes. There also is some kind of shorthand with o's, x's, and the odd hat symbol or a square. I'm curious if there is a standard way of charting a game, or if the author just made up their own shorthand.

Even without knowing how to interpret the chart, you can still see patterns emerge like more action on the sides than the midfield which is pretty interesting.

As someone who tends to be a ball watcher and miss the nuances I love easy insights into the game. Two of the ones I've picked up are :

1: the back four are spread across the field but move as though chained together, so if the right back moves upfield into attack the other three get tugged to the right

2: Your front and back players are never more than half the pitch apart. So if the play is in the opposing penalty area your backs are at the half way line.

I found this series of videos [1] quite useful. Now I know what gegenpressing is.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLWYJXDKS21OE39KTymISk...

A very nice read celebrating the most "boring" parts of the beautiful game. The defensive rallies: long, drawn out times where a team seams to be just holding its own until a quick steal and streak up the field leads to a blocked shot, corner kick and the first goal of the scoreless game.

I'm glad my team play all-out attacking progressive football, rather than the negative 11 behind the ball defensive dismal displays I've seen the away teams do at Dean Court.

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