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Its also a factor of a team making best of its constraints. The best players in spain are diminutive and not as physically strong as the other teams.They cant compete with the physical game style of England or the stronger players from Germany(who by the way are also technically gifted, thanks to a total overhaul of their footballing structure which started 10 years ago.[1]). And hence the tiki-taka philosophy of football which deprives the other team of possession. On average this year at the euros Spain had possession of the ball about 60% of the time in all their games(except the final). They conceded just 1 goal in the entire tournament.

[1]http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2010/jul/02/world-cu...

>"..in England and Ireland it's the outdated 'kick-and rush' style football (aka "hoof it up to the big striker") versus the more patient possession-focused, passing game in continental Europe. "

This is the very reason as to why England fails to perform in the big competitions. Lack of creativity.

> "...but it doesn't tell you how to play like Spain or how to beat Spain."

Exactly this data might provide some statistics on the formation and player agility but a team's performance is largely dependent on the gameplay and the strategy of the manager.

I find this site: http://www.zonalmarking.net/ to be much more useful when it comes to tactical analysis.

It was going to be interesting to see how long in this thread before someone mentioned Zonal Marking.

It is interesting that the analysis doesn't mention Barcelona. That might be because reactive, kick long football has beaten Barca twice in Champion's League in the past 4 years. Mind you, Barca are one of the best club teams in the past 30 years at least.

Inter Milan and Chelsea had dramatically less of the possession and passing than the tikki-takka of Barca but both managed to get over the top of Barca.

A team's performance is also dependent on the personnel. The Barca core that is also the core of Spain and they are phenomenal. Who knows when another midfield like Xavi, Busquets and Ienesta (and Messi for Barca) will appear.

Or as someone said about Italy vs Spain, Spain won because they had 3 players at least as good Pirlo.

Zonal Marking is a fantastic site for tactical minded football fans. Highly recommended. Not overly surprised that its referenced 2 or 3 times on HN. Switzerland is the closest example of Chelsea/Inter in the case of Spain. Switzerland shut down the midfield pretty effectively, however Spain were particularly awful in that game, and Spain did remedy that situation later on.

In watching Euro2012, I have found it amusing about Spain being called boring by plenty of authors. The only way teams have found to stop Spain has been to park the bus, and let Spain have the ball for long periods. The negativity of opposing teams was reason for the lack of activity in the final third of the field. The result Italy in the final was a great example of what happens when a team tries to attack Spain. They get beaten soundly.

You'd think that tiki-taka relies on unattainable levels of coordination and high training between players, but it's not that simple. Barcelona's believed in a high-possession, fluid mentality since Johan Cruyff, but their tactic and style under Frank Rijkaard was far more flashy and flair-driven than Guardiola's patient, possession-driving short-passing game.

It also turns out that a high-possession short passing style is within the grasp of many teams. Look at Swansea in the Premier League this past season.

And it oversimplifies things to say that England is all kick-and-rush and continental Europe is more focused on possession. For one, some English clubs have favored possession for decades, including Arsene Wenger's Arsenal. For another, counterattacking, as opposed to patient, possession-driven build up play, is very popular in Italy. If you saw much of Italy before the final, they did appear to "hoof it up to the big striker"--but really, they were making pinpoint passes down the length of the field right as Balotelli broke the onside trap. And the teams that do beat Barcelona, continental and otherwise, seem to do so by abandoning possession and "parking the bus"--Jose Mourinho's Inter would even clear the ball as soon as they managed to win it as to hold their defensive shape, rather than try to make attacking moves and be drawn out of position so they were vulnerable to Barcelona's attack.

I think this is only one dimension. Player height, weight, left-footedness or right-footedness might also be crucial in figuring out how to beat Spain. At the very least, you know that Xavi is a key player in the entire network - of course, from mere observation, many have that assumption already but from the graph, you'd know who are the top 3 passers to stop.

I'd also take into account the positioning of the players on the fields, the runs that they make and etc. It'd be interesting if someone can build a simple simulation of how Spain's positional play (measuring distances between the players) based on tracking the last few years of the Del Bosque's management.

You wouldn't miss Xavi, but I'd say it would be a lot easier to miss Busquets. His style of play doesn't get as much attention, because he does very little, but what little he does has the biggest impact: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijDdpNxPyPU