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Comment by jackhammer2022 | Hacker News Reader

jackhammer2022

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"..in England and Ireland it's the outdated 'kick-and rush' style football (aka "hoof it up to the big striker") versus the more patient possession-focused, passing game in continental Europe.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

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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.

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