Since time immemorial, nostalgia has always had its needle stuck inside the masses, with a chunk of the population always seeming unwilling to ditch their rose-coloured glasses behind and leave the dreamy escapes of a romanticised past. On the contrary, why invest in anything new, when the old can always be rehashed, and sold like hot cakes, be it Pixar remakes or 80s new wave pastiches. But can the same be said about football–the global sport, and well, another gargantuan financial arena.
Ever since the inception of the PL era, "442 hoofball" as it’s so lovingly referred to, has been bid adieu to in the 90s, save for a few interesting exceptions. However, familiarity has never been the dominant beckoning call towards tactical evolution, being based rather upon simply reacting to whatever "meta" dominates the game. As the ever revolving wheel of history passes by the year 2023 AD, a tactic nearly hundred years old has not only found its way back into prominence, but it won Man City a treble.
After repeated attempts at European glory agonisingly thwarted, Pep and Co. have finally reached the summit, with a cagey, nervy victory over a resilient and typically-Italian Inter Milan. The dynamic, fluid football that is unmistakably Guardiola-esque and a press that feels more claustrophobia-inducing than being trapped in a suitcase, Pep's paint strokes find their canvas in the WM formation, a tactical relic preceding even the two World Wars. And with the adoption of the formation becoming widespread, is it here to stay, or will the wheel of history roll again, landing again on a not-so-new tactical evolution? And if so, who’s suited the best to topple Manchester City’s reign?
From three to two;
Near the turn of the 19th century, football was largely a show of individual strength and brute force, with play generally limited to thwacking the ball forward, chasing and dribbling with it. With defence generally seen as a chore, the bias for offence was reflected subtly in the use of formations like the 1-1-8 and 1-2-7. Some balance would be brought by the introduction of the legendary 'pyramid of Cambridge' around 1880; the 2-3-5 formation becoming the English standard, ready to be exported to the world over.
But while plucky, blue-collar Uruguay were celebrating their consecutive World Cup victories of '24 and '28, buoyed by the ‘pyramid’, Britain saw great changes being brought in the summer of 1925 to the offside rule. The amendment, largely a remedy against the stifling use of offside traps, brought down the minimum number of players required to play an opposing team's player onside from three to two (including the goalkeeper). Suddenly teams had the licence to deploy more forwards in advanced areas, and a whirlwind of topsy-turvy results ensued. Caught in that whirlwind were Arsenal, led by Herbert Chapman, with results including a 4-1 victory over Leeds United followed quickly by a baffling 7-0 loss to Newcastle.
Charlie Buchan, Arsenal’s star inside-forward, was enraged with Chapman not seeing the obvious, and planned to retire. All Chapman needed to see was how the centre-half, in the wake of the new offside rule, had to take up more defensive duties and essentially form a three-man backline. As a knock-on effect, it made sense to withdraw both inside forwards to support the now-twin halfbacks. Viola, the WM was born, or at least, that’s how the dominant narrative goes.
(Source: Wikipedia)
Paired with the new formation was a focus on rigid defensive structure, with dropping half-backs and forwards allowing the opposition to venture freely into the final third. This was barely a problem, as the defensive solidity ensured turnovers, and like a jack-in-the-box, Arsenal would spring into a blistering offensive. Short passing, as opposed to the ‘English’ way of long-range lobs, progressed the ball down the field, and before the opposition could regain structure, pacy wingers in Joe Hulme and Cliff Bastin either cut in, or provided crosses into the penalty box. This approach could be credited to a loss early in Chapman’s managerial career, where his team retained the majority of possession but couldn’t convert; “a team can attack too long”, he concluded, and thus perhaps came up with one of the earliest iterations of a low block tactic, long before your Simeones and Ranieris.
Soon enough, Chapman delivered on his promise that he gave when he first stepped onto Highbury in 1925; a five year plan culminating in English silverware for Arsenal. A FA Cup in 1930, and First Division titles in the 1930-31 and 1932-33 season put an end to the trophy cabinet’s yearning. Even after Chapman’s unprecedented demise by the hands of tuberculosis during the ‘32-’33 season, the trophy cabinet wouldn’t have to wait long for new companions in the decades to come; Chapman’s blueprint serving as a rock on which future managers like Joe Shaw and George Allison would build Arsenal’s castle of dominance through the 1930s.
(Source: thearsenalhistory.com)
Half of a system;
Such dominance naturally wasn’t unnoticed, and soon enough, the WM’s empire grew, the landscape forever altered by its footprints. Sistema, as the WM was known in Italy, would soon become an evolutionary platform. Inspired by the radical philosophies of Swiss coach Karl Rappan, modifications were brought in by Genoa manager Ottavio Barbieri in 1946, which included dropping the centre-half (known as the centromediano metodista) into the backline to mark the opposing centre-forward, with the other two fullbacks marking the opposing inside-forwards. This meant that one fullback would remain free (wink wink), and can act as a last line of defence, sweeping up the space just ahead of the goalkeeper.
(Source: Wikipedia)
The mezzosistema (half system), as the altered tactic was christened, was necessary for smaller teams, as duels arising from man-marking weren’t always egalitarian, given the economic disparities between clubs. But managers like Nereo Rocco and Helenio Herrera were not interested in being the underdogs, pairing ruthless defending with equally blistering counter-offensive approaches. The latter took it a step even further, lining his Inter Milan side in a 5-3-2 as he dominated Serie A along with two European Cups in the 60s. For any opposition, getting through this “door bolt”-like backline seemed Herculean, if not nigh-on impossible. Ring any bells?
Like the vibration of a door slammed shut, it didn’t take long for catenaccio to ripple through and even outside the realm of club football, with Feruccio Valcareggi’s vision shaping the Italian national team in the 60s. A ruthless and unwavering focus to defending was complemented with a backline that consisted of a sweeper, deployed behind two man-marking central defenders and a fullback. As a result, the Azzuri during this era were known to score less, and concede even lesser. For Valcareggi, despite the rampant complaints and controversies surrounding his dull and slow football, this was all that mattered, and one could say that he could show for it, his achievements including winning the 1968 Euros, and making it to the finale of the 1970 World Cup. Ironically, it would be the latter match that would set about the church bells tolling for catenaccio, with a supremely fluid, exciting and attack-minded Brazilian side defeating them 4-1 that day in Mexico.
(Source: Cesare Galimberti for OLYMPIA / OLYCOM)
The beginning of the end, however, was already in place, with Jock Stein’s Celtic cracking open Herrera’s Inter in the final of the 1967 European Cup, with a brand of football centred around creative offence harkening back to the era of the Magical Magyars. “It's so sad to see such gifted players shackled by a system that restricts their freedom to think and to act. Our fans would never accept that sort of sterile approach.” said Stein about Inter, in a post-match interview. It would be Stein’s Celtic that would provide the blueprint for a certain Rinus Michels in the 70s, whose Ajax beat Inter 2-0 for the 1972 European Cup. Perhaps for the first time, a murder was being reported exuberantly in the Dutch newspapers; the murderer being “Total Football”, the victim—catenaccio.
Catenaccio still perseveres, however, given that its genesis was rooted in an attempt to level the playing field, and in the current economic landscape of football, one can see and appreciate the utility of smaller teams sitting deep, and capitalising on the counter. A couple of hundred million dollars can, sometimes, fail to break through the good ol’, modest door bolt.
Inverted flight;
Stein’s Celtic, Michels’ Ajax and the Brazilian national team of 1970 had a lot of similarities, which centred around the 4-2-4, a tactic developed as an answer to the WM, and credited to Flavio Costa, the coach for the Brazilian national team in the early 50s, and Bela Guttmann, one of the most crucial Hungarian figures in terms of revolutionising the game. Like Chapman before, the idea that a strong defence is necessary to launch a strong offence returns. In effect the “diagonal system”, as Costa named it initially, could use six defenders and six forwards whenever needed, with the versatility and adaptability of the two midfielders being the foundational pillar, which could be targeted by oppositions.
(Source: Wikipedia)
To remedy their potential overburdening, all players, including defenders were encouraged to treat the pitch as a canvas, and to use their tactical intelligence to venture forwards and initiate attacks, with positional rotations happening all across the field. Little by little, football was rapidly going through a modernization process, with the 4-2-4 eventually giving way to the 4-4-2 and the 4-3-3, which would dominate the latter half of the 20th century, and even beyond.
It would take some 80 years from Chapman’s tenure at Arsenal for the WM to get one of it’s first tastes of the 21st century sun. Coincidentally, the catalyst would be another Arsenal icon in Patrick Vieira. His managerial stint at New York FC from 2015 to 2018 was regarded by many pundits as successful, the MLS side rising from a lowly 17th in Vieira’s debut season, to runners-up in 2017. While the WM wasn’t a common tool in his repertoire, it made its appearance in a league game against Toronto FC in March 2016, ending in a 2-2 draw, highlighting the tactical diversity the French player-turned-manager possesses.
6 years earlier, on the other edge of the pond, Pep Guardiola was just flirting with the idea of retro formations. His near-unconquerable Barcelona were ruling the roost domestically and on the continental turf, and naturally that gave way to several sides protesting that dominance by sitting in a low block. As a response, Pep took a risky approach, having both of his fullbacks push high and overlap his wingers, as opposed to the more conventional option of just one fullback providing width. This facilitated quick switches of play, allowing the Blaugrana to find cracks in even the most compact of defences. Not exactly sitting in a WM, but the shape was more resembling the WW. But as history would tell, this wouldn’t be Pep’s first brush with the letter W.
“What has been will be again”;
If history is just a cycle of events hellbent on repeating after regular intervals, does this herald yet another reign of the glorious 4-4-2? While teams that tend to sit deeper and create chances on the counter have historically posed trouble for City, the WM was exactly the kind of change that allowed Pep’s side to bolster defensive cover while not sacrificing any attacking commitment. Even then, City’s success can’t be boiled down to a system, as Pep has transformed a talented side into a collective that is more than the sum of its parts, with every player leaving their own brushstroke on the pitch-like canvas, as Costa posited.
The new age of football looks to win the war off the pitch, with greater implementation and investment in fields of data science, sports science along with professional courses aimed at refining the business side of a football club. On the pitch, the idea that a single system or formation can win you games has become passé, the name of the game being flexibility in real time, and greater tactical intelligence demanded from every single player. It would require dazzling personnel on and off the pitch, with the administration and business side of the club providing a healthy platform for sustained success.
With the pandemic causing destruction in its wake, it has left top clubs with a lot of housekeeping to do in a backdrop of ever-tightening FFP rules. Barcelona have been relentlessly chipping away at their monumental debt, while Liverpool attempt to halt the revolving door of sporting directors. As if Italian clubs weren’t already ruing the lack of money in the domestic league, Juventus have added to their misery by reliving their Calciopoli days. Chelsea, Real Madrid and PSG look forward with cautious optimism, all three sides with varying degrees of a squad makeover, but have their own caveats and challenges to juggle.
But then again, football has a habit to lull spectators in a false sense of certainty. As the Women’s World Cup reaches it’s conclusion, in a tournament filled with upsets and arrivals of unpopular names, Spain are in the running to capture the ultimate prize. If you would have told this to anyone barely in touch with the ‘Las 15’ controversy which threatened to disintegrate the campaign of the Spanish women’s national team, they would’ve laughed at you.
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