Mainz show the benefit of pressing opposition full-backs
In a week that has seen interviews, analysis and prose about the only manager who could comfortably be in a Kraftwerk tribute act, there’s little else to write about. Apart from one thing. To complete this trilogy of ‘The story and times Thomas Tuchel and Mainz in the 2010/11 Bundesliga season’ (working title) – this will examine the aspect of Mainz’s game that is the most interesting – their pressing.
Dig deep enough, you can find beauty in the ugliest of things: West Germany, 1990.
“This World Cup is nearly as boring as Italia ’90!” was an often-heard quip by the doltish pundits. “Oh, I agree, it’s all defence, defence, defence. Thank God they got rid of the back-pass then, hey?!” Cue much chortling and cringeworthy, chummy back-slapping by everyone.
The 2010 World Cup was a World Cup that brought twenty-five year old men and above together for one reason – to collectively preach about how dismal the 1990 World Cup was. Such derision implanted an idea in this writer’s head that they need to watch the thing to let them know what they were missing out on. It is this apparent self-tortury that is all part of footballing character building, just what you know what boring, bland and characterless football is really like, or so I thought.
Dissecting the Ajax team of 1973: Ajax 4 – Bayern München 0
Of course, that Ajax team of ’95 was not ‘the’ Ajax team. For all its famous names and youthful exuberance it did not encapsulate and entertain as an Ajax team should. In some ways, that team suffered because of Ajax’s past teams – one particular team that played with a philosophy so enamoured and eulogised today.
Dissecting the Ajax team of 1995: Ajax 2 – AC. Milan 0
Litmanen, Davids, Overmars, Kluivert, the de Boer brothers, Blind and Rijkaard. It is astonishing to think that Ajax team fifteen years ago contained such talented football players in their first eleven. That’s without mention of their manager, Louis van Gaal, who has since managed some of the largest football institutions in the world.
Up against them were names such as Gullit, Baresi, Maldini, Donadoni, Boban and Savićević. Manager of the Rossineri was Fabio Capello, who had been the mastermind behind Milan’s 4-0 defeat of Johan Cruyff’s FC Barcelona in the 93-94 Champions League Final.
Rafa Benitez undertook a noble task by taking the Inter job. Taking over a team who managed to win pretty much everything, with Jose Mourinho making sure everyone knows that he won everything and making sure that every fan, pundit and journalist besotted with him, it is undoubtedly a difficult job. However, Rafa Benitez has a plan of action; him and his players are planning to play with more quality, aiming to transform Mourinho’s defensive stalwarts into a more fluid, aesthetically pleasing outfit.
Hodgson’s men struggled through no fault of their own
With Javier Mascherano refusing to play, a response to the Liverpool board rejecting a derisory bid from Spanish giants FC Barcelona, Roy Hodgson had a tactical headache. He had options to replace “El Jefecito’ with youngster Jay Spearing or risk Christian Poulsen, who was recovering from his debut on Thursday. This would have resulted in Steven Gerrard playing in an advanced midfield role, something of a ‘hot topic’ among football-fans. However, Roy Hodgson opted for a 4-4-2 with Gerrard and Lucas in midfield with N’Gog and the now-fit Fernando Torres up-front.
After the Mesut Özil transfer saga, the talk in Bremen has now moved to who will replace the attacking midfielder’s place in Thomas Schaaf’s team? On Wednesday night, one player in particular made enough noise out on the pitch to out-do the post-goal foghorn that adorns every Werder Bremen goal.
The saying goes that “There are no atheists in foxholes”, and some may argue that when it comes to football, “there are no simpletons playing in the hole”. Well, we would all like that to be the case, but unfortunately, Joe Cole managed to supply reason to suggest otherwise.
Plotting against him was Samir Nasri, impressive throughout pre-season, rejuvenated from his omission from the the French World Cup squad (dodged a bullet there), carried his form through to the new season with an impressive display against Liverpool.
Steve McClaren: can he return the bite to the ‘Die Wölfe’?
Once the laughing stock of media outlets in England, Steve McClaren has a chance to make a name for himself in continental Europe, a feat that should see his reputation return to the levels it once was.
His move from the arty town of Enschede on the border of Germany to Wolfsburg, a town that resembles the perfect specimen of industrialisation that Karl Marx described in the mid 1800’s is one that had people talking. For Steve McClaren is the first Englishman to manage a German football club aswell as his exploits at Twente earning him the Rinus Michels Award for his championship winning season last year.
For many uneducated youngsters like myself, the small fuss made over the re-appointment of Zdeněk Zeman at Foggia was disconcerting, I had never heard of him, why didn’t I know of him?! There seemed to be a Zeman cult-like movement appearing on twitter with many writers/journalists coming out simultaneously over the admiration of Zdeněk Zeman. In fact, Gabriele Marcotti, after his Zeman-explosion exclamation has seemingly taken a twitter break, strikingly similar to having a post-coital cigarette.
His deity-like status amongst Italian football lovers stems from Zeman’s approach to the game, when Italian football was stereotyped as overly-defensive, where every fifth sentence about Calcio would usually contain the word ‘catenaccio’. His popularity coincided with British audiences getting to watch Italian football through television. As well as this, it was his individualistic approach to the game that caught people’s eyes, breaking the traditional view of defensive Italian football.
