FIFA 2010 World Cup, Maradona the Wise?
The era of having attacking full backs in your side seems to be coming to an end. If not coming to an end, the trend is certainly diminishing with more and more sides employing different tactics rather than sticking with the tried and tested formulas.
Diego Maradona’s Argentina are a prime example of this fact. They employ a defensive minded Jonas Guttirez at right back and Gabriel Hienze at left back.
That is not to say that the era of attacking full backs is over or outmoded. But the teams can no longer depend on their attacking full backs for their attacking impetus and winning matches. Not that they ever did but the evidence is overwhelmingly on the contrary.
There is a reason why teams like Argentina and Holland are not hindered by the absence of an attacking full back, which happens to be Jonas Guttirez and Gregory Van Der Wiel respectively.
There is always a possibility in tournaments, such as the World Cup, that a team will revert back to an out dated formation. Presenting opponents, with a problem so old, that they may have forgotten how to solve it.
The prime example being Greece in Euro 2004, where Otto Rehaggel dropped conventional wisdom and reminded the world of a centuries old idea of man marking and it worked wonders for his team.
It maybe that the idea of a back four consisting of essentially, defensive players, is such a novelty that opponents struggle. Diego Maradona’s revamped Arge ntina illustrated this theory in sublime detail against South Korea in the FIFA 2010 World Cup.
Jonas Guttirez, is not a rock at the right back position because of his iffy positional sense and Nigeria exploited this masterfully in their opening game against the South Americans. That is why Diego might think of restoring Nicolas Burdisso to the starting line-up. He looked so much more comfortable coming off the bench.
The Dutch on the other hand present a similar but less extreme case. Both their full backs Giovani Van Bronckhorst, given his age, and Gregory Van Der Wiel, given his defensive outlook are unlikely to provide marauding overlapping runs on the wings past their midfield.
There was system in place in Italy in the mid nineties where every player on the pitch had an attacking or defensive role defined to him and with very little or nothing in between.
Against Nigeria, Argentina had a back four of Lucio, Samuel, Gutirrez and Heinze while Javier Mascherano played as the link man.Their front four of Angel Di Maria, Tevez, Messi and Higuain played ahead of Seba-Veron who played the anchorman linking the attack and defence.
Along the same lines Holland deployed a well defined back four and an attacking four with Nigel De Jong and Van Bommel providing the link between the attack and defence.
There is a style of play that places a great onus on individual talent rather than playing a well developed system. But there is always a counter in football like ‘total football’ to ‘catenaccio’ where the sophisticated systemization is preferred to the eye catching Ronaldo-step-overs.
If the larger than life Argentina coach has realized this and is playing with a master plan then he certainly is not as daft as many of his critics think and is certainly smarter than he is given credit for. The lack of Argentina’s attacking full backs may not be a glaring testament but definitely a logical argument in his favour.
All it comes down to is a battle of not the system but individual talent and Argentina are the best exponents of this with the Dutch not too far behind. After all it worked for Maradona’s Argentina in 1986 when 7 players defended and Voldano, Maradonna and Barruchuga attacked and it worked for them as they won the World Cup. This time the same may work for Maradona the manager and the only difference this time being that he has an abundance of individual talent combined with a sophisticated system, so stop him if you can.
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