UEFA Champions League Qualification: Harry better learn from his mistakes
It was woeful, it was terrible, it was almost shambolic but it sure was why Harry Redknapp is still unproven at the highest level of club football. Tottenham were lucky to escape with a three goals to two defeat against Young Boys in Switzerland. Harry later branded their loss as a great defeat, what an oxymoron.
There is an old cliché that tactics don’t win matches - players do. But unfortunately, unlike most clichés, this one is not true - at least not in European football. Harry Redknapp led his team with a 4-4-2 formation against Young Boys F.C in Switzerland; a club side which is a relatively less known in European circles. One can only speculate whether Harry’s decision to field such an ancient formation in a European playoff away tie was a result of his tremendous tactical acumen or because his team never really thought that Young Boys can bring give them a tough time.
4-4-2’s limitations have been well documented and one would expect Redknapp to be well aware of the fact that this formation is not suitable for winning European competitions and it is certainly one of those tactical structures which have been countered on countless occasions. The last time a 4-4-2 combination became the cause of a certain team’s undoing was in the FIFA World Cup in South Africa when Capello fielded the English national team against Germany with the same formation.
The result was an absolute battering. The result was humiliation - it brought the end of England’s World Cup hopes. There is an unsaid rule in European football that claims that ‘do not play a 4-4-2 combination away from home in a European tie’. Many teams have changed the way they approach these matches. Most prominently, Sir Alex Ferguson from United has learned from his earlier defeats in the UEFA Champions League and now fields a 4-2-3-1 or a 4-5-1 when United are playing away from home.
However, there is one exception to this rule. A 4-4-2 does work in European competitions and in away ties as well but only if you have two quality strikers in startling form. Tottenham had Roman Pavlyuchenko with Jermaine Defoe upfront in attack. It is quite safe to say that neither of them are comparable to the Rooneys or Ronaldos of this world and neither of them are in impressive form.
Defoe is known for his ability to finish off any chances that fall to him inside the penalty area and his partner Roman is mainly used in the startling line-up because of his height and clever movement inside the opponent’s penalty box. So Defoe and Roman are not famous for their out-side-of-the-box escapades. They are not well known contributors to the team as far as distribution or retention of the ball goes.
Therefore in theory, Redknapp fielded eight outside players if one excludes the goal keeper and Defoe and Pavlyuchenko, to deal with the eleven outfield players of Young Boys. Consequently, Tottenham Hotspurs were given a class in football in mild Swiss weather. But let us consider what would have happened if Tottenham had been on the winning end. The traditional English manager Harry Redknapp had used conventional British tactics to defeat a continental team.
The hype would have been massive; one can almost foresee the headlines. However, such fairytales are copyrighted by Disney so they belong in cartoon movies and not football. It is not all doom and gloom for Hotspurs, who have still got those two away goals to play with at the White Hart lane but certain things need to be kept in mind.
Harry did exhibit some common sense later on in the match as he brought on Robbie Keane to make Tottenham’s 4-4-2 formation into a 4-4-1-1. One can expect Tottenham to retain this setup when travelling to European teams but there is still a chance that Redknapp will go with 4-4-2 at home. Is Tottenham’s defence tight enough to keep out the opposition if such an ambitious configuration is adopted? Is Harry going to learn from his team’s great three goals to two defeat?
Only time will tell. One thing that experts can predict is that the 4-4-2 is becoming defunct. Teams should learn it through the easy way by watching the oldest formation in football go out of fashion rather than witnessing their own demolition on the sidelines.
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