by Ruud Gullit
Tiki-taka in Germany
Pep Guardiola himself discovered just how difficult it is to adopt Barcelona’s style of play. His vision, developing the ideas expounded by Johan Cruijff, is incorporated into the Barcelona game, and he thought he could add two elements when he moved from Barça to Bayern Munich, namely German mentality and determination.
But it’s the players who have to do the work. Guardiola has two fabulous players in Arjen Robben and Franck Ribéry. In the first of his three seasons Guardiola came within a hair’s breadth of his previous team’s top level; for example, at the away game in the Champions League group stage against Manchester City. But Guardiola and his players were unable to maintain that standard for long. They approached it, but they couldn’t equal it because the key players for their system, Robben and Ribéry, missed too many games through injury. Victory in the Champions League was a bridge too far. It’s not that easy to replace players of that caliber, even if you’re Bayern Munich. Being unable to attract the world’s top five players, they acquired Douglas Costa and Kingsley Coman for when their two stars were sidelined.
Move and countermove
The best place to analyze a game is at the stadium. There you can view the whole pitch, including the open spaces. That’s harder on television, although it’s usually possible to gauge a team’s intentions quite quickly.
For example, the buildup from the back by teams like Real Madrid or Bayern Munich. There, defenders such as Real’s Marcelo and Bayern’s David Alaba are similar: perhaps not the tightest in defense, but in an attack they make all the difference as they surge along the flank from their position at left back. Every team knows that Real and Bayern build up along their right and eventually end up on the left with Marcelo and Alaba, who deliver the cross.
Managers of opposing teams have to find tactical solutions. Leave Marcelo and Alaba to orchestrate the attack from the back. Where the ball is, that is where most players are concentrated. That means they are far away from the opposite goal and it should be easy to create a well-organized defense. So well-organized that when the attack comes their forwards are unable to break through. If the attack builds up on the left then the striker or right winger is almost always the final link in the chain. That offers a way to control the opposing team and to take the sting out of their game.
Mission accomplished, you could say. But it’s an illusion to imagine that you can keep this up for ninety minutes. Not only that: leading clubs like Bayern and Real have an array of options at their disposal tailored to the qualities of their available players, although it’s obviously frustrating if you block their favorite attacking strategy.
Tactical plans and formations like these are often of crucial importance to less well-equipped teams and provide a lifeline when facing stronger opponents. Either way, you can’t say: “As long as we play in our own style the results will come.” That’s not how it works. You have to adapt, although that is no guarantee either.
How to watch defenders
When watching defenders you have to assess how they respond to their opponents as well as the ball. Poor defenders tend to concentrate on the ball. If a forward gets past a right or left back, the defender’s natural reaction is to focus on the player with the ball on the wing, yet the real danger lies elsewhere. The danger is the player running toward goal to score. As a defender your focus should not only be on where the ball is: you should have one eye on the other players coming forward. Today’s defenders often fail to do that. It is incredible how many defenders allow forwards to get away from them.
That hardly ever happens to Italian defenders. They always know roughly where the ball is, but for the rest their focus is entirely on their opponents. It is part of their instinct and training. Giorgio Chiellini, left back for Juventus and Italy, is a past master. His only concern is: how do I deal with the threat in front of goal?
Players like Chiellini are continually looking at where the strikers are moving to. There is a huge difference between the runs that players like Messi and Ronaldo make and those of so-called ordinary strikers. Runs by these top players are so explosive, so precise and unpredictable, that you wonder as a defender after they have scored: how on earth did they manage to get so much free space? There were at least two or three defenders there . . .
Easy: the defenders were concentrating on the ball and were too far away from Messi or Ronaldo, instead of breathing down their neck.
The best defenders are in constant contact with their opponent. You can’t hold him, because you don’t want to give away a penalty. But there is always physical contact so you know where your forward is. While you can never completely eliminate a player’s threat, a defender’s job is to minimize the danger he poses. A ball-watcher is a striker’s golden opportunity.
The art of defending
As Chelsea’s manager, Roberto Di Matteo was well aware that his team was ill-equipped to play attacking soccer. Moreover the team was not comfortable with itself. His players lacked the creativity and class to play in the opponents’ half and at the back they lacked the pace to use the forty meters between the defenders and the keeper. So, true to his Italian roots, Di Matteo raised defense to an art. In the Premier League, Chelsea drifted; but in the Champions League the club stood its ground, scraping through against Napoli and winning twice against Benfica.
Attack would have been suicide in the semifinal against FC Barcelona, even at Stamford Bridge. So Chelsea dug in around the penalty area. The players pushed themselves to the limit at home, and again at the Nou Camp in Barcelona. Eventually, it got them a result that had people perplexed: how was that possible? Because even Fernando Torres, totally out of form, managed to get on the score sheet. For a coach it was world-class achievement.
Unfortunately, most people—apart from Chelsea fans—fail to recognize the amazing accomplishment of the club and its manager, Di Matteo. More accurately: they don’t want to see it. Why? Because it’s not a pretty sight for a neutral spectator. And, of course, games at that stage of the Champions League are watched by far more neutrals than partisan supporters.
Yet the one paramount consideration in top sport is to do whatever is necessary to win. Especially if your opponent is stronger. Chelsea could never have won against Barcelona on the basis purely of the team’s attacking qualities. With a tailored approach to the game, Chelsea stood a much better chance of winning. Di Matteo had devised the perfect tailored tactics and so he managed to win. No, it may not have been beautiful, but that would have been impossible. Di Matteo deserves full credit for Chelsea’s one Champions League trophy. He found Barcelona’s Achilles’ heel, exposed it, caught the Spaniards off balance and eliminated them. Remarkable.
By the way, Chelsea were obviously a superb team with above-average players, otherwise they could never have defeated Barcelona, whatever their tactics. In the end it’s the players who determine whether your ideas are feasible. Di Matteo’s genius is that he managed to find a perfect balance between his players’ qualities and the team’s needs as a whole.
Naive defending
Sometimes I get angry at the naivety of Dutch clubs, nationally and internationally. They insist on finding an elegant solution for every situation, taking unnecessary risks as they build their attack. Keepers passing to defenders while there’s a player marking them, for example. In international games, it’s simply not done. Why do you think forwards pressure defenders? Because they’re dribblers? It makes you wonder: what’s going on? What on earth are they doing?
Take a look at a few clips of Manuel Neuer. Or Peter Schmeichel, possibly the most accomplished keeper of the last fifty years. He never passed a ball to a defender if he was marked. Instead he would send the ball flying toward the strikers and add for good measure: make something of it over there.
You often see teams trying to find an elegant solution for every situation, especially against FC Barcelona. No club can deal with Barça using only
soccer skills. You have to be combative, create one-on-ones, harass and tackle them, and employ compact tactics. Then at least you have a chance. To rely on pure skill is to concede defeat because if any of your players’ individual skills were high enough, they would be playing for Barcelona and not for you.
Atlético Madrid, and in 2015 Celta de Vigo and Espanyol as well, never pass in front of their own goal when they play Barcelona. Their weapons are hard work, confrontation, intimidation and a consistent strategy from the edge of the penalty area.
Celta took a risk and sent their forwards in to pressure Barcelona’s defenders. They didn’t give them the time to play the ball to the midfielders, they kept the passing lines covered. That suddenly exposed Gerard Piqué’s vulnerability, revealing his inability to construct.
You can go into the game with a plan like that, but keeping it up for ninety minutes is another story. You have to get goals. Going behind forces Barcelona to play in a more attacking style, to take risks, allowing more space at the back. If you can achieve that, then even they are beatable.
Celta de Vigo won, Espanyol drew and Atlético Madrid lost at home by a hair’s breadth.
I’m talking about teams that aren’t as strong as Real Madrid, Juventus, Bayern Munich and Paris Saint-Germain. Chelsea tackled the 2012 Champions League semifinal differently. The English locked the back shut and gambled on getting at least one or two breaks. For the first half of the strategy you need a bit of luck. Well, Chelsea had a huge blue angel sitting on their crossbar. Astonishing. You need assassins to make the difference. Which is exactly how it went down at the Nou Camp, with goals by Ramires and Torres.
Traditionally, Barcelona do not have many players who are physical and like to get involved in one-on-ones. Javier Mascherano is really the only player with those qualities, and before him was Carles Puyol. When they play, their aim is to put their opponent under constant pressure, whether they have possession or not: by creating combinations against the other side when they’re in possession in their own half, and by chasing after the other side in their half when they lose the ball.
Neither strategy requires a physical approach. But you need someone in the team who can make a serious dent in the other side. Carles Puyol used to be able to do that. Gerard Piqué is not that type of player. He is a clean defender whose main job is to make up for the lack of height in the Barcelona line-up at set pieces such as corners and free kicks.
Adapting to your opponent
Great teams are able to play in phases, to vary their tactics throughout the game. When Roy Keane captained Sir Alex Ferguson’s Manchester United, no other team in the world could surpass them. They would entice their opponents with the idea that perhaps there was a chance here; maybe United aren’t that much better after all. That gave teams like Chelsea or Newcastle the confidence to create a little space, and then United would come down like a ton of bricks, wherever and whenever they wanted: not once, but practically at will; usually in a 4-4-2 formation, although sometimes it was 4-3-1-2 or 4-3-3. They could switch tactics to match the way the opposing side were playing, taking advantage of weaknesses and grabbing opportunities wherever they occurred. So devious, and so smart.
PSV employed a similar approach between 2002 and 2006. Whenever they saw an opportunity in the days of their manager Guus Hiddink, keeper Heurelho Gomes, Alex, Phillip Cocu and Mark van Bommel, they pounced. Especially in the Amsterdam Arena against Ajax; PSV remained unbeaten there for years.
In their own stadium Ajax always felt morally obliged to dominate play and steer the game: it’s part of the club’s culture in Amsterdam. Fine, PSV thought. We’ll let them have the ball and let them dominate. Only, in reality, that attitude, that decision, was actually PSV being dominant. PSV allowed Ajax to retain possession without giving away a single chance.
As soon as they lost possession Ajax were caught with the gate wide open and vulnerable to counterattack. PSV used an extremely clever strategy. First with Ruud van Nistelrooy in the attack and later Mateja Kežman—he subsequently played for Chelsea—they always found a few opportunities to exploit, to Ajax’s great frustration. The Amsterdammers remained ever faithful to their club’s attacking ethos instead of adapting to the situation. PSV would not have known what to do if Ajax had allowed them to take the initiative occasionally. Yet that theory could never be tested since it was simply not in their repertoire. I still consider it a serious deficiency.
On the other hand, the club has produced strikers such as Marco van Basten, Patrick Kluivert and Zlatan Ibrahimović, capable of playing extraordinary, totally original soccer. Ajax’s attacking style also created superb forwards such as Wim Kieft and John Bosman, goal-scoring machines who were especially strong in the air. Ajax would attack from the flank with crosses from the left or right wing.
Few teams still play that way. It requires a strong header of the ball up front who moves automatically to the nearest post when the cross comes in. Strikers like Kieft and Bosman are rare these days; they no longer fit in the system, pushed out by tactics such as playing a left-footed winger on the right and a right-footed winger on the left. These players never cross the ball, they look for a quick passing combination. That requires different qualities from a striker leading an attack. To measure a striker’s success in terms of goals scored is not always fair since his role is often to serve wingers and attacking midfielders.
It’s still true that even at the top the ability to adapt to opponents improves your chances. At Ajax they have little time for that approach. PSV had mastered the art and often employed that tactic. No surprise then that the club reached the Champions League semifinal in 2005.
PSV in 2016 play the same style as PSV did under Guus Hiddink. Give the other side a false sense of security, a feeling that it has space to play soccer, that it could even get a result, and then pounce. The difference is that today’s PSV have fewer individual skills and they don’t manage to hermetically seal the defense. The team run by their manager, Phillip Cocu, concede too many goals.
Of course, it’s difficult for attacking teams like FC Barcelona and Ajax to play a waiting game. Breaking that ingrained pattern, that internationally generally accepted dogma, just isn’t in the nature of players who always want to go forward. On the other hand, it’s also about a certain tactical maturity. It would be interesting to see if Barcelona could do it. But in reality I wouldn’t even want Barça to try. Maybe not even Ajax, although Ajax lack the quality to compete internationally without being able to adapt.
At AC Milan we had mastered the 4-4-2 formation so thoroughly that we could beat everyone. We were fortunate enough to be able to switch to different game patterns within our system. We had to, since pressing on the opposing side when in possession was harder then than it is today, given the old rule that allowed keepers to pick up a back pass. There was no point blindly chasing the ball; within seconds the goalie would have it in his hands. So we developed tactical tricks to tempt opponents to the touchlines and to pile the pressure on there. That also required adjustment.
Individual class
In my first year as a player at Chelsea, the team was not on the same level as Manchester United. As a player you did what you could to deal with the quality deficit, yet the difference in skill of individual players between United and Chelsea left us almost without a chance. United often let opposing sides think: we could win this—only to raise the pace and simply leave them standing.
I experienced that even more dramatically as a manager at Newcastle. I had already won the FA Cup with Chelsea, so during the final against United at Wembley on May 22, 1999, I thought Newcastle had an excellent chance, yet in the end we lost 2–0. United played their own game from start to finish. I watched it later when the final was aired by ESPN Classic in America, on their Classic Matches program. Newcastle were playing well, even dominating some phases of the game, but two moments of individual class by Paul Scholes and Teddy Sheringh
am were enough to finish us.
In the end it all depends on individual class. That was evident in 2015/16 at Barcelona when Messi was injured and unable to play for a while. The organization remained unchanged and, keeping the lessons already learned in mind, Neymar and Luis Suárez were brought in: two world-class players, two individualists, two goal scorers. Neymar is deadly in limited space and, in the absence of Messi, he effortlessly took over the Argentinian’s role as the player who makes the difference, while Suárez was the fulcrum. As such, with the same forward pressure by the defenders and midfielders, with quick, short positional play and a high percentage of possession, Luis Enrique’s team continued to win.
All this showed that FC Barcelona were not just a synonym for Messi, as was once the case. Moreover, Luis Enrique is clearly not a manager who remolds the whole team when a key player is absent, even if that player is the star of the team. No, he has a smarter approach: he keeps his carefully crafted system intact, even if it is based on individual class. He just doesn’t let it depend on one specific player. If you have the resources to attract players of sufficient quality to the club, you can still excel even without your star.
At Barcelona the whole strategy is designed to allow individuals to make the difference. In the last year under Pep Guardiola, the 2011/12 season, the plan began to fall apart because Barcelona relied too heavily on Messi as their exceptional player. It took only a couple of defenders to mark out Messi and the team suddenly looked less spectacular. Reason enough subsequently to bring in Neymar and Suárez, mainly to take the heat off Messi as the sole decisive factor.
The truly great