by Ruud Gullit
The long ball
Long Ball United: everyone remembers Sam Allardyce’s famous quote. Big Sam was West Ham United’s manager when Louis van Gaal was in his first year at Manchester United. Van Gaal was always boasting about his team’s combination game. He let anyone who would listen know how much possession his team had enjoyed and he considered it by definition unfair if Manchester United dropped points against teams that played according to an entirely different philosophy.
Man Utd had managed to snatch a point at West Ham in his first season following an old-fashioned kick-and-rush final offensive. Van Gaal reacted as if he had been bitten by a snake when Big Sam expressed his surprise after the game that United had played long-ball soccer. A few days later, Van Gaal produced a pile of statistics to show how wrong Allardyce had been. In vain. Especially when those very statistics revealed that while West Ham had played the ball forward more often, Manchester United had kicked the ball far longer.
I never understood why Van Gaal felt the need to respond. A long ball is a tactical weapon and therefore part of the game. There’s much more to it than what the Dutch in general and Van Gaal in particular imagine. It is about far more than just kicking the ball forward blindly and leaving it to the strikers to work out what to do with it.
For Wimbledon, for instance, the long ball wasn’t part of an all-or-nothing attack; it was a basic tactic which they practiced carefully and to which the whole team was attuned. The club even bought players to hone their game to perfection.
It is vital to have one or more players up front who know how to receive a long ball while facing forward, to control the ball and keep it while surrounded by opponents. If the forward can hang on to the ball, it gives midfielders the time to join the striker and to pass back and forth. Behind the midfielders, the defenders will move up too. It immediately places the other side under tremendous pressure in its own half.
It is crucial to coordinate this because losing the ball may otherwise open up huge gaps between the forwards and the midfield line, and between the midfielders and the defense. A team that knows how to exploit these gaps between the lines can counterattack against a long-ball team without much problem.
Some teams like to send the long ball to the center forward; others prefer strikers to move into the channels, the areas parallel to the touchline where the wingers roam. It’s not always about keeping the ball deep in the other side’s half. Sometimes you want a defender to head the ball out, because the midfielders will be able to pick it up as they run into position. In fact the possibility of winning a corner, a throw-in or a free kick may be even more valuable, and may even be the intention.
One advantage of sending the ball to the far corner is that it leaves you less vulnerable if you lose possession. If the other side win the ball, they’re left building up all the way from the corner of their own half. They can only go in one direction, and that’s easy to defend. If you lose the ball in the middle of the pitch, then the other side has the choice: they can build up to the left or the right, which forces your defenders to make a quick decision, and if they make the wrong choice, a path opens up for the other side.
The danger of the long-ball tactic is that you go straight for the striker when there may be a better solution elsewhere. With a big guy like West Ham’s Andy Carroll the danger is all the greater since he is such a visible presence on the pitch and it’s all the more tempting to pass to him with a long, high ball. All this requires a little soccer nous from teammates and a good deal of technique from the striker. Zlatan Ibrahimović is the complete striker par excellence: the perfect man to receive long balls. He has all the skills, under pressure, at the highest level.
You can deliver a long ball in two ways: straight or bending. A straight ball only works if there’s plenty of space behind the defenders, and of course you need players moving up to support the striker. If the striker can head the ball on, then you need a second striker or you want the midfielders to take a chance and surge blindly through the defense to pick up the ball from the header and take it toward the opposing goal.
For a bending long ball you need a strong striker, tallish and with good timing and the ability to jump high to chest down the ball under pressure. Mark Hughes had exactly those qualities. Mark was not a big man, but he was solid and exceptionally strong. No one could take the ball off him. The nice thing about this approach to the game is that it’s spectacular to watch—there’s a lot of physical confrontation in the various battles.
At AC Milan we often faced teams that played long balls. No club wanted to take us on in midfield with pure soccer. With Frank Rijkaard, Carlo Ancelotti, Alberigo Evani and myself in the lineup, we were so strong that we could deal with anyone. So to get around that wall, opponents used to send in long balls.
Our defenders constantly found themselves in direct confrontation with a striker, a supporting forward or a winger. Even when they won these duels, it still took a while before they could start building up from the back again. It was an effective tactic to shake us off for a while. It stopped us from surprising the other side by switching to attack, while giving their players extra time to get the defense organized.
It drained our morale as well. That simple expedient of kicking the ball all the way upfield meant that the pressure we had been putting on had been for nothing. And a long ball meant that you had to sprint back forty or fifty meters. You had to refocus on building up a new attack from the back. And you needed plenty of patience.
In effect, a long ball can be an offensive or a defensive weapon. An essential ingredient is a willingness to get stuck in: players need to want and dare to confront opponents. You can forget it if you think you will leave the pitch after ninety minutes without a scratch.
It’s surprising how few teams use long balls against Barcelona, relying on their soccer skills and on building up from the back. Do they imagine that they can play their way through an attacking lineup with the likes of Messi, Neymar and Suárez? In theory it’s possible. But if Barça don’t have the ball and they want to get it within six seconds, then the whole team will come crashing down on you. That tactic is possible thanks to the trio up front. It minimizes the meters that the team has to cover to regain possession. Barcelona challenge their opponents to build up from the back by giving defenders as little space as possible.
It is the keeper who decides whether the team should build up an attack or kicks the ball upfield. I’d say: “Kick the ball as far as you can, then we’ll get to grips with Barcelona over there.” After all, it’s precisely what the Catalans don’t want, just as we at AC Milan hated it. Physical confrontations are not their strong point, it’s their skills with the ball that they rely on.
The long ball is perfectly suited to winning territory and relieving pressure. Although, of course, you need a bit of variation, otherwise it becomes easy to defend against.
In the late 1990s, Manchester United found the perfect balance between long-ball soccer and building up from the back with combination play. When the team was under pressure, Peter Schmeichel took no risks and sent the ball flying to the forwards waiting up front: Andy Cole, Dwight Yorke, Teddy Sheringham or Ole-Gunnar Solskjaer. Let them take on the defenders. After trying that a couple of times, the pressure on United soon began to evaporate. The other side would realize that there was no point chasing United and take a step back. And then Schmeichel would revert to building up from the back, via the right or left flank.
That occasional use of the long ball is not something you see often in contemporary top soccer. Teams often lack the cunning to use this tactic. Which has a lot to do with coaches who consider it beneath their dignity, like Louis van Gaal and even Sam Allardyce, who was keen to emphasize in his Long Ball United exchange with Van Gaal that this was not the way his West Ham played: they preferred to use their soccer skills.
Tiki-taka
Tiki-taka soccer was invented by Pep Guardiola at Ba
rcelona. Invented is perhaps not the right word, since he actually embroidered the style of play that Johan Cruijff introduced and perfected at Barcelona, first as a player and later as a manager. Tiki-taka is based on trios; it is Dutch school plus, you might say. Guardiola gave it an extra dimension, especially by using the exceptional qualities of young guys from Barcelona’s youth-training scheme such as Messi, Xavi, Iniesta and Busquets.
Everyone likes watching tiki-taka, but few can actually play it, certainly not at the same level as Barcelona, who stand alone in the world. A tiki-taka player should be technically and tactically proficient, good in confined spaces, able to launch a run or a combination under pressure, and be able to quickly change the pace of the ball. All those players learned these skills at La Masia, the club’s training facility. Interestingly, these were all players who played along the middle of the pitch, while the guys along the flanks were acquisitions from other clubs, such as Ronaldinho, Neymar and Dani Alves, or brought back, like Jordi Alba.
Everything in tiki-taka is based on possession. When the other side gets the ball, it is up to the technical and attacking players—who, like all forwards, are naturally lazy—to regain possession. And, for that, Guardiola introduced his six-second rule: the whole team chases the other team for six seconds to regain the ball. The idea being that every player, however good, finds it hard to keep the ball under pressure or to choose where to pass. That is why Barcelona regain the ball nine times out of ten with these raids. If the sudden pressure fails to achieve the desired result, then the team moves back twenty or thirty meters, reassembles its formation and lets the other side come to it.
For Barça’s forwards, it’s worth piling on this pressure because they know that if they don’t they’ll soon have to make up dozens more meters. The choice between ten meters in six seconds or thirty meters later is quickly made. Especially for players like Messi, Neymar and Suárez, who like to save their energy for those occasional bursts of pure brilliance.
When you watch Bayern Munich, you can see how difficult tiki-taka is. The team often approaches Barça’s level, but they depend too much on Ribéry and Robben. The one time they succeeded in front of a watching world was on October 2, 2013, when they played Manchester City at the Etihad and tiki-taka-ed them into the ground, returning to Germany with a 3–1 victory.
If Guardiola hopes to bring tiki-taka to the Premier League via Man City then he’d better not underestimate the importance of individual strength and confrontation in English soccer. It is highly unlikely that a side would be able to play soccer at that level for a year in England with all the clashes and personal tussles. Arsenal try, but you can see how their players regularly go through periods of poor performance. Suddenly they lack the energy to play at the same level or support their teammates in avoiding one-on-one duels. In the busy Premier League program it is especially difficult.
That was more than evident when Arsenal met Southampton and Newcastle United in 2015/16. Both teams let Arsenal have it and the games turned into aggressive spectacles that the referees did little to temper. Any other team in England would have fought back, but not Arsenal. The team lacks players of the caliber of Adams, Keown, Petit and Vieira, who were always the first to dent the other side’s armor. The fantastic Arsenal of Wenger’s first years in London had that ability.
Viewing English soccer from that perspective, I wonder whether Barcelona would survive in the Premier League. In European Cup games Barça have no problem, since they only have to play two legs and referees are far less tolerant than on English grounds. Technique always makes the difference in Europe. But for a whole season? In the Premier League in England? I doubt it.
High pressure and low pressure
Pressurizing is about applying pressure, checking, chasing away. Forwards apply pressure on defenders and vice versa. High pressure implies a concentrated attack in the opponents’ half, low pressure is concentrated defense when the other side is ten or fifteen meters over the halfway line. Total pressure is what a team like Barcelona delivers, pressing directly wherever the other side wins the ball. This requires maximum concentration from every player, no one can afford to get outplayed because that could cost you a couple of goals. Applying pressure creates highly dangerous open spaces should anyone slip up.
As a manager you have to vary the pressure since applying it like this costs a lot of energy and is impossible to maintain for ninety minutes. High and low pressure also depend on the qualities of the players. If your team need to create space, like Leicester in 2015/16, then high pressure is not the answer. Let the other side come to you. That creates space automatically for when you regain the ball. And then Jamie Vardy can run into that space.
The ideal is for a team to be able to do both. Then you can vary things by occasionally surprising the other side with pressure in its own half. Ferguson’s Man United mixed high and low pressure, but they also had a weapon for the final fifteen minutes: total pressure. They swept their opponents off the pitch, whoever they were. In 1999, they even won the European Cup with it against Bayern with two goals in injury time.
Smart defense
Jürgen Kohler, a German international in the 1980s and ’90s, had a clever trick when defending against a long ball from the back. He would start by standing behind you; most forwards don’t mind that since then they know exactly where the defender is and they can even use their marker to turn around and get away. But in Kohler’s case, as soon as the ball approached, he would step deftly to one side and suddenly he would be standing in front of you. Then there’s nothing you can do as a forward; not even if the defender misses the ball: you no longer have the ball in your sights.
Low pressure involves facing and pinning the other side down from just past the halfway line. This encourages the other side to come forward and creates space for a counter.
High pressure involves locking down the other side deep in their own half. This robs them of space to build an attack. When you retake the ball you’re already close to the opposing goal; however, when you lose possession the other side can cause havoc in the open space behind your defense.
After he got me twice with that trick I decided enough was enough. Instead of him defending me, I defended him. I grabbed hold of his shirt to stop him moving from behind me, which the referee could have penalized if he had seen me; at other times I turned to half face him. That meant I could always see where he was and block his path with my arms when he tried to creep in front of me.
A smart defender knows an opponent’s character and how to deal with that player; how a striker likes to play and the kind of things that really annoy him. Big and strong strikers who are not particularly agile like to keep in contact with the defender. The defender should aim to avoid that contact. Losing the defender can cause a striker to panic, because it’s an unusual situation: it’s not often that a defender dares to let go of the striker. Most defenders need to keep in close touch to anticipate the striker’s next move.
Strikers like Marco van Basten, Ronaldo, Didier Drogba and Zlatan Ibrahimović, who have the skills to be able to get past anyone one-against-one, and then make a run and score, are always a headache for any defender, as are small, nimble strikers such as Romário, Messi, Agüero and Suárez. Defenders do their best to remain on top of a striker, without turning the confrontation into a personal battle when he turns his back, otherwise the forward will lean against him and use him to turn. There are other ways to deal with strikers physically. You can be close enough for them to feel you’re there, but too far for them to use you to get away. That makes them uncertain. And if a striker still gets past, then the defense should be in place to provide cover.
Player without portfolio
At Feyenoord I played with Johan Cruijff in the year we won the Dutch league and the cup. He was a false striker, or rather a false no. 9. On paper, Cruijff—in his final year as a player and thirty-six at the time—was an outside left. But he
rarely stayed in that position. He wandered all over the attacking lineup, behind the forwards and around the attacking midfield. Cruijff was unsurpassed playing between the lines. He practically invented that elusive role. And he played in that position on and off the ball. In that championship year he was both support and finisher. It was 1983/84: Cruijff was far ahead of his time. Players like that are common enough today, but then it was new, as were many other aspects of his career as a player and later as a manager.
To be able to play a free-roaming role, Cruijff needed someone ready and willing to clear up after him. Apart from guarding against losing possession, he needed a player to close the gaps and deal with incoming opponents. This role was filled by Stanley Brard, a standard left back whose position was now left half, behind Cruijff.
Brard knew exactly how to work with Cruijff on the pitch and how to compensate where he fell short. He always remained away from the ball when Cruijff made himself available and only got involved when the other side took the ball. You couldn’t send Cruijff in too deep; it was Cruijff who made space for others to go deep. In fact it was impossible to defend against him, because his marker never dared follow him as he dropped back into midfield, for fear other players would go deep. Which left Cruijff free to roam between the midfield and the forwards and always be available. Remarkable, really, that the best player got the ball easier than anyone else.
As soon as Cruijff got the ball, the right midfielder, André Hoekstra, would automatically start on a run. Cruijff would then offer him the ball on a silver platter. For variation Hoekstra might make space with his run for yet another player, to whom Cruijff would then pass the ball.