by Ruud Gullit
The qualities of the two players clashed. And still successive coaches refused to choose. If they chose one, they were against the other. If the coach had chosen Gerrard, there would have been hell to pay from Lampard’s fans, reporters, coaches and his teammates at Chelsea. And vice versa.
I can tell you that for a manager, even a national coach, it is extremely frustrating to be saddled with a dilemma like this. You can never get it right. It’s impossible. I always felt a bit sorry for the England coaches. And by the same token for Lampard and Gerrard, because they knew just as well: we can’t play with each other and we can’t play without each other.
Meanwhile, both press and public were enraged that Lampard failed to perform for England while he excelled in his Chelsea colors, and that the Gerrard who played for England was a different Gerrard to the one who played for Liverpool. “Why doesn’t Lampard score?” people were constantly asking. I understood why. Frank could never be himself in the English side, where he lacked the players he needed around him. The same goes for Gerrard.
For a national coach it is a disaster: a generation of world-class players, and the best two can’t play together. A situation like this Lampard and Gerrard quandary disproves the notion that two good players will always automatically be able to play well together, that they’ll have a natural rapport because they’re on the same level. Not always.
Between 2000 and 2014, Gerrard was capped 114 times, scoring twenty-one goals in all; at Liverpool he scored 120 times in 504 matches. Lampard played 106 times for England between 1999 and 2014 and scored twenty-nine goals; at Chelsea he netted 147 goals in 429 matches.
Successive coaches struggled with this dilemma in vain: Kevin Keegan (1999–2000), Sven-Göran Eriksson (2001–6), Steve McClaren (2006–7), Fabio Capello (2007–12) and Roy Hodgson (2012–14). None could come up with a solution; neither could I.
Dilemmas in midfield (2)
While it was a tragedy for those involved, the Gerrard–Lampard problem is also interesting. There are other similar cases. In the Dutch squad, the same issue occurred with Rafael van der Vaart and Wesley Sneijder. Successive attempts were made to find ways to enable the two to play together. Both were at their best as attacking midfielders. Van der Vaart made his debut appearance for the national team slightly earlier than Sneijder after they had both worked their way through Ajax’s youth training scheme. In the end, managers and national coaches preferred Wesley Sneijder as midfield playmaker.
Both at Ajax (under Ronald Koeman) and in the Dutch squad (under Bert van Marwijk) it was the bad-tempered street fighter, Sneijder, who was preferred over the stylist, Van der Vaart. At Ajax, Van der Vaart was shifted from one position to the other, from forward to midfield, and was always second fiddle to Sneijder.
A difficult choice for a manager and a national coach, but they simply didn’t gel. Van der Vaart and Van Marwijk never really got on as a result, although the former had been on excellent terms with the previous coach, Marco van Basten.
As a coach, if you have to choose, you will almost certainly lose a player. You need to realize that. But will it be just the one? What kind of person is that player? Will others allow themselves to be dragged into the controversy? If the player begins to share a few truths about the manager with friends in the game then you may have a problem, especially if it starts to snowball. It could result in a corrosive, negative atmosphere among the players in the dressing room. You can’t afford to have that in the national squad. Happily, Van der Vaart isn’t like that.
What should you do? Play both, like various English coaches did with Lampard and Gerrard? Even though it makes no sense technically or tactically? In the Dutch squad, Van der Vaart was even used as a defensive midfielder. No problem on the ball, but not the best solution in the defensive lineup. Sneijder eventually survived the crisis and is still in the Dutch side. Yet the discussion continued almost throughout both their international careers, and that is of course far too long.
It wasn’t good for the players and it wasn’t good for the Dutch squad. And I considered both Sneijder and Van der Vaart to be good players. Eventually Van Marwijk chose a system (4-3-3 with Sneijder at the triangle pointing forward) with Van der Vaart as a left winger. In that position he rarely achieved the kind of success he was used to at his clubs.
Van der Vaart played 109 international games between 2001 and 2013 and scored twenty-five goals. Sneijder has played 120 games from 2003 to date, and has bagged twenty-nine goals.
Barcelona’s midfield
While two midfielders like Lampard and Gerrard or Van der Vaart and Sneijder were unable to play together, FC Barcelona’s three top midfielders—Xavi, Iniesta and Busquets—play very successfully in combination for their club and for the Spanish national team. They form a complementary trio: Xavi as the brains, Iniesta as the attacker going forward and Busquets as the connection and player blocking the opposing side’s lines of attack.
Although all three often leave the field with clean shorts, Busquets is the one who occasionally makes a sliding tackle. Iniesta’s shorts are more likely to need a wash because opponents try to floor him. Xavi is too smart, avoiding sliding tackles and individual tussles.
Xavi is the foundation of the midfield; he never loses the ball and makes sure that it gets to the forwards. He has a sixth sense for when to extend play from midfield to the forwards, without the forwards incurring any particular risk of losing the ball in a one-on-one.
Iniesta thinks ahead; he is an attacker, from the left, and takes more of a risk. His genius is to be able to deliver a final pass to one of the three forwards. Despite the extra risks he takes here and there, he hardly ever loses possession and he certainly can’t be got off the ball. He turns so easily and is so quick on his feet that he’s impossible to defend against. He always knows which way to turn, as if he has an extra pair of eyes in the back of his head.
Iniesta is not the kind of player to run great distances, or to even try—which does not really matter at Barcelona. Whenever the team loses possession it immediately applies pressure—that keeps distances short and players only have to move a couple of meters.
This style of play requires absolute concentration and continual focus on where the ball is and whether it has been lost. That means keeping a constant eye open and remaining alert to who’s standing where, both opponents and your own teammates, so you know which player to mark if your side loses the ball. And, as with Xavi, you always have to play to Iniesta’s feet. If you look for either of these two by playing the ball in the air—neither is taller than 5 feet 7 inches—you might as well just hand it over.
Standing behind these two is Sergio Busquets. While he sometimes comes up to the penalty area for corners and free kicks, Busquets’s principal task is to maintain balance in the formation; he is Barcelona’s “What if . . .?” guy. In fact Busquets is also solid as a rock on the ball. Yet he always gives every ball away, not to the opposition, but to Xavi or Iniesta.
You see: if the three players in midfield never lose the ball, they never have to do the work of regaining possession. In the buildup from the back, everyone always searches for Xavi, who creates more depth in the attack. This ensures that the other side has less time to reorganize. Sometimes Busquets and Xavi switch, yet they never get in each other’s way and complement each other almost without fault.
Conflict with the coach (1)
Messi’s role has changed as the seasons have passed, at least after the arrival of Luis Enrique as manager and later of the striker Luis Suárez. Under Guardiola, Messi’s role was that of striker. Occasionally he dropped back to give himself or other players space. Today he plays from wide on the right: in other words, he starts off in that position, from which he searches for free space, automatically opening up room for the advancing right back.
This pattern ensures that Barcelona always have four players in midfield and allows the two strikers, Neymar and Suáre
z, to move freely along the entire line of advance. That creates space for other members of the team who are continually cutting into the forwards. They can do that blindfolded since Messi, once he has the ball in midfield, almost never loses possession. Moreover, from there he can place the ball wherever he wants with meticulous precision. It couldn’t be easier. Start running. Messi will decide where to deliver his pass.
It took Luis Enrique two seasons to work out this system. No surprise that stories began to leak out in the first months of Enrique’s tenure that he was locked in conflict with Messi, something Pep Guardiola had never dared do after all the successes they had enjoyed together.
One of Guardiola’s successors, the Argentinian Gerardo Martino— who had come to Barça on Messi’s recommendation and was a good friend of Messi’s father—refused to get to grips with his star player and treated him with kid gloves, allowing Messi too much say and far too much influence. If a player gets to dictate what happens in a team, the club is on a downward slope. There can be no suggestion of parity between manager and player. The hierarchy that divides them should be maintained at all costs. You can’t even be friends or visit each other’s houses.
When Martino left and Luis Enrique took over, Messi began to take on the new manager by leaking the occasional dressing-room secret. This went too far and the club seemed ready to dismiss Luis Enrique, but eventually the manager won the battle of wills, with the support of Barcelona’s board. And rightly so. Kudos to Luis Enrique for sticking to his guns and managing to persuade Messi that he should give up his ambition to play as a striker, in the interests of the team and hence in the interests of FC Barcelona.
In fact the change in the club’s attacking lineup came suddenly. When he arrived from Liverpool, Luis Suárez still had to sit out his three-month suspension following the incident during the Uruguay vs Italy game at the World Cup in Brazil, when he bit Giorgio Chiellini. Once he was eligible for selection for Barcelona, Suárez played on the right wing for around three months. In late 2014/early 2015, after half a season in Catalonia, Suárez suddenly appeared as a striker, the position he had played in all his career at FC Groningen, Ajax and Liverpool.
Argentina’s Messi, the world’s best player, had made way for the Uruguayan Suárez.
Luis Enrique had finally managed to persuade Messi to give up his place as striker in the team’s interests—and by implication in Messi’s own self-interest. All the competitions subsequently won are proof that Messi’s sacrifice was the right move to make, with the Champions League title as the ultimate trophy. On the pitch Messi and Suárez are now generous to a fault, always looking around to combine and obviously enjoying every minute. The same goes for Neymar. You often see the three of them creasing up with laughter.
Messi is far less concerned now about scoring three, four or five goals or about competing with Ronaldo to be top scorer in Spain and Europe. He no longer cares. Last season Messi even let Suárez and Neymar take a few penalties and free kicks. These small examples say a lot about the way the players relate and play together. Each member of the super trio knows he needs the others and that, as a trio, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
That Messi agreed to accept this evolution is very much to his credit. One of the greatest players of all time placed his ego to one side in the interests of the team. It makes the Argentinian even better and more complete than he was. Although I hope he’ll always continue to dribble at helpless defenders.
Now that Messi has raised his profile as a team player, he has also emerged as far more of a leader of this Barcelona side. Together with Iniesta, he is the real heart of the current team, having started as a kind of guardian angel intervening at critical moments. Today almost every member of the team is capable of saving the day if necessary.
The best evidence of the change is the period in which Messi was out with an injury. It turned out that Barcelona could also win without Messi. Suárez, and especially Neymar, made the difference in those weeks. When Messi returned his teammates immediately passed the ball to him. Partly out of respect, because they all know that he and no one else is the heart of FC Barcelona.
His compatriot Martino made him the leader, let him train less and if the team needed to put the other side under pressure Messi was excused. That is not how a soccer team works. Fortunately, the board stepped in and brought Martino’s reign to an end and so too the privileges his star player had enjoyed. Luis Enrique took on the tough assignment of bringing the player into line, which he succeeded in doing. Meanwhile Messi has matured of his own accord into the role of generally accepted leader.
Conflict with the coach (2)
As a manager, I had to deal with a similar situation. You have to be able to persuade players you are right. Sometimes you manage it, and sometimes you don’t. If you can’t manage it and you don’t tackle the problem, then it’s time to go. I faced a dilemma like that at Chelsea.
The problem involved Dennis Wise, who played in central midfield. Wise had come from Wimbledon and still thought he was part of the Crazy Gang—as Wimbledon were known rather disparagingly. Wise suspected that as a foreign coach I wanted to fill Chelsea with foreign players. I thought Wise had great potential, one of my better players, but not in the way he reckoned.
An away game against Leicester City was the last straw for me. We were 1-0 down and Wise was going wild on the pitch. Tackling, running, flying, swearing and shouting, he was playing his own game entirely and at halftime I left him in the dressing room. Eventually we won the game, after which Wise just avoided me.
Two days later I heard from a mutual golfing friend that Wise had been complaining about me and objecting that I wanted to fill the side with foreigners. My friend knew better and had told him: “Dennis, it’s not true, believe me. I see Ruud often. You’re wrong, that’s not the way it is. If I were you I’d just call him.” Which is precisely what Wise did.
So I invited him to a meal and I told him: “Dennis, you’re one of my best players, but all you do is charge about and make trouble, getting yellow and red cards one after the other. I don’t need that. You’re too good to play like this. I need you on the field, not off it. You should be playing football. If you play as well as I think you can, you’ll be my captain and my best player. Will you do that for me?”
Dennis looked amazed and said: “Yes.”
So I continued: “Okay, no more yellow and red cards and nothing stupid. Take the captaincy and play as well as you can. I promise you, they’ll be asking you to join the England squad before too long.”
“Yeah,” he said. “Sure they will.”
But that’s exactly what happened.
It is extremely difficult to win a fight like that with a player in such a mind-set. You have to try though, and not walk away, because the player waiting to come out of that cocoon could be brilliant if you manage to get across to him what it is that you see and what it is you want.
Wingers
Ajax’s Sjaak Swart, Johan Cruijff’s support in the golden years, stayed close to the touchline: wingers had to have chalk on their boots. You hardly see players like Sjaak Swart these days. The outside right and left of yesteryear have become completely different players.
David Beckham was more than a right half and false outside right. He was a player who added a unique quality to a team with his passes and crosses. Beckham didn’t need to get past his opponent to be able to feed a dangerous ball to the striker. He could also perform on the inside, to make space for Dennis Irwin or Gary Neville. You had to play the ball to Beckham’s feet, not deep. That’s why he was always offering to take the ball in combinations.
Chris Waddle played deeper on the right than Beckham, but he also rarely reached the back line. As a left-footed player on the right, Waddle instinctively veered to the center. He and his manager Raymond Goethals at Olympique Marseille were twenty-five years ahead of their time. Waddle always gave us a
major headache at AC Milan. Pep Guardiola is one of the champions of playing a left-footed winger on the right and a right-footed winger on the left. He put his theory into practice at Bayern Munich with Arjen Robben and Franck Ribéry.
You would imagine that players of this caliber would invite more pressure by moving into the center, while forwards actually need space to be able to attack. That it nevertheless makes sense to move in is due to their speed; once they start dribbling they can pass their opponent’s weak leg and earn themselves that extra half meter to shoot at goal.
A right-footed forward on the left and a left-footed forward on the right are both able to move in from the side and shoot with their stronger foot. Here the forward rarely moves all the way to the touchline. In this formation, crosses are delivered from the touchline by wing backs.
The reason why Arjen Robben and Lionel Messi often score with the same kind of run—moving in from the wing and shooting—is simple: because they’re running at full speed and still in control. Defenders think they’ve got them, but they never have. Players like Robben and Messi run with small strides, so they actually shoot faster. Just when a defender is unable to block the shot because they’re on the wrong leg or their legs are apart, that’s when they shoot.
Robben and Messi have such an instinct for the game that they know exactly when to squeeze the trigger. For defenders who shadow them there’s always a critical moment when they’re vulnerable to the individual quality of a Robben or a Messi, who anticipate those moments and with their amazing insight are able to shoot at exactly the right time. That’s why their trick succeeds over and over again.