The Mixer: The Story of Premier League Tactics, from Route One to False Nines

by Michael Cox

  Zola discovered something similar. ‘At the beginning, the open English football really helped me, as I was coming from tighter marking in Serie A,’ he explained. Zola only arrived in England because his former club, Parma, had an inflexible coach who was unwilling to deviate from 4–4–2. Amazingly, this was Carlo Ancelotti, who would later become the go-to manager for continental giants awash with superstars – including Chelsea – precisely because he was flexible enough to build teams around star individuals. Back then, however, Ancelotti – who had been Italy’s assistant coach under legendary manager Arrigo Sacchi, the man who popularised a pressing 4–4–2 system – simply wouldn’t accommodate a number 10, turning down Baggio for similar reasons, and attempted to play Zola out wide. ‘I will be able to play my proper role in England,’ Zola declared upon his arrival in London.

  Zola had served his apprenticeship at Napoli under the best possible mentor. ‘I learned everything from Diego Maradona,’ he admitted. While famous for his ego, Maradona was also renowned for being extremely generous with his praise of his Napoli teammates, and he loved Zola so much that, ahead of a Coppa Italia tie against Pisa, he handed the Sardinian his famous number 10 shirt, and wore number 9 instead. Zola was forced to settle for 25 at Chelsea, with Mark Hughes in his favoured 10 shirt, but it became an iconic number. Although not officially retired by Chelsea, no one has dared to wear Zola’s number 25 since his departure in 2003.

  Zola’s technical ability was outstanding. His first goal was a magnificent free-kick in a 2–2 draw with Everton, and only David Beckham has scored more Premier League free-kicks. Zola confirmed his status as Chelsea’s dead-ball specialist after a training-ground competition with Dennis Wise. A sock was tied to the crossbar – both were five foot six, so this presumably involved one sitting on the other’s shoulders – and they stood outside the box and attempted to curl the ball against the sock. Zola won 10–1, and the matter was settled. Dismayed by the lack of equipment at Chelsea’s old training ground near Heathrow Airport, Zola purchased his own mock defensive wall and spent hours practising.

  While Cantona was tall and physically commanding, Zola was small, slight and wore size 5 boots. He was strong for his size, however, and used his body excellently. Chelsea teammate Graeme Le Saux considered him the joint best forward he’d ever seen, along with Kenny Dalglish, at the art of shielding the ball from defenders. But more than anyone else of this era, Zola thrived upon space, a classic example being his winner in the 1997 FA Cup semi-final against Wimbledon at Highbury. Initially positioned high up against the opposition defence, Zola watched teammate Roberto Di Matteo moving between the lines, dragging Wimbledon’s right-sided centre-back Chris Perry up the pitch. Zola then sprinted into the space Perry had vacated, pulling Wimbledon’s left-sided centre-back Dean Blackwell across to cover. Di Matteo played the ball into Zola’s feet, and Chelsea’s number 25 immediately backheeled it into the zone Blackwell had vacated, changed direction, collected the ball and fired home. In a few seconds, he’d seen space, exploited it, created more space, exploited that, and scored. For a player in his mould, it was the perfect goal.

  Crucially, Zola was allowed a ‘free role’ behind the main striker, in a Chelsea side formatted specifically to bring out his qualities. Centre-back Steve Clarke remembers a team talk in which the message was simply ‘get the ball to Zola’, while Wise referred to Zola as a ‘showhorse’ and labelled himself a ‘donkey’. The donkey’s job, he said, was simply to do the hard work and pass to the showhorse. ‘Historically [English sides] have been set up with two strong strikers, two sitting midfielders and two wingers,’ Zola said after his retirement. ‘You never used to play the ball through the middle. What you used to do was play the ball down the sides and cross the ball to the tall player.’ Zola, like Cantona and Bergkamp, helped to change that.

  ‘He’s a clever little bugger … a better player than I thought he was,’ Alex Ferguson had conceded two months earlier, after Zola scored a fine second-minute goal against Manchester United, dribbling inside from the right before finishing with his left foot. ‘I thought we could push my full-backs forward, but he was smart enough to go and play wide. He has got a good head on him.’ Later, Ryan Giggs claimed that such was Zola’s ability to find space that he was the only Premier League player United man-marked, although this often proved unsuccessful. For Chelsea’s 5–0 thrashing of United in October 1999, Ferguson was without Giggs and played Phil Neville in his place, but instructed him to play centrally, man-marking Zola. United largely nullified the Italian but left a gaping hole on their left, which meant Chelsea’s Albert Ferrer and Dan Petrescu, two right-backs in tandem, assisted the opening two goals with deep crosses.

  While Premier League observers marvelled at these majestic, game-changing foreign number 10s, there was nevertheless an acknowledgement that many arrived in Britain because they had limited options elsewhere. Cantona had effectively been run out of France, Bergkamp struggled in Italy with Inter Milan, while Zola had recently turned 30, then considered the cut-off for forwards’ peak years, and admitted he only expected to play for a couple more seasons. There was a sense that the Premier League was gaining top-class players when they were on the way down. Therefore, in one respect the most significant arrival during this period was another foreign number 10: Juninho. Newly promoted Middlesbrough’s purchase of the diminutive Brazilian in 1995 was a truly remarkable transfer coup, because he was unquestionably on the way up.

  Juninho had impressed on English soil that summer, when world champions Brazil competed alongside England, Sweden and Japan in the Umbro Cup, a tournament held as preparation for the following summer’s European Championships. Juninho wore Brazil’s number 10, the most iconic shirt in world football, played in a 4–3–1–2 system based around him and was inspirational in the 3–1 victory over England. He opened the scoring with a classic Brazilian ‘folha seca’ (dry leaf) free-kick, played with topspin, which surprised goalkeeper Tim Flowers with its sudden dip. Simply being allowed to take free-kicks ahead of Roberto Carlos was an achievement in itself. Brazil’s second goal, meanwhile, showcased Juninho’s playmaking skills perfectly; he received the ball between the lines, glanced up and sidefooted a through-ball into the path of another promising youngster, Brazil’s number 9, who finished confidently by rounding Flowers and converting into an empty net. It was the first of Ronaldo’s 62 international goals, and yet everyone was talking about Juninho.

  In the home dugout at Wembley that sunny afternoon was Bryan Robson, then acting as assistant to England manager Terry Venables in addition to his role as player-manager of Middlesbrough. Mesmerised by the opposition number 10’s performance, Robson convinced Middlesbrough’s board to sign Juninho, beating the likes of Arsenal, Inter and Porto to the Brazilian’s signature. Middlesbrough chief executive Keith Lamb referred to his new recruit as ‘the most sought-after player in the world’. Hyperbole, certainly, and somewhat undermined by the fact that Juninho cost less than Middlesbrough’s other major arrival that summer, Nicky Barmby, but this was a landmark purchase, a rising player joining a rising team in a rising league.

  His unveiling was a huge event in Middlesbrough. Fans greeted him at the airport with Brazilian flags, more cheered as he arrived at the new Riverside Stadium in scenes reminiscent of a papal visit, then 6,000 moved inside to watch him play keepy-uppies with Robson. His first press conference didn’t pass without one inevitable question. ‘Does he know how cold it gets in Middlesbrough in January?’ asked one journalist. Juninho, through a translator, insisted it wouldn’t be that bad, although he was often criticised by pundits for playing in gloves, and during his first winter stuffed newspaper inside his boots in an attempt to keep his feet warm. Robson responded by describing Juninho as a ‘tough character’ – and most top-class Brazilian attackers are. The cliché about Brazil suggests it’s non-stop samba football, played by technical players who learn their trade playing on the Copacabana. Realistically, the Brazilian top flight is extre
mely aggressive: it’s not simply that defenders kick attackers ferociously, it’s that referees allow it, and so Juninho’s transition from Brazilian to English football wasn’t as tough as many anticipated.

  Immediately afforded a free role by Robson, Juninho used that licence fully on his debut against Leeds, starting on the right flank before quickly drifting across to the left. He played two killer through-balls inside the first half, setting up Jan Åge Fjørtoft for the opener. Inevitably, Leeds’s response was to kick him, and both Carlton Palmer and John Pemberton were booked for fouling the Brazilian. The Independent’s match report remarked upon his ‘surprising courage’ and ended with an acknowledgement that ‘perhaps he is tougher than anyone thought.’ Indeed, his final significant contribution before being substituted was a thundering tackle on legendary crossbar-botherer Tony Yeboah, one of the Premier League’s most powerful players, which earned a booking. That went down well, as fans wanted proof he would get stuck in.

  A fresh-faced, slender creator whose name meant ‘Little Junior’ – so small they named him twice – the Brazilian wasn’t expected to thrive in English conditions, but Juninho loved the north-east and loved English football. The club found him a house in Ingleby Barwick, a large housing estate, and he moved in with his entire family, which helped him settle. Juninho’s house became something of a local landmark, with children queuing outside for his autograph. His mum made them cookies, and Juninho wasn’t averse to the occasional kickabout in the street.

  Juninho was tricky but direct in possession, efficient with the ball rather than a showboater. He was an instant hit, and unquestionably in the class of the aforementioned number 10s, later playing a significant role in Brazil’s 2002 World Cup triumph. In Juninho’s second season, Alex Ferguson described him as the Premier League’s best player and later considered signing him. His finest moment in English football arrived during that campaign, a 1–0 home victory over Chelsea in March. He outshone Zola and created a succession of chances, wasted by Craig Hignett and Mikkel Beck. Eventually, he settled things himself. Receiving the ball wide on the left, he slalomed between Wise and Di Matteo and evaded a desperate lunge from Chelsea’s third central midfielder, Craig Burley, before slipping the ball into the left-hand channel for Beck. The Danish striker paused, and then chipped the ball into the box for a perfect diving header from – of all people – five-foot-six Juninho. The Brazilian magician wasn’t simply performing the duties expected of a Brazilian number 10, outwitting the entire opposition midfield, but also the duties of an English number 9, beating Chelsea’s centre-backs to score a header. ‘I don’t know what Juninho’s running on at the moment,’ Robson said afterwards. ‘He isn’t looking tired, he’s keeping pace with the game – and he’s tackling back!’ Make that the qualities of an English number 4, too.

  In his second season Juninho was handed Middlesbrough’s number 10 shirt, having worn 25 in his debut campaign, and was also named the Premier League’s Player of the Season. Admittedly not as prestigious an award as the PFA or FWA Player of the Year, it was nevertheless an acknowledgement of his great influence. And yet, staggeringly for one of the league’s most revered players, Juninho ended the campaign sobbing on the pitch as Middlesbrough were relegated.

  Basing the side around Juninho didn’t pay dividends. When Juninho made his debut for Middlesbrough in November 1995, the Teesiders were sixth, having lost to only the two title challengers, Manchester United and Newcastle. Despite Juninho’s impact, their form nosedived dramatically. They were atrocious in the second half of the season, winning just two of 19 matches. They finished 12th, but in points terms, were closer to relegation than 11th.

  The 1996/97 relegation campaign was also strange for Middlesbrough. They reached both the League Cup and FA Cup finals, losing to Leicester City and Chelsea respectively – a devastating double blow for a club that had never won a major honour (although Juninho would later help them to League Cup success seven years later, then into his third spell on Teeside – he simply couldn’t stay away). Granted, Middlesbrough’s relegation was partly because they were deducted three points for withdrawing from a December fixture at Blackburn when half their squad had been wiped out by flu, but you can’t ignore the fact that they had the division’s worst defensive record. There were also major problems in the dressing room, particularly involving star striker Fabrizio Ravanelli, a divisive influence. He once interrupted a team meeting with a lengthy rant in Italian about wanting to leave, and had a fight with Neil Cox before the FA Cup Final after the right-back suggested Ravanelli wasn’t fit enough to start. ‘Half the squad hated him and the other half loved him,’ said Hignett. ‘He was one of the best finishers I’ve seen, but he rubbed people up the wrong way. He was selfish in everything he did.’

  Meanwhile Juninho, while individually brilliant and very popular with teammates, caused Middlesbrough problems. Like Cantona, Bergkamp and Zola, he thrived in space between the lines, but was a different type of footballer. An advanced midfielder rather than a withdrawn forward, he ventured into deeper positions to collect possession. He therefore wasn’t suited to a deep-lying forward role in a 4–4–1–1 like the aforementioned players, and Robson constantly changed his shape in an attempt to base the side around both Juninho and Barmby, deploying 4–3–2–1 or 3–4–2–1 in his first season. It didn’t quite work defensively, and getting the best from two players between the lines was difficult. Both Juninho and Barmby had a better relationship with the underrated Hignett, and Barmby departed after 18 months for Everton, leaving Juninho as the sole creator. His form improved, and a 6–1 thrashing of Derby demonstrated Middlesbrough’s potential. ‘I am now playing as well as I ever did in Brazil, but I think that is because I have found my best position,’ Juninho said. In other words, the system was based around him.

  In that second season Juninho suffered from fatigue, not helped by Middlesbrough’s double cup run – or by international trips to South America, then an unprecedented problem for Premier League clubs. His biggest problem, though, was man-marking – Middlesbrough didn’t have a Plan B when Juninho was nullified. The most famous example came during the 1998 League Cup Final defeat to Leicester. Two weeks beforehand in the league, Juninho had torn apart the Foxes in a 3–1 victory, so for the trip to Wembley, Leicester boss Martin O’Neill deployed Pontus Kåmark to follow the Brazilian everywhere across the pitch. In a 2011 interview discussing nearly 25 years in management, O’Neill said he’d never sent his teams out to be anything other than positive – apart from that final, when he knew he needed to concentrate on stopping Juninho. ‘If you had seen him a fortnight before running riot at Filbert Street, only a fool would have chosen not to man-mark him,’ he said. Many other managers thought the same; stop Juninho, and you stopped Middlesbrough. Ultimately, it ended with their relegation.

  This became a familiar pattern among bottom-half clubs – brilliant individuals who weren’t necessarily conducive to Premier League success. Bolton spent a club record £1.5m on Yugoslav playmaker Saša Ćurčić, who scored one of the goals of 1995/96 against Chelsea, ghosting past five challenges and playing a one-two with Alan Thompson before firing home. Bolton finished bottom that season. ‘I was a crowd pleaser, everywhere the fans loved me,’ Ćurčić recalled. ‘But I wasn’t very good for the team because I wasn’t a team player.’

  Another inventive playmaker who scored a memorable solo goal that season was Manchester City’s Georgi Kinkladze – the epitome of a frustrating genius – who demonstrated the dangers of building your side around a number 10. Like Juninho, Kinkladze was recruited after a sensational performance against British opposition, at a time when Premier League scouts rarely looked abroad for new players. Kinkladze was inspirational in Georgia’s 5–0 thrashing of Wales in November 1994, a seismic result; just three years after Georgia had gained independence, it was their first-ever competitive victory. Deployed behind Temuri Ketsbaia and Shota Arveladze in a 4–3–1–2, Kinkladze ran the game and grabbed his first
international goal. ‘They murdered us,’ Wales goalkeeper Neville Southall later recalled. ‘Kinkladze was different class and the best player on the pitch by a mile.’ In the return fixture the following summer – four days before Juninho’s performance at Wembley captured Middlesbrough’s attention – Kinkladze again dominated. This time he scored the game’s only goal, an incredible 25-yard, left-footed chip over Southall.

  The Georgian was tracked by other clubs, and had unsuccessful trials at both Real and Atlético Madrid – and, intriguingly, a month-long loan at Boca Juniors, who revere the number 10 role more than any club in world football, where Kinakladze met his idol Maradona. None of them signed Kinkladze permanently, however, and instead he joined Manchester City as Alan Ball’s first signing. Ball and Kinkladze’s City experience started disastrously. City collected two points from their first 11 games, scoring just three goals, while Kinkladze struggled; homesick, unable to speak English and living in a Manchester hotel on his own for three months. Juninho was happy in Middlesbrough partly because he’d emigrated with his parents, and Kinkladze’s improvement coincided with the arrival of two Georgian friends and his mother, Khatuna, who brought some home comforts: Georgian cognac and walnuts, and spices to make Kinkladze his favourite dishes.

  Kinkladze scored his first goal in November, a late winner in the 1–0 victory over Aston Villa at Maine Road. ‘He was bewildered to start with,’ Ball said afterwards. ‘He spoke very little English and it was foreign to him to tackle and scrap and fight like you do in England. But the boy’s got an immense talent.’ His Premier League spell is best remembered for a couple of truly magnificent goals. The first opened the scoring against Middlesbrough in December 1995, when he collected the ball on the right and dribbled into an inside-left position, before suddenly cutting back inside Phil Stamp and sidefooting the ball firmly into the far corner. Middlesbrough eventually won 4–1, however, with Juninho completing the scoring.