Bored of Education wrote:


Although I reiterate that I would prefer to see a somewhat different style of play or at least have Fabregas and Alonso take more shots from outside the area.

That said, it's hard to argue with the results. They went up 1-0 on a well-worked goal against a French side with two attacking players and then killed the game off. Blanc, not Spain, deserves the majority of the blame for the way that game played out.

Some of the criticism of Spain here also reminds me of when people used to moan about Italian football being slow and obsessed with possession but the difference is that Italian teams passed it around the back whereas Spain and Barcelona pass it around further up the field

but the defensive line has just retreated twenty or thirty yards to compensate, and it's now equally dull.

The Spanish defensive line or the opposition defensive line?

I can understand those raised on the determination football and the constant change of posession which is the hallmark of British football being turned off watching Spain.

Its like a man raised on burgers not liking steak as there is no bun,cheese or ketchup served with his meal.

The opposition. It's still the same mexican standoff, but in a slightly different part of the pitch.

The standoff is not mexican.

Bored of Education wrote



You'll concede you're talking from a massive disadvantage having not seen the whole game and only a highlights package squeezed between ads?

Even those defending Spain on here have largely conceded it was a pretty dreadful game.



A) talk of "pure technique" is arrant pseud nonsense.

B) you do realise that tiki-taka, 4-6-0 and all that are examples of tactics?

C) if "there's very little you can do" against tiki-taka I wonder how Barca lost their CL and Spanish titles this season

I very much doubt that Portugal's defensive line will be that high up the pitch and we will see how they get on. The problem is that teams think that there is some tactical way of getting around them and most of those ways include sitting deep. It just takes one team that are up there in the technical ability stakes to take them on and we will see a different game. Germany can and I think Portugal might.

Beltrano Carpinteiro wrote:


I've been thinking about this, ostensibly Barcelona are a better team than Spain and yet they are beatable where as Spain seemingly are not and I've come to the conclusion that it's just down to the number of competitive games they play.

Barcelona play more competitive games, so once in a while, enough things will go against them to swing the result in favour of the opposition, where as Spain only play a handful of truly competitive matches per season, so it's a smaller sample size and random factors don't have as much effect. I guess the last time the fate's aligned was when they lost to Switzerland, hopefully for the sake of the rest of Europe (and the World) another Perfect Storm is on it's way and Portugal (or Germany/Italy) will be able to benefit.

Ah, you're off again, Harry.

I am saying that I enjoyed that match in highlights not that I am basing my whole viewpoint of Spain on this tournament on this

If "pure technique" is errant nonsense, how do you explain that I can put the idea into practice, as Spain do, from junior football stage without mention of tactics. Psued nonsense is the idea that football is some sort of chess that can be won by applying tactical algorithms.

"tiki-taka", a term I am not sure I like particularly, it doesn't seem to translate well, is technique. It's excellent passing pure and simple and can be taught to any child.

4-6-0 is a case of putting the best players out there on the field rather than keeping their players off as they don't fit into a system, in the manner that England often did. it's only 4-6-0 in tacticians eyes as they have to explain why there is no designated striker. It is actually that they are rotating the attacking options all the time.

As far as your last point is concerned, I am not sure why you conflate Barca and Spain as they are different teams with subtly different approaches (albeit they conflated in a lampooning manner) but no-one is saying that either team with never be beaten perhaps over a game or a season. Indeed, Spain may be beaten this Euro but I am not expecting them to change their system or for it to become less successful any time soon.

As I say, teams will have to beat them by being technically as good as them and that is why Germany and, perhaps, Portugal are the only teams that look like it presently.

I disagree about it not being 4-6-0. You can see when Torres comes on that the formation changes: he stays up against the last defender all the time and is a true 'forward' in that sense. Silva and Fabregas are attacking midfield players running into the box but starting from well in front of the back four.

You can check this by asking how much space separates the six midfield players during an attack: answer, not much until they start to spread the play during the move.

I wouldn't disagree with you except that Torres often does come deep and this is my point. Calling it 4-6-0 is implying that that is what is during the whole game which is missing the point and one of the constraints of labelling tactics. Spain often sit 4-6-0 but, at different times, are 4-5-1, 4-4-2, 4-3-3 and even 5-5-0 depending on what they, and to a lesser extent, the other team are doing with the ball.

Obviously, what you (and, I assume, Harry) are talking about is the 'starting' position that they start at when they start a move (and, obviously, other teams would revert to when they haven't got the ball) but, even then, I am not sure that it is that set. The Spanish players have a greater amount of autonomy in setting the shape of the team than a lot of others. I mean they are not "Total Football" yet but, if there was any team that was going to achieve this, it would be a future Spanish team coming out of this system

I'm sorry. I don't know what's going on with my computer double posting

It's no coincidence that all these managers of nations good, bad or indifferent who come up against Spain invariably decide that defending in depth is the way to at least maximise your chances. I think they are all eminently sensible to be honest.

I'll wager Portugal will be no more positive on Wednesday than they were in 2010.



Don't think he does when he is playing. He will drift out wide sometimes, but rarely deep.

Bored of Education wrote:


Hmmm, putting your ideas in to practise here is coaching one set of twelve year olds, yes? That would be like me claiming I am revolutionising the education system by helping my three with their homework.

I'm not sure of it's relevance to a discussion about Spain.

Ha ha, that is fantastic. I love the way you try to demean junior football coaching by somehow trying to separate it from professional coaching like there is some magic machine that children pass through when they get to 15 or 16. I suppose this is the reason that most professional football associations and clubs (including Barca and Spain) look at the development of children at exactly the level that I am coaching at? This is the reason why the fairly successful if ruthless Southampton Academy that brought through Bale, Walcott and Oxlade-Chamberlain send scouts to tournaments like the one my team played at yesterday and approached one of my players when he was 8? This is the reason that Scott Sinclair and Ashley Barnes came from exactly the same club that I am coaching at?

I suppose you are saying that you have more idea because you passively observe games and note your perception of the tactics that you see? Is that why there are so many tactics wonks involved in football? I mean, the writers of the two most excellent books on the subject, Andy Gray and Jonathon Wilson have hardly been called upon greatly to put their analysis into practice

You appear to have an idea that I am coaching a completely different sport from the professional game whereas I (like all other junior coaches) are laying the seeds of the professional game which explains both the failings and successes of different countries.

Your point about homework, apart from being facile and desperate, is you falling into the trap of many parents and, indeed, arm/grandstand chair supporters of thinking that, because you can see and read about something, you can do it. As a coach and student teacher, I have been trained in what I am doing and then put it into practice so that I can observe, analyse, reflect upon and critique what I have done and react to that and change what I am doing accordingly.

Now, obviously, I am not saying that makes me Guardiola or whatever but I am effectively doing the same thing but at a different level and, obviously, with a differing degree of expertise and, indeed, targets. It does put me at a certain advantage of understanding the nuts and bolts. In the same manner, I understand more about the making of music at any level because I am a musician than a passive observer who doesn't play music.

Now, that doesn't mean that I have any greater say over anyone else about how good art is or, indeed, how good football is but it does mean that I have a greater understanding of how to play an instrument, sing, write a song or perform than those that just observe or critique it.

I mean don;t get me wrong, this doesn't mean that there aren't terrible coaches having terrible effects on players at a young level but, in a sense, that proves my point. Coaches at my level can have a great effect on professional players. Hence England, a country of 51 million people can underperform so much. It isn't down to tactics. They have had great tacticians and not-so great tacticians and it hasn't made much difference in the modern age. It is down to dreadful coaching at this level as much as anything. Hence an international team that can't pass the ball being outperformed time and again by countries with much smaller pools of players to pick from like Holland and Portugal.

Amongst tactics and technique, we are, of course, ignoring player management, which is another important part of coaching which you learn at junior level as well and is difficult to pick up from just observing games but that is another thread in itself

By the way, if you don't understand the relevance to Spain, it is that Spain understand that technique at this level of junior football is more important than anything else in developing professional footballers able to win European Championships and World Cups.

Bored, all I am pointing out is that you are an amateur hobbyist and that doesn't give your theory that Spain are nothing more than "pure technique" any particular credence.

You're trying to extrapolate a whole load of bizarre other points from that but most of it is really arguing against things nobody has said.

Also, this great divide you seem to have created in your head between coaching and tactics is extremely peculiar when good management (such as that which created the current Spain model) is all about a fusion of the two as a basis.

Harry, you are just pick and choosing from what I have said and re-interpreting it to suit you.

Whether I am full-time or paid makes no difference at all and doesn't add anything to your attempted downplaying of my experience. I am qualified and have loads of experience. I am only partly qualified in teaching and unpaid and yet I could still teach a class better than you, regardless of how good you are helping your children with their homework.

My extrapolations are no more bizarre than your facile homework one and a lot more informed. If you do something at any level, you have more understanding of the benefits, difficulties and pitfalls of that activity than if you just observe it, however many time. You have seen bands play literally thousands of songs. Can you write a song? No. I have seen a thousands of gigs, can I put book a tour? No. Well, possibly but not from just observing gigs. You have watched thousands of football matches, can you manage or coach a team? Probably not. Can I? Yes and probably could do at any age.

This supposed divide you have got arse about face. Tactics make up for the deficiencies of your own team and players. The more technically proficient your players the less you need to rely upon tactics. In this example, 4-6-0 (if it is that) is a mad tactic that no-one in their right mind would use. Certainly, it won't, like many other tactics, be copied or a la mode as you can only do it with the type of players that Spain have got.

What I am saying is that tactics are less relevant when your players are technically proficient. You point about good management being about a fusion of those two is incomplete as well as, like I say, it is as much about man management as well, indeed, mostly so, to an extent. You get good coaches and good tacticians but you also need to be able to get the players to do what what you, have confidence in you and work as a team

Bored of Education wrote:


"We're both good in our own fields. I'm sure Texas couldn't run and manage a successful paper merchants. I couldn't do what..., well, I could do what they do, and I think they knew that, even back then. Probably what spurred them on. "

Funny. Completely irrelevant to what I am saying but, you know, knock yourself out.