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Tuesday, June 26, 2012
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
Is Sir Alex’s tactical change based on lessons learned from CL Final ?
Sir Alex Ferguson has overcome all his adversaries that he has faced over the course of his time as the coach of Manchester United. Be it Arsene Wenger, Jose Mourinho, Rafa Benitez, Sir Bobby Robson, Kenny Dalglish, Caludio Ranieri, Kevin Keegan, Gerrard Houllier, Sven-Goran Eriksson, Roberto Mancini, Carlo Ancelotti or any of the greats that have graced European Football, and all have fallen victim to the Wiley Scot’s Red Devils.
Read On
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
Risky strategy by the reigning champions
A recent article on BackPageFootball about FC Barcelona and Real Madrid monopoly over La Liga and their predicted domination in Champions League churned the thought process in my head. Is this going to be the year where the current champions retain their crown for the first time since the Champions League was established? Or would this be the year when Real Madrid gets their la decima Champions League trophy. Being a Barcelona fan, I would like the former but even an ardent fan like me has his doubts. Why? You may ask. There are at least a couple reasons causing this worry. Please let me list each one of them with as much supporting evidence as I can for you to conclude and hope for the best against growing suspicion.
Click on this link to read on
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Thiago Alcantara - The next Xavi ?
The buzz in the football world pre and post U-21 Euro is that of an FC Barcelona midfielder Thiago Alcântara do Nascimento. Like many youngsters nowadays, he is already compared to a footballing great and his compatriot from Barca and Spain, Xavi. His stock has risen dramatically post European championship with his scintillating performance with the the likes of Arsenal and Chelsea is hot pursuit.With his signature on the dotted line tying him up to Barca till 2015 with a 90 Million Euro release clause, its safe to say that all the transfer speculation surrounding him has been laid to rest at least for the next couple of years. With the whole transfer speculation behind him, he can concentrate on the field to become a footballing great he wishes to become. The million dollar question is, who does he want to emulate to become a footballing great ? Xavi ?
There is no question that Xavi is one of best footballer of the last decade if not the best. With the illustrious company of Messi, Ronaldo and Ronaldinhio and Zidane to name a few, there is no straight answer to who the best is/was. What made Xavi to be considered in the list is not the individual brilliance as shown by the above mentioned names but how much his team, Barca and Spain depended on him for every single trophy they won in the last few years. In essence the 2 Champions League, The numereous League titles, the European trophy and the Worldcup was in large part due to Xavi's contribution. Any midfielder not wanting to emulate Xavi or achieve the amount of success he has achieved has to be crazy.
So is Thiago truly the next Xavi ? He has the passing ability that Xavi possesses. He can dictate the pace of any game as seen in his Barca B and Euro games, another of Xavi's trait. He can find the final killer pass to an onrushing forward just like Xavi does. But in some sense he is more than Xavi. He has a flair about his game typical of his Brazilian heritage. He has the ability to score spectacular goals from 30 yards out and he can dribble the ball through a maze within a blink of an eye. These are envious traits that Xavi would love to have. For as good as a footballer Xavi is, the one thing that sets him apart from his illustrious company of best footballers of the last decade is his style or lack of it. He does not provide that one piece of showmanship that the other footballers provide. He cannot dribble the ball through a bunch of defenders, he prefers to pass the ball through them. He cannot do step overs to confuse his opponents, he can pass the ball through their legs if needed. He does not turn and spin with the ball, he walks with the ball waiting for perfect moment to thread the ball into a strikers path. But Thiago can do all of those and score goals too. Thiago scored 3 goals from the 17 appearances he made in the 2010/2011 season. He was not even a starter in most of those games. Compare that to the 5 goals Xavi scored in his 50 appearances and you see a distinction cropping up.
In many ways Thiago is more of an Iniesta than Xavi. In the absense of Xavi, Iniesta has done wonderfully filling in Xavi's shoes. When Xavi is present though, Iniesta's role is much different. He likes to sit much higher than Xavi. He provides many assists as well as goals, a skill that he recently added to his arsenal. He provided 15 assists compared to the16 of Xavi while outscoring his Spanish compatriot 9 to 5 on the goal front. Iniesta is much more dynamic compared to Xavi. He likes to take on defenders and dribble, can play both wide and central midfield as well as wide forward and in his days with Frank Rijkaard, he even tried his hand at being a defensive midfielder with varying degree of success. Thiago has all the qualities to emulate Iniesta and surpass him in the scoring department too. Thiago has oodles of confidence and can only get better as he matures. He can be the perfect backup for Iniesta with Fabregas being Xavi's deputy. This would give Barca 4 combination of class and flair in the midfield with Busquets and Mash giving the teath to the midfield.
With the amount of talent that Barca posses and phisolosophy of the beautiful game, there are many more years of dominance in store in La Liga and Chanpions League and I almost forgot to mention World domination. Watch out Madrid, you need not more than Mourinho to conquer the footballing world with this Barca.
There is no question that Xavi is one of best footballer of the last decade if not the best. With the illustrious company of Messi, Ronaldo and Ronaldinhio and Zidane to name a few, there is no straight answer to who the best is/was. What made Xavi to be considered in the list is not the individual brilliance as shown by the above mentioned names but how much his team, Barca and Spain depended on him for every single trophy they won in the last few years. In essence the 2 Champions League, The numereous League titles, the European trophy and the Worldcup was in large part due to Xavi's contribution. Any midfielder not wanting to emulate Xavi or achieve the amount of success he has achieved has to be crazy.
So is Thiago truly the next Xavi ? He has the passing ability that Xavi possesses. He can dictate the pace of any game as seen in his Barca B and Euro games, another of Xavi's trait. He can find the final killer pass to an onrushing forward just like Xavi does. But in some sense he is more than Xavi. He has a flair about his game typical of his Brazilian heritage. He has the ability to score spectacular goals from 30 yards out and he can dribble the ball through a maze within a blink of an eye. These are envious traits that Xavi would love to have. For as good as a footballer Xavi is, the one thing that sets him apart from his illustrious company of best footballers of the last decade is his style or lack of it. He does not provide that one piece of showmanship that the other footballers provide. He cannot dribble the ball through a bunch of defenders, he prefers to pass the ball through them. He cannot do step overs to confuse his opponents, he can pass the ball through their legs if needed. He does not turn and spin with the ball, he walks with the ball waiting for perfect moment to thread the ball into a strikers path. But Thiago can do all of those and score goals too. Thiago scored 3 goals from the 17 appearances he made in the 2010/2011 season. He was not even a starter in most of those games. Compare that to the 5 goals Xavi scored in his 50 appearances and you see a distinction cropping up.
In many ways Thiago is more of an Iniesta than Xavi. In the absense of Xavi, Iniesta has done wonderfully filling in Xavi's shoes. When Xavi is present though, Iniesta's role is much different. He likes to sit much higher than Xavi. He provides many assists as well as goals, a skill that he recently added to his arsenal. He provided 15 assists compared to the16 of Xavi while outscoring his Spanish compatriot 9 to 5 on the goal front. Iniesta is much more dynamic compared to Xavi. He likes to take on defenders and dribble, can play both wide and central midfield as well as wide forward and in his days with Frank Rijkaard, he even tried his hand at being a defensive midfielder with varying degree of success. Thiago has all the qualities to emulate Iniesta and surpass him in the scoring department too. Thiago has oodles of confidence and can only get better as he matures. He can be the perfect backup for Iniesta with Fabregas being Xavi's deputy. This would give Barca 4 combination of class and flair in the midfield with Busquets and Mash giving the teath to the midfield.
With the amount of talent that Barca posses and phisolosophy of the beautiful game, there are many more years of dominance in store in La Liga and Chanpions League and I almost forgot to mention World domination. Watch out Madrid, you need not more than Mourinho to conquer the footballing world with this Barca.
Thursday, June 16, 2011
The Curious Case of Marchisio
For any football fan, Marchisio is perfect kind of footballer who can adapt to any given role and do a great job at it. As evident from the last two seasons at Juventus, Marchisio played a variety of roles, from being a creative midfielder, wide midfielder, attacking midfielder and a defensive midfielder and he did an admirable job in all these roles. He has all the attributes to excel in all. Growing up in the Juventus youth system , he played primarily as a trequartista and later shifting to a more central role. He had opportunities to work with a number of great coaches since his first stint at training with the first team in 2006. Though limited, he had the opportunity to learn from coaching greats like Cappello, Deshchamps and Ranieri. Thought Marchisio is known for his verstality and consistency, he hasnt reached the true potential he is capable of. This is primarily due the varying roles that he has been asked to fill in for the last two years. Never once has he spoken against any of those decision, but it has definetily contributed towards the slow progress he has made. Being 25, he has a few more years to peak, but the 2011/12 season could be critical in making him from a footballer who can be good at a variety of position to one that is great in his position. He is often compared to one of the Italian greats in Tardelli, which he has the capability to emulate and this author thinks that would be a perfect role for him.
In the current Juventus setup, the role of Filipe Melo is that of a destroyer. His athleticism, hard tackling ability and the ability to shield the defense has been phenomenal this past season, but he lacks a partner in the mold of ala Xabi Alonso, Busquets who can be a link (A fast link unlike Aquilani) between him in defense and attack. As examples, first Xabi Alonso and Mascherano at Liverpool, then Xabi Alonso and Khedira at Real Madrid. Similar pairing of Pique/ Mascherano and Busquets at Barca though both Pique and Masch played as defenders. Thiago Motta and Wesley Sneijder (More of an attacking playmaker) at Inter. The commonality in the above comparison is one (Masch, Khedira, Thiago) are good readers of the game and stopping attacks and passing the ball to other. Its the job of Xabi, Busquets and the Snieder to bring the ball forward for the attacking players. This role seems like a perfect fit for Marchisio at Juventus. Now with the addition of Pirlo to the Juve, Marchisio has one of the greatest deep lying playmakers of his era to learn the art from. Marchisio can be one better than Pirlo with his athletism, hard tackling and good reading of game along with his passing skills. With Pirlo in the decline, the Italian national team will appreciate a player of his mold (I don't think Montolivo is that player).This at the same time will free up Aquilani to play an advanced role that he excelled at Roma and link up with the attacking talent present with Juve. This is one of the biggest shortcoming Juve had last season. With Aquilani playing deep, there was no link up with Matri in attack. With the emphasis on spreading the ball wide to wingers and moving them central towards Matri for linkup played in horribly with the one dimensional attack of Krasic and lack of skill from Pepe and Martinez.
As evident from Rafa Benitez's episode at Inter, its best for a Coach to adapt his strategy based on the talents at his disposal rather than molding his players to suit his strategy. With the current squad Juve has, a 4-2-3-1 system seems ideal. With Chiellini, Barzagli, Bonucci, Sorensen, Reto Ziegler, De Ceglie and a couple more quality full backs in front of Buffon, the defence area looks strong. With Melo and Marchisio/ Pirlo in front of the defense and Quagliarella/ New winger , Aquilani/ Del Peiro and Krasic adding the attacking threat along with Matri would make the team strong in alomost all dept and hopefully challenge for the Scudetto.
The biggest piece of puzzle for all this requires an essential conversion of one football player from being a jack of all trades, king of none to king of deep lying playmaker.
In the current Juventus setup, the role of Filipe Melo is that of a destroyer. His athleticism, hard tackling ability and the ability to shield the defense has been phenomenal this past season, but he lacks a partner in the mold of ala Xabi Alonso, Busquets who can be a link (A fast link unlike Aquilani) between him in defense and attack. As examples, first Xabi Alonso and Mascherano at Liverpool, then Xabi Alonso and Khedira at Real Madrid. Similar pairing of Pique/ Mascherano and Busquets at Barca though both Pique and Masch played as defenders. Thiago Motta and Wesley Sneijder (More of an attacking playmaker) at Inter. The commonality in the above comparison is one (Masch, Khedira, Thiago) are good readers of the game and stopping attacks and passing the ball to other. Its the job of Xabi, Busquets and the Snieder to bring the ball forward for the attacking players. This role seems like a perfect fit for Marchisio at Juventus. Now with the addition of Pirlo to the Juve, Marchisio has one of the greatest deep lying playmakers of his era to learn the art from. Marchisio can be one better than Pirlo with his athletism, hard tackling and good reading of game along with his passing skills. With Pirlo in the decline, the Italian national team will appreciate a player of his mold (I don't think Montolivo is that player).This at the same time will free up Aquilani to play an advanced role that he excelled at Roma and link up with the attacking talent present with Juve. This is one of the biggest shortcoming Juve had last season. With Aquilani playing deep, there was no link up with Matri in attack. With the emphasis on spreading the ball wide to wingers and moving them central towards Matri for linkup played in horribly with the one dimensional attack of Krasic and lack of skill from Pepe and Martinez.
As evident from Rafa Benitez's episode at Inter, its best for a Coach to adapt his strategy based on the talents at his disposal rather than molding his players to suit his strategy. With the current squad Juve has, a 4-2-3-1 system seems ideal. With Chiellini, Barzagli, Bonucci, Sorensen, Reto Ziegler, De Ceglie and a couple more quality full backs in front of Buffon, the defence area looks strong. With Melo and Marchisio/ Pirlo in front of the defense and Quagliarella/ New winger , Aquilani/ Del Peiro and Krasic adding the attacking threat along with Matri would make the team strong in alomost all dept and hopefully challenge for the Scudetto.
The biggest piece of puzzle for all this requires an essential conversion of one football player from being a jack of all trades, king of none to king of deep lying playmaker.
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