with regards to the English safety-first mentality.
I do promote the tendency to play defense-first soccer and consider offensive strikes as potential risks against the defense. That said, it is hard to win a game if your team does not score. With any team, you need to recognize your own team's abilities and skill sets. If your team will be lucky to score a goal or two, then you definitely emphasize the defense and work for opportunistic goals. With a standout goalie, this is the recipe for an upset. Now, if your side has a potent attack, you definitely want to promote that while not leaving yourself unprotected in the back. This kind of strategy can work well if the entire team is on the same page. Everyone needs to know that they have both a offensive and defensive role to play. I think that your Brazil example reflects this balance and strategy.
I enjoy this soccer discussion. I don't have much to add regarding specific EPL players, though.
SSI is delighted to see knowledgeable EPL commentary, one of which goes,
My gut feeling is that once again, Arsenal don't have the stomach for the fight and are too prone to defensive lapses. Man Utd, on the other hand, regularly win games in the last 10 minutes, precisely because they never believe they're beaten.
Without a doubt, Man U's and Chelsea's previous championships lead to a self-confidence that cannot be obtained any other way.
That's true of any team, in any sport. A team that hasn't yet won, has to find a way to climb a hill that doesn't exist for those who have already claimed the championships. :cpoints:
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That Arsenal are weak in the penalty box is a given, and Wenger's refusal to pony up the cash continues to drive me batty.
What did he offer for Schwarzer, 4 million or somesuch, received a counter of 6 million or somesuch ... and passed on that?
I honestly wonder whether Wenger doesn't have a % of profits under the table or something.
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That said, Americans continue to puzzle over the English safety-first mentality. A manager who spends his $$ up front, who creates a spectactular goal-scoring machine at any cost to the back four, seems to annoy the English fan. The contempt drips for a team that "fails to keep its clean sheets," even if it is winning 4-1.
In America, it is more like Brasil: we don't mind winning a shootout. Sometimes that means spending for a scorer rather than a stopper.
Must be said that the safety-first culture isn't working out so well in the World Cups. ;- ) I daresay that England's football siege mentality is not proving itself internationally. Does Barca keep 11 men behind the ball?
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To be sure, Drogba, and Rooney/Berbatov, are all too ready to lunge into a counterattack. But the point is that some fans want Torres added only after John Terry and Petr Cech are already firmly embedded in the team's fabric.
Chelsea and Man U both have goalkeepers who count among the greatest who ever lived, albeit both of them on the downside of their careers. The emotional security offered by having a Cech or van der Sar in the net? That's the English way.
Fascinating that Arsene Wenger, managing Arsenal, simply doesn't emphasise the same emotional tone. But then, does Brasil's national team?
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Comments
Hope it is clear that I love England and fancy living there some day...
That hopefully shielding me a bit ... from my outside perspective, there is a tendency surrounding the EPL (and the sport of soccer generally) to weigh losses much more heavily than victories...
Score two, give up two, end up 2-2 seems very nerve-wracking in London ;- ) whereas a "soundly played" 0-0 tie allows the fan to derive satisfaction...
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As you put it Michael, ideally we would be free of such psychological restrictions and able to fit our philosophies to our players at the time...
In my humble opinion, EPL fans do NOT accomplish this to any great degree... hence the scatching reviews Arsenal receive for playing unsound football...
"high maintenance" type of spouse who is never really pleased no matter the result. I guess we can extend this to other relationships such as the unrealistic expectations of some of those in authority. Now that I used the expectations word, my thoughts go toward my occupation as a project management consultant. I frequently describe project management as simply "managing expectations". Bringing this comment full circle, what can EPL teams do to "manage the expectations" of their fans? What if an EPL team wants to change it's "stripes"?
It almost seems to me that EPL fans are at times too easily content ... :- ) if Fungineer were a Wolves fan then his reaction would be typical: a few powerhouse scalps on the term and he's well pleased, albeit might strongly prefer 17th place to 18th ...
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Am more referring to the odd EPL-fan tendency to see each goal as a moral failing on the part of the defense, rather than as an exquisite demonstration of skill on the part of the attackers.
Every sports play whatever can be seen as a success on the part of one man and a failure on the part of the other, and when we focus on the latter we lessen our enjoyment of our pastime.
Or so it seems to me :- )
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Time and again I see the British commentators fiercely tearing into teams that fail to keep their clean sheets, and showing not nearly the same gusto when they see a team put three goals on the board against quality defenses... but then, the assumption is that if a goal is scored, there could not have been any quality in the defense...
The idea that one team beats another, because its players are better human beings who are possessed of more courage and honor, is one that I think rather exaggerated.
Talent and skill, rather than character, are what differentiate Man U. If we don't believe it, let them try playing a term with a 50 million salary bill... we shall see where their on-field nobility and honor takes them, then...
I live in London and attend matches regularly and don't think there is a preference for clean-sheets over entertaining 2-2 draws. Of course, this is only a perception but people who go to football want goals/wins first and a credible performance second. Clean sheets would come in as a nice-to-have third in that list.
However, this digresses from the main point which is that teams generally don't got relegated with a strong defensive unit (and let us not forget that avoidance of relegation is a modus operandi for about 60-70% of British football teams).
Teams in fact can build championshiop winning sides, more cheaply, with an imposing central defensive partnership (see Ferdinand/Vidic, Adams/Bould, Adams/Keown etc), strong full-backs, an international goalkeeper and ONE decent striker (e.g. Ian Wright or Dennis Bergkamp). Arsenal built teams on this model from the early 90s onwards and won a host of titles. The fundamental quality of that side was it's back four and they are still talked about today as the benchmark by which defenses are measured (them and the AC Milan side of the same period with Baresi et al). it's no coincedence that that favourite chant of the Arsenal fans at that time was "1-0 to the Arsenal, 1-0 to the Arsenal..." (sung to the Go theme of 'Go West' by the Pet Shop Boys).
Relegation has enormous ramifications for many Premiership sides since 80% of their revenues - certainly for the lower-half sides - comes from TV money. Despite receiving generous parachute payments following relegation (to avoid probable bankruptcy), teams often struggle to retain Premiership status after being relegated and sometimes spend years in the lower leagues attempting to get back to the top. Derby, Leeds and Southampton, all perennial top-flight sides, have all struggled in the last 5-10 years. So never under-estimate this threat when you're attempting to assess why a team appears to be playing negatively or just trying to avoid defeat.
As mentioned above, the solution to this threat is to avoid relegation and the easiest way to do that is assemble a great defensive side and accept that you will gain your points from 0-0 draws and hard grafted 1-0 wins against teams in the lower half of the table. If you can do this effectively for two seasons, then you can start building an attacking unit to complement your defense. Teams like Bolton, Blackburn and Stoke are currently succeeding through this approach but it could as easily unravel with some ill-timed injuries and unlucky results. It's a risk because it's not built on a coherent long-term footballing strategy.
But to your point, Wenger appreciates defense as much as anyone else but his first priority is to field teams that fit into his overall passing/possession philosophy and he recruits young players that fit this purpose (and doesn't it better than anyone). Unfortunately, he rarely targets defense-first players and his great teams of the early 90s were built on the same back-four I mentioned above (all of whom he inherited from his predecessors). Man Utd and Chelsea have both been stronger defensively than Arsenal in recent years and that, I believe, more than anything else, differentiates them.
Half the people I sit near are Arsenal supporters and they constantly bemoan this very point, despite the attractive football they play. Too much style, not enough substance?
No, and we Italians were really glad they did not during the last Champions League final
...otherwise they could have been unbeatable ! Reality is that only balance between "safety first" and "strike to win" makes teams really great to remember for years.