Just watching the Venables documentary on sky. Shearer talks about the Holland game and our pressing. He says everyone talks about Klopp or Pep and their pressing game as if it is new. He says Venables had England doing it 96 and then goes on to say Venables was ahead of his time. However, I am not sure he is. Holland in 74 were known for this high press but it was just called winning the ball bqck quick. I reckon if we ho back in time other teams did it as well. Is there really new tactics in football. I am not sure there are. The advantge clubs chase now is not in tactics or formation, but in more back office stuff. Or am I wrong?
You can draw a line back from Pep, through both Cruyff and Bobby Robson, to Rinus Michels, and back through Vic Buckingham, to the coffee houses of Budapest and Vienna (and therefore the major teams from those cities), all the way back to the Queens Park team of the 19th century. Those clubs/coaches/players could be considered to represent the constant evolution and development of the same core of ideas. New and original ideas are fewer and further between. I've heard it said that truly innovative coaches come along once every couple of generations. I don't know how true that is but I think most changes in approach are developments of what has gone before rather anything truly revolutionary.
That justifies my opinion. How much can change on a pitch that doesnt change and is always 11v11. I have been asked to coach an adult team in a reasonable league this pre-season. I have paired everything back to individual jobs and zones on the pitch. I was saying last week footy has not changed on 50 years and I reckon some players thought I was mad.
Only thing I notice being 'new' every so often is the powers that be finding ways to **** about with the laws of the game trying to 'improve' it but failing spectacularly pretty much every time.
the objective has never changed, obviously, but style and tactics do get a 'tweak' of some type now and then...since the premier league came into force and television money started to be the master, winning at all costs appears to be the way (within the rules of course) but the diving and rolling about like tw@ts screaming like a little girl is just ridiculous and i was honestly hoping that if we really have to take the VAR route, that it would be used to stamp all that crap out...yet if anything it has made it worse with the 'if there was contact it is a foul' brigade. a few years ago i enjoyed watching the lower leagues on the rare occasion they were on live, 'proper' tackles going in with lads jumping back to their feet and chasing the ball, if a lad stayed down you knew it was a genuine injury... but even they have slipped into it now.
I think in terms of the principles regarding the use of space that the people I've referred to utilise, no nothing has changed. Obviously, people have tried different approaches in that time (e.g. Wimbledon and other sides that played in that direct way) and changes in the rules have had some impact on the way the game is played. One thing that I do find interesting is that people (including ex pros) say that goalkeepers need to be able to play football as well as an outfield player these days and consider this to be a very recent thing- "they never used to come off their line in my day". Some say that its down to the change in the back pass rule in 1990/91. But Jan Jongbloed was picked for the Dutch team in 1974, not because he was a great goalkeeper, but because he was good with his feet. Gustav Sebes had Gyula Grosics doing a similar thing for Honved and Hungary in the 1950s. Good luck with the coaching and the team this season.
