It is a little known fact that on the 8th day God, already bored of
the heavens and the Earth, decided to create the ideal number 9; the archetypal
centre forward. His ingredients? Pace. Power. Height. Immaculate first touch.
Superb eye for goal. Exotic sounding surname. Pretentious pony-tail. Extraordinarily
high opinion of himself. If you haven’t guessed it yet, God created Zlatan Ibrahimovic.
I am not as deluded as this opening paragraph may lead you to believe. Zlatan was
indeed blessed with all the hardware and software to be one of the all time
greats, but you get the feeling he’ll be remembered as a nearly man, which
seems harsh.
He has scored goals wherever he has been, he has won titles and personal accolades wherever he has been. 8 titles in a row at various clubs, but the best centre forward on the market, who went for a hefty 69m €, didn’t work out at the best club in the world; Barcelona. This is a team which it would be no flattery to say has played high tempo, high pressure passing football better than any team in my life time, and probably ever. The one criticism thrown their way? No plan B. Although Barcelona’s plan A is so marvellous many purists would say lumping it up to the big man is simply not needed. But in Zlatan you get so much more than the 6 foot 5 inches, you get a technically gifted player, able to be involved in the approach play, happy and content with plan A. But, crucially, able to out-muscle and out-jump and put away that desperate injury time cross. It made perfect sense.
However, You are all perfectly aware that by Barcelona being stopped by Mourinho’s Inter that year (okay, Ibra was injured) and his subsequent move away after just one season they didn’t gel and weren’t the complete team many predicted. The reason’s it didn’t are grey and largely unknown, widely put down to a deteriorating relationship between Pep Guardiola and Zlatan Ibrahimovic.
Barcelona’s response was to buy David Villa, an excellent footballer, certainly a different species to Ibra. Villa never seems comfortable at the top of a formation, seen more as a supporting striker. Rather fortunately Barcelona have this player called Messi (slight understatement granted.) So our journey brings us to the popularisation of the false nine. Messi would to all intents and purposes be the front man, would he play there? Of course not. Given free license to drop deep, dragging centre-halves and allowing runners from midfield to exploit the space in behind. It can work a treat. When Barcelona lost Villa for the best part of the last season they lost their exploiter-in-chief. The man that barely needed one chance to score two goals, his finishing and conversion rate made the system work. Unfortunately, it seems teams have figured out a way to stop it; sit so deep that there isn’t any space to run in behind to, without someone as clinical as David Villa they could look blunt and subsequently lost out on both the title and champions league.
He has scored goals wherever he has been, he has won titles and personal accolades wherever he has been. 8 titles in a row at various clubs, but the best centre forward on the market, who went for a hefty 69m €, didn’t work out at the best club in the world; Barcelona. This is a team which it would be no flattery to say has played high tempo, high pressure passing football better than any team in my life time, and probably ever. The one criticism thrown their way? No plan B. Although Barcelona’s plan A is so marvellous many purists would say lumping it up to the big man is simply not needed. But in Zlatan you get so much more than the 6 foot 5 inches, you get a technically gifted player, able to be involved in the approach play, happy and content with plan A. But, crucially, able to out-muscle and out-jump and put away that desperate injury time cross. It made perfect sense.
However, You are all perfectly aware that by Barcelona being stopped by Mourinho’s Inter that year (okay, Ibra was injured) and his subsequent move away after just one season they didn’t gel and weren’t the complete team many predicted. The reason’s it didn’t are grey and largely unknown, widely put down to a deteriorating relationship between Pep Guardiola and Zlatan Ibrahimovic.
Barcelona’s response was to buy David Villa, an excellent footballer, certainly a different species to Ibra. Villa never seems comfortable at the top of a formation, seen more as a supporting striker. Rather fortunately Barcelona have this player called Messi (slight understatement granted.) So our journey brings us to the popularisation of the false nine. Messi would to all intents and purposes be the front man, would he play there? Of course not. Given free license to drop deep, dragging centre-halves and allowing runners from midfield to exploit the space in behind. It can work a treat. When Barcelona lost Villa for the best part of the last season they lost their exploiter-in-chief. The man that barely needed one chance to score two goals, his finishing and conversion rate made the system work. Unfortunately, it seems teams have figured out a way to stop it; sit so deep that there isn’t any space to run in behind to, without someone as clinical as David Villa they could look blunt and subsequently lost out on both the title and champions league.
Wherever Barcelona go tactically, Spain are not too far
tiki-tak-ing in their footsteps. Spain initially resisted due to having quality
centre-forwards, however in Euro 2012, with Villa out, Torres rubbish (cue
backlash) and Llorente tired Spain where short of world class options. So they
opted for Fabregas, with the hope of Silva and Iniesta to provide the
overlapping runs. This largely didn’t work, mainly because Cesc is no Messi.
(but who is?) However, when David Silva was switched with Fabregas they created
the cliche false 9 goal; which, should this false 9 thing catch on, will
probably have a film written about it. Silva dropping deep, drawing the Italian
defence with him before dastardly switching it to Fabregas running through to
finish acutely.
The big question is, will this catch on? Is god’s own number nine a position of the past, too predictable in this modern game? Short answer: No. Barcelona and Spain are not the first team to experiment without a forward, David Moyes’ Everton would often play a variation of this theme with Tim Cahill attacking from midfield as the furthest man forward and Scotland have their infamous 6-4-0 formation. Though that was more anti-football than false nines. You need excellent movement and passing of pin-point accuracy to pull the false 9 off well, talents which few teams possess sufficiently, not having a focal point for crosses or to stretch the defence for through balls in behind also adds limitations to the system.
The other factor is we all love a number nine, let me tell you the tale of another pony-tailed centre forward, who once scored more than 10 premiership goals in one season. Imagine that? The country went mad. £35 m and 30 minutes of a decent performance in a F.A. cup final later the country has pretty much gotten over Andy Carroll. But mark my words, much like Michael Ricketts and Didier Drogba before him, he will not be the last classic centre forward to excite, score and lead a team to success.
The big question is, will this catch on? Is god’s own number nine a position of the past, too predictable in this modern game? Short answer: No. Barcelona and Spain are not the first team to experiment without a forward, David Moyes’ Everton would often play a variation of this theme with Tim Cahill attacking from midfield as the furthest man forward and Scotland have their infamous 6-4-0 formation. Though that was more anti-football than false nines. You need excellent movement and passing of pin-point accuracy to pull the false 9 off well, talents which few teams possess sufficiently, not having a focal point for crosses or to stretch the defence for through balls in behind also adds limitations to the system.
The other factor is we all love a number nine, let me tell you the tale of another pony-tailed centre forward, who once scored more than 10 premiership goals in one season. Imagine that? The country went mad. £35 m and 30 minutes of a decent performance in a F.A. cup final later the country has pretty much gotten over Andy Carroll. But mark my words, much like Michael Ricketts and Didier Drogba before him, he will not be the last classic centre forward to excite, score and lead a team to success.
No comments:
Post a Comment