Why is everyone playing so defensively???

[mfw13]

If there is one thing this World Cup is showing, it's that there has been an overwhleming move towards more defensive tactics. More and more teams are playing a 4-5-1 with a lone striker, even talented teams such as England, Portgual, France, and the Czechs.

Routinely you are seeing teams defend with nine or ten players, especially on corners, leaving nobody up front to start a counterattack. Just now, England defended a corner with all ten players, with even Rooney in the penalty box defending. When they cleared the ball they had nobody to start a counterattack with since Rooney was defending, and the ball just went right back to Portugal.

The result....the lowest scoring World Cup since the abysmal 1990 tournament in Italy.

How depressing.....

[Ceres]

Your quite right.. I suppose the top European teams have looked more careful defensive minded/tactical because of what happened at the Euro-04 finals.. Also notice that agressive attacking minded European teams like Denmark and Turkey failed to qualify for this WC in favor of the highly defensive minded Ukraine and Swiss, perhaps because they were not being careful enough in defense..
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[simonb_nyc]

I agree. This is an abysmal World Cup. A complete yawn full of defensive bunkering and 0-0 scores. Today's England-Portugal match was so poor for a quarterfinal when both teams should have been playing for an out-and-out win. Just ghastly. Only the penalty kicks made for drama. England is probably the only team of the 32 that NEVER showed any heart, passion or attacking flair. Compare them to the plucky, fighting spirit of Ghana or Ecuador.

[metallicaband]

Teams want to win by any way they can, they're not playing to entertain you, it's a competition !

[mfw13]

True, it is a competition, but the 4-5-1 formation not only produces dull midfield battles, but often losing soccer as well. Today, we saw two quarterfinals in which all four teams played a 4-5-1, and of course three of them failed to score a goal in regulation and two of them lost.

It's one thing when inferior teams play the 4-5-1 against superior teams to try and get a draw, but when teams full of attacking talent such as Brazil, France, England, and Portugal play the 4-5-1 (as all did today), it is just really depressing.

Look at what Scolari did when Rooney got sent off....already playing a 4-5-1, he pulled off his only attacker (Pauleta) and replaced him with a winger (Simao), effectively turning his formation into a 4-6-0, and this when he was up a man!!!

It's not just coicidence that this is the lowest scoring tournament since 1990, and that the four quarterfinals produced a grand total of 6 goals from the eight teams!

[cwt9]

This is a competition.

Watch meaningless international friendlies if you want more excitiment

[pippomo]

Italy started with 4-3-1-2 with Totti behind Toni and Gilardino and this was how we played since 2004. We did quite well against Ghana but we suffered in the midfield. Against USa we found the first of many teams playing with many central midfielders and making of running their strongpoint. We suffered so much in the midfield that Lippi reverted to a more basic 4-4-2 against Czech, again another team lining up five midfielders. We did quite well. Hiddink again used five midfielder, we had 3 forward ( no Totti but Del piero ), we suffered in the midfield. Ukraina again was known to use five midfielder. Was there any good reason to go against them with 3 forwards and suffer too much? No.
Many second tier and third tier team don't come anymore to the wc just to take part to the groups and go home. They know that with a solid midfield, with 2 to 3 players who can defend and carry the ball, a good physical condition, a little of tactical organization for the defense and some decent pressing, they can be a threat, even for Brasil. Now almost every team in this WC has the pool of players from which to choose 5 midifelders with good running qualities, weight and height, not so many have world class forward. Obviously they'll opt for a 4-5-1 but doing so they also force other teams to follow on theri path if they don't want to be outplayed in the midfield.

[leg_breaker]

England were pretty much forced into that formation due to injuries. Even then I think we attacked well considering our unbalanced team and sending off. Down to ten men in extra time and our full back's getting to the byline to put crosses in. Even our DM was surging forwards. A man down in extra time, and our two centre halves always went up for set pieces. That is not defensive.

Anyway football is about winning. Do you think Greece would have celebrated as much if they'd played attacking football and lost in the first round? Or Liverpool in 2005? Winning is the most entertaining thing in any sport.

[Fiorentina lives!]

Soccer has been obsolete for many years. That's what happens when the whole tradition crap ruins needed changes in soccer.

Greece in 2004 just revived the whole ultradefensive school of soccer dormant for 12-14 years. If you play boring and win you play boring.

I believe soccer is obsolete in its rules. Changes were rarely if ever made to force teams to attack and score.

Soccer's outdated rules and absence of adaptability allow teams to go into formations like 7-3-0 and win.

The way soccer is designed, you are actually punished for playing beautiful.

Teams have found a way to play catenaccio, found the perfect way to win with boring soccer.

At some point you have to wonder if 11 on 11 is too crowded... if maybe we need more, freely made subtitutions a la basketball... if maybe the offside thing has to be eliminated... if maybe teams should be awarded a PK after X amount of shots on goal, or use that stat as tie-breaker...

But for now the status quo in soccer rules brought thanx to tradition is a victory for 0-0's.