Yes, all the preparation/adaptation is very well explained in that book (maybe there are other books @comme ?). You're right about the shoes. Billy Wright saw "strange, lightweight" boots and thought they hadn't a "proper kit". But instead of that they had done their homework very well. They had purposefully deceived the English scouts as well (remember it was a dictatorship and they knew when the English were looking and when not).
Interesting. They didn't play Hidegkuti (or Palotas or anybody) in the deep-lying centre-forward role when being scouted perhaps? I know some Englishman was not taken notice of after he'd tried to pass on info about seeing that tactic vs Italy or Sweden or someone in a game earlier in the year. Anyway, I guess partly the comfortable Hungary win could be put down to tactical considerations but also partly the quality and teamwork itself.
George Raynor. The 'manager' of the Swedish national team. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Raynor#1952_Olympic_Games Technically he wasn't even Sweden their national team manager. Like Winterbottom he had the boss of the selection committee above him. Those only did their job better, the story goes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Sweden_national_football_team_managers
Fascinating thread. There appears to be some evidence that 2-3-5 was not employed universally in Britain before 1914. The following quote is taken from The Encyclopaedia of Sports and Games, edited by the Earl of Suffolk and Berkshire and published by Heinemann in 1911. Football appears in Volume II which covers a range of activities in alphabetical order from Crocodile Hunting to Hound Breeding. "Sometimes, when a side is a goal or two ahead, and it is thought advisable to play a purely defensive game, a third back is added by diminishing the number of forwards. Experience, however, has proved that the division of the side into two backs, three half-backs and five forwards works best." Ten years earlier, in 1901, Ernest Needham said in his book Association Football: "Once his team gets the upper hand he [the captain] must do his best to keep it and strengthen his position as much as possible. By strengthen I do not mean necessarily that he must strengthen his defence...It is, in my opinion, a bad policy when leading to bring a forward to help the defence, as then you weaken your attack, and give the opponents every chance of bombarding your goal." It seems there was some form of Third Back Game in operation before 1914, though it was a forward who fell back in defence rather than the centre-half. Rather than invent a new tactic in the 1920s, did Chapman and Buchan simply go back to something they knew before, which had died out? In 1912 a book entitled The Complete Association Footballer was written by BS Evers and CE Hughes Davies and published by Methuen. The authors claimed that two distinct defensive systems had been tried by that time, which they referred to as the Independent and Combined Methods. With the Independent Method, the three half-backs confront whichever opposing forwards are trying to break through. If the forwards do break through, the full-backs are waiting. This sounds like orthodox 2-3-5. The drawback with this system is that both defensive lines are liable to be outnumbered. The authors then describe the Combined Method: "This system was brought to its highest stage by the brothers A.M and P.M Walters, of the Corinthians, who perhaps were the best pair of full-backs who have ever played. With them one of the full-backs was always up practically on a level with the halves, and in such a position that he could always intercept a pass coming to the opposing inside forward on his wing. The other brother would be hanging back some distance on order to cover any mistake or miskick by the other back, and also to prevent the "through" pass being employed." The authors call the Combined Method the Walters Method. The Walters brothers date back to the 1880s, making their England debut in 1885. Was this the first sweeper system?
By all accounts two terrific players. I know that in Pickford and Gibson they were especially highly praised. "It is doubtful if the game ever produced a better pair of defenders than the two old Charterhouse boys with the meridian initials. Individually each was a great back; collectively they were superior to any club pair that ever took the field."
I think £500 used to be the going price but it might well be higher now. That specific quote was from a 1963 book "The Footballer's Fireside Book" which is a compilation of football writing. I haven't yet been able to justify the £500 to myself but maybe one day.
In my imagination,football at that time must full of off-ball movement,since everybody cant run with the ball. one player will chip the ball to his teamate so that this teamate can handle the ball,and then kick the ball when he see teammate in good position,like current goalkeeper throwing ball from his hand to his feet and kick it. is this happen? and,what is fair catch?
I'll download these video , and see those match after.thanks a lot for your suggestion anyhow,I'm somewhat interested with that busby babes /man utd vs aston villa. few interesting fact,which I cant find in modern games. would anyone please explain? 1.ray jones,man utd goalkeeper,injured. somehow, the physio didnt come in,instead,the coach. when another player injured, the coach also come first before physio. is physio disallowed in these days? 2.After he injured, a halfback, blanchflower,become goalkeeper. I cant see clearly their formation after this. does any of forward drop as halfback,or they become 2-2-5 formation? I only see bobby chartlon come deep to get the ball sometimes, but not as halfback. eddie colman still at right side, but duncan edwards suddenly disappear from left sides. 3.Why seems that when outfield player become goalkeeper,there isnt much differences? in modern games, they would got exploited for sure. yet I'm hardly seen any shot,moreover on goal shot from villa to threaten them. 4.I also seen left back,roger bryne,sometimess run further forward.who covering center defence? 5.after ray jones come in,why dont he go back as goalie?and what is his position? man utd play 2-2-6?
the captain strengthen his position?you mean the captain work harder to support defence,if he's not a defender? and,I also bit confused about the walters sistem. 1 of full back come up with the halves, 1 another cover. if there's any through ball,how can this 1 player cover whole pitch? I think the opponent can easily give through ball to the area which this full back is far from. e.g, to left side,when the full back at right side,and vice versa
To be honest we can only really guess, but the odds are that real tactics as we'd know them took time to develop. There are reports that suggest a bit of brute force was a more favoured approach for moving the ball through a congested field, or the odd kick upfield and chase. Although handling was allowed, you weren't allowed to carry the ball. It would most probably be more like in (ice) hockey, when you can stop a puck in the air with a hand. The difference would be the "fair catch", which still exists (in a slightly modified form) as a "mark" in Australian Rules Football, which would just be catching a dropping ball. Passing, as a tactic, didn't appear to have been invented for several years, until Queens Park developed a game based on it. I'm sure there would have been balls passed to teammates, but the idea of passing to keep possession would have been new, and only really made feasible by the change in the offside rule, to allow forward passing.
The captain was in charge of tactics in those days. He is being referred to here as the decision-maker, as the coach would be now. The line of four, instead of three, may have been to prevent outnumbering. The last man tidied up. His workload would have depended partly on the recovery speed of his colleagues.
Sorry, I realise now I originally replied to adsuperjenius and not Puskas1988 (about the 1950's games of Hungary/Brazil) but anyway it's all on the last couple of pages!
I guess it will be interesting to quote this match in this thread. A match between 3-2-5 (France) against 2-3-5 (Austria) http://www.austriasoccer.at/dataold/lsp/1951/s1951_05.htm
CW Alcock in his book, Football: The Association Game (1906), talking about History of football, roles, tactics as the Independent and Combined Method in defense. http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=nyp.33433066624655;view=1up;seq=1 Another interesting book, by John Cameron (1908), Association Football and how to play it http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc2.ark:/13960/t8ff3qc1r;view=1up;seq=1
Great sources. Many thanks. The “Combined” defensive system clearly required a decent level of understanding between the central full-backs and half-backs. It also employed zonal marking: “the backs and half-backs on each side respectively arranging between themselves which of them shall take the outside man…” The Walters brothers full-back pairing for Corinthians and England was based on mutual understanding, and this system was sometimes called the Walters Method. One brother’s play was more refined (PM), the other’s more physical (AM), but they combined well. It is interesting that Charles Alcock does not say that one system was better than the other, only that each had benefits and drawbacks. The Independent system (basically orthodox 2-3-5) needed fit and capable half-backs because they were prone to being outnumbered. With less gifted individuals the Combined method worked better, but they had to be organised. Some of the assessments in the books betray their authors. Alcock’s assertion that combination forward play started with Cobbold in the 1880s is wide of the mark. Queen’s Park’s forwards had been combining effectively for a dozen years before that. Alcock adds the caveat “in the south at least”, revealing that he was only really thinking about the southern English amateur game. John Cameron was a Scot who played for Queen’s Park, Everton and Tottenham. His claim that fellow-Scot Archie Hunter of Aston Villa was the greatest centre-forward up to 1908 does not find much support elsewhere. Hunter was however included in a list of 100 legends of the old Football League compiled by Bryon Butler and other journalists in 1998. Cameron also surprisingly names Everton teammate Johnny Holt as one of the three best centre-halves alongside the more obvious Charlie Campbell (Queen’s Park) and James Cowan (Villa). Centre-half was the most visible, and important, position on the field. Players of this era should not be judged too much by goalscoring stats. His choice of leading full-backs, Nick Ross (the most fearless and effective), Walter Arnott (best to watch) and the Walters brothers (best combination) is difficult to argue with. Bob Crompton would have been in mid-career in 1908, but would in any case probably rank behind Ross and Arnott. The other outfield players highlighted by Cameron are wing-halves Needham (most adaptable), Crabtree (finest in defence and attack) and the little-known Hughie Wilson (Scottish long throw-in specialist listed as an inside-forward on the SFA website); centre-forwards GO Smith and Woodward; goalscorers Goodall (accurate shooting) and Bloomer (shooting on the run); and the outside-right Billy Bassett, who was considered the best Englishman in this position before Stanley Matthews. It is striking how many of the leading forwards of this time were unusually thin (Bassett, Bloomer, Smith, Woodward).
This 'combined' system seems to ring true in terms of how Austria were playing vs France in the video I posted and msioux transferred to this thread above. The 2-3-5 does seem a more 'zonal' system in general as opposed to WM where more players are lined up directly against each other (including the full-backs being wider and more directly responsible for engaging wingers, while obviously the half backs became more outright central players though I suppose still helping defend down the wings at times - and they were of course more advanced than the centre-half in WM, though it wasn't long before the variants of that system led to different roles for each half-back as it did for certain forwards dropping deeper or becoming midfielders and then I suppose the teams were not always matched up like for like and so man marking wouldn't be so prevalent unless players were specifically assigned).
Wilson was mainly a wing-half for Sunderland who would have been selected a lot more if not for the ban on Anglo-Scots. Another great centre-half of the late 90s was Crawshaw of Sheffield Wednesday. As for the Austria v France game, Austria's CF is playing reaally deep!
The austrian #9 was Leopold Gernhardt, an utility player who can lined up as forward, midfielder, even as a defender I think http://eu-football.info/_player.php?id=6726 Maybe, @schwuppe or another austrian poster can help
Yes, I noticed he actually had 0 goals for Austria (although I felt the highlights showed him playing well, and clearly in a role whereby he was intending to serve the number 8 and 10 primarily - I assumed he was used like the number 9 would be for Austria going back to Sindelar's time but it could be as a frequent midfielder he played as a deeper number 9 I guess and even though we had decent highlights it's hard to know how his position evolved during the game as a whole and during each phase of play but again I assumed he was a forward dropping deep as a lot of the at that time old-fashioned ones would have done to some extent including perhaps Giussepe Meazza before Italy changed their system in the 1930's and he became an inside forward while the team had the centre-forward as main striker as in the 1938 World Cup where it was Piola). He played as number 8 vs England I think did he in the same year?
Yeah! It seems that Sindelar as the Wunderteam #9 take a bit further the "withdrawning" of the centreforward as it was in the old-fashioned Pyramid CF (pre offside rule change). That role played by that type of CF it seems a precursor of the role that made worldwide famous stars as Hidegkuti or Di Stefano, but the curious is that actually other player as the austrian in the video looks able to did the further step (not so badly it seems) between the Sindelar role and the Deep Lying CF, before Hidegkuti/Di Stefano made their impact. I mean the inter-phase between the goalscoring playmaker (striker who can create, lead the offensive) and the role of the omnipresent centreforward (playing at attack, midfield and defense)