L'OM has le Classique at home on Sunday and that's priority #1 for them. Considering they have a shot at the title, at this point they probably want to get out of this Europa nonsense ASAP.
Since when did people start using the word “vertical” instead of “direct?” Berhalter uses the most annoying buzz words. Reminds of a mediocre Phd student. Telltale sign of a middling IQ who tries to sound like a deep thinker.
Drives me nuts! True story…. I recently had a coaching colleague try and argue vertical was not the same as direct. He was so damn adamant. I patted him kindly on the shoulder and said “how many State Cups have you won?” and walked away. I could feel his eyes piercing the back of my head. Oh….. I’ve beat him twice in State Cup finals.
It's a way out. If his team goes full tiki-taka in midfield without ever going on attack, he can just say his diagrams run left to right, not up-down.
Meh soccer terminology…all professional terminology….changes over time, it doesn’t say anything about your intelligence if you choose the newer word over the older word or vice versa. The word “winger” used to mean wide midfielder now it means more of a wide forward. Lots of people don’t use that word anymore at all because it doesn’t tell you a lot about what you expect of the position…. in fact it can be misleading. It’s just that language is a fluid thing. Please don’t pollute the yanks abroad board with the lame USMNT coach debates.
It’s not a dispositive fact on intelligence, but using words with extra syllables when a shorter word will do is a bit of evidence for me.
Interesting but I would be inclined to agree with your colleague. Maurizio Sarri's Napoli were extremely vertical, but I don't think anyone would describe the team's play as direct. The two terms definitely have different meanings and uses to me.
About five years ago I started hearing verticality being used often to speak about possession oriented teams of a specific style. Teams that prioritize keeping the ball, but also prioritized reaching the final third as quickly as possible. Using Sarri's Napoli team as an example, they played with very little width. There wasn't a lot of patiently cycling the ball horizontally looking for space to play forward. It was definitely a short passing possession game, but there was an extreme emphasis on moving the ball vertically up the field on the ground, and you could see it in almost all of the team's tactical patterns. Bielsa's teams throughout the 2010's might be the original prominent example. Very vertical, wouldn't call his game idea direct.
Are people likening "direct" to route one and "vertical" to a kind of downslope tika-taka? Which one has you booting the ball into space for your fast attackers to run onto?
The above is how I structure my teams. Narrow width and ball is constantly moving forward, on the ground, with mostly short passing in between the lines. Occasionally, to keep the opposing defense honest, we might throw in a big diagonal. Our objective is to move into the final third - not necessarily as fast as we can - but as efficiently as we can. That objective is towards goal not away from goal. If we get “stuck” and need to recycle the ball there’s always - positionally speaking - a quick drop and/or a square pass option - but that receiving player is looking to play forward with the next pass. It’s not a “Route 1” football but it is a very, very direct style. You would never label my teams as possession oriented because we don’t keep the ball for long stretches. We don’t need to. We just look to play forward with a sense of purpose and intent. We’re not out there trying to lull a team to sleep with possession so we can sneak in a goal. We’re trying to create scoring opportunities by aggressive movements - on and off the ball - towards goals. So to me vertical = direct.
On the bench: Le 𝗫𝗜 𝗢𝗟𝗬𝗠𝗣𝗜𝗘𝗡 choisi par 𝐽𝑜𝑟𝑔𝑒 𝑆𝑎𝑚𝑝𝑎𝑜𝑙𝑖 🔥🔜 #OGCNOM à 21h00 pic.twitter.com/qIS7C1Kqky— Olympique de Marseille (@OM_Officiel) October 27, 2021