Talking about 'tactics'... Groves explained: “I’ve heard ex-players say, ‘no one ever deliberately goes out to hurt an opponent’, but players have! “In my football career I’ve been deliberately hurt by opponents, and I have deliberately hurt opponents. https://talksport.com/football/7782...n-liverpool-groves-arsenal-tottenham-roberts/ https://www.thesun.co.uk/sport/football/12986620/van-dijk-injury-update-liverpool-return/ Especially a nice tactic if there are no costs attached for the golden boys.
If liverpools own 'captain marvel' is to be believed pickford apologised in the immediate aftermath of the match This was before the media backlash and before the severity of VVDs injury became apparent https://www.sportbible.com/football...n-with-pickford-over-van-dijk-tackle-20201018 Pickford maybe rash,stupid,reckless etc but im sure if not certain it was just a spur of the moment ill timed challenge He doesn't have a previous history for this type of thing(as far as i know)
This is also mentioned in the article I posted - read it. The apology was rejected. He does have a history. Against Dele Ali for example, albeit not with two feet off the ground (when Ali his 'golden boy' status was down). He doesn't have it against the biggest names indeed, but that also says something about the level of protection at stake. At any rate, it is a tactic and rushing keepers are using the freedom they have to make half-clean tackles.
Campos was very agile and very good on the ball (as showed at the end of the video playing as a forward). He was also a smart and intuitive keeper. btw, watching Radenkovic's video, reminds me to René Higuita, the colombian used to rushing out a lot, Higuita looked to me not so good at ball control/shielding and not so fast, so, he used to lost many balls far from his area, being forced to kick the ball out.
Thanks Think the later batch of 'boring' keepers made this more acceptable (others as Wilson and Cox in his book have said the same).
@PDG1978 I have read through the recent 'number 10 special' I talked about. In this there is also an article about the recurring topic of a 'decline' of the number 10, but as they themselves say, there is sometimes an over-idealized image. Many numbers 10s of the past didn't play there positionally (Zidane for many years), didn't survive at absolute top clubs (Veron, Riquelme, Valderrama etc. - at a stretch even Maradona), didn't set the international awards on fire (Rui Costa) or were in their job as much or even more so a second striker, who peppered the goal with a high amount of shots. Mulder sr. concludes: "I find Maradona turning 60 worse to hear than Pelé 80. [...] But also Maradona was most of the time of course not a typical 10. He's sitting closer to a number 9, even. Just as Messi." Ten reasons for the extinction of the number 10, with elaboration: 1. Modern football asks for all-rounders 2. Classical number 10 doesn't defend 3. Zonal defense demands another organization 4. Pressing as a playmaker 5. Wing players have a higher return 6. Playmakers play deeper (Pirlo as classic case, but also Modric and even the able and press-resistant Cocu) 7. The kings of the assist keep it simple 8. The center is too compact for a number 10 (if not in transitions or counters; example would be the recent Juve-Barca match) 9. The more creative players, the more surprise and lightning rods 10. Small players as Messi are too effective as number 9 (that tall or strong players with the skills of a number 10 as Weah got to play there is not of yesterday)
@PuckVanHeel isn’t the fog game behind Shankly adopting “Pass and move” style for Liverpool? Considering Ajax absolutely destroyed them with their passing game
Ajax destroyed Liverpool because of the superior quality of the players they had and the arrogance of Bill towards Dutch football.
Liverpool definitely did implement lot of the Total Football aspects in their game under Paisley. I was watching some of their games during the late 70s and the Fagan-Dalglish era, their pressing game was pretty something we didn’t see from the English teams during that era. The English always overrate their league, style and players even though their managers usually get outwitted.
I still remember Bill's comments after the trashing and that Liverpool would set things straight in the return. He made it seem like Ajax won that confrontation by luck. Anyway, in 1966 Total football and 4-3-3 didnot exist yet. The first incarnations of it were at ADO, where Happel started coaching in the Netherlands in 1962.
Didn’t he say Ajax play defensive football? I don’t understand considering Liverpool became a passing team after this match and that is definitely not defensive football. Ajax played brilliantly, but I guess the shock was too much for the Scotsman.
Don't remember. Over here we had a good laugh about his comments in those days after the elimination.
Yeah, which is what kinda surprised me. I’ve read him saying this somewhere while I was just browsing.
“This tie is by no means over yet. We will win easily. We will smash in at least seven goals. This was ridiculous. Ajax played defensive football on their own ground. We never play well against defensive teams." Shankly stated this after the first tie even though Liverpool did resort to rough play in the first leg.
Informative. Better than the one made by Tifo Football. @feyenoordsoccerfan why do you think Ernst Happel is often not mentioned whenever Total Football topic is discussed?
I think Shankly was also several years before that tied to that ethos, but indeed, the Ajax match (but also Bilbao, Ferencvaros and most notably Red Star Belgrade) brought him to extending it further and doing it with more rigor, method and determination. Selecting players to fit into this. This is also what the Anatomy of Liverpool book says; which mentions the idea of defenders playing the ball and building from the back, but imho that paragraph glances over the aspect of an organized pressing ethic and keepers going of his line. It is mentioned elsewhere in the book, but (wrongly) not explicitly linked to these set of games. One team more directly inspired by 'total football' was the 1990s Colombian team. As @feyenoordsoccerfan says, the tactics of Ajax themselves were work in progress although from 1967 onward they were really widely regarded as one of the best teams in Europe (the FF ranking; Bobby Charlton said in early 1969 they were the best and "team to beat"). It's also fair to mention the unusual circumstances of the fog game (for both teams) and in the return match Ajax was definitely not playing vintage total football. Unfortunately, they were disadvantaged a little bit by the referee in the quarter finals (but nothing like Feyenoord vs Wolfsberger past Thursday, which was blatant and obvious match fixing with three ghost penalties).
Happel fastened some things (his teams did play a bit different though) but think the eventual result would have been the same without him if I'm honest. The learning was also vice versa.
I think Michels got too much credit like how Guardiola is getting in the modern era. I did some research after @feyenoordsoccerfan corrected me on the correct inventor of Total Football. Cruyff and Happel should be recognised more for sure. In fact, I feel now that Happel should’ve won FIFA coach of the century award instead. I remember my dad saying something about Michels not being responsible for the invention as well. Just didn’t fully believe him. I think it’s just like the media spreading false info of Helenio Herrera inventing Catenaccio which he didn’t really.
In "Inverting the Pyramid" HH was not credited for inventing the Catenaccio, but he was credited for being the most successful with it. In a way, Michels is the same. He achieved more than anyone else with the "Total Football" brand, regardless of who invented it. I'm sure we can trace tiki-taka to before Pep, but he was the one who conquered all with it.
The Anglo-Saxon media. Dutch football was already top of the pinnacle in 1969-1970, but the foreign press, especially the UK press, did give more attention to national team football than to club soccer achievements to rate football in a certain country, especially after England won the Worldcup in 1966. So while we were dominating the world on club level with Total Football the ignorants only discovered it when we blasted on to the scene with the Mighty Orange Machine in 1974. The reason we did only do that in 1974 (and the qualifiers too, although that went with a bit more effort required to be honest) with the Orange team was because the Dutch top players didnot value playing for the national team that much, especially the Ajax players, as it didnot pay much (very little in fact) and the professionals were more geared towards money than to honour playing for your country. We're a bunch of anarchistic morons to be honest. In fact the whole development of Total Football was speeded up in the Netherlands as a result of that anarchistic attitude as authority got questioned no matter where, in businesses, in universities and also on the pitch/trainingsgrounds. Established ways of thinking were attacked in the Netherlands. Anyway, the Dutch top players found themselves without competition in the world in club football, so they needed another challenge and as such they set their eyes on dominating the national teams scene. So the ignorant foreign press only took notice of the Dutch style when we hit the world hard on the chin in1974 and as the ignorants didnot notice Total Football's existance before 1974 they didnot bother to look further than the 1974 Orange Team and thus took the easy path of squaring Michels with the invention of it. Simply a matter of taking the easy road instead of really digging into it.
@poetgooner How was Michels more successful than Happel? He didn’t win more trophies. Happel in fact is the first manager to win 2 CLs in different clubs and won league titles in multiple clubs he coached.
Indeed. Happel won more European cups than Michels. Videos about him: https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=er...i=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okm0gaezSDU