it worked It worked in a WC warmup a few weeks before France 98 when USA beat Austria 3-0 in Vienna. Sampson thought he had kryptonite. He was wrong.
3-6-1 is one of the favored formation for away teams in Germany. It is very defensive. It sent exactly the wrong message to the Germans: they could attack at will and beat the USA down. I like the Arena tactic better: put THEM under pressure, make THEM worry about what we will do. Portugal never knew what hit them til it was too late.
well...I agree that it's not revolutionary, but disagree that it's used "all over the world", "all the time".
no shi*. my day was just ruined Let's see...3-6-1. Let's take our BEST player, who happens to be a central midfielder, and stick FIVE MORE midfielders around him and see if he can be effective. Also, did it ever occur to Sampson that maybe clogging the midfield might work against a Latin team that prefers short, quick passes thru midfield rather than against a team that is accustomed to skipping the midfield altogether with long passes and aerial attacks? Obviously not. I better stop before I break something.
Yeah, I was at the Brazil match, I wasted 2 freaking years supporting Sampson just because of that one result... and I somehow thought that the 3-6-1 would catch teams unaware. Unaware at how toothless it made us, was not the result I was looking for though... God, Iran even beat us...
361 is used all over the world all the time. I still stand by that statement. That formation is not unusual in MLS, especially late in the game when a team playing 352 try to hold on to a lead by substituting one of the foward for a midfielder. I see 361 is France, Italy, and Argentina quite often. They all play it differently. I have seen teams that play 4 attacking midfielders behind a lone target player and constantly send all 5 men into the box. It can be extremely aggresive.