England can become champions of counter-pressing, but can Southgate see it?
As promised, England coach Gareth Southgate has started to implement strategies that are new to English football, and his 3-4-3 formation against Germany last week was clear evidence of that.
Roy Hodgson's irrational loyalty to classic English counter-attacking for the past four years only brought more frustration to the country and it was obvious that the team was collapsing against the new football schools in Europe.
Now, the 3-4-3 choice by Southgate may seem like he wants England to play a game of domination, but as their performance against Germany shows, this is not the case. What they displayed was more of a mixture of domination and counter-pressing, and not a perfection of either of them. Thus, they could not play the game they wanted against Joachim Löw's Germany, and I suggest that England transform themselves into a direct counter-pressing team.
First of all, my readers may point out that I have always been an advocate of teams having a variety of strategies, and have written many times that a team should be able to switch between tactics without losing efficiency. Nevertheless, in the case of England, it is not quite the same as a team that can switch between two strategies without problems.
England is more like a team that tries to bring two vastly different strategies into one, and thus create a confused and unrecognizable strategy. Now, even though I preach variation, I believe no one in their right mind would suggest that counter-pressing is compatible with domination. You cannot simply supply enough time, space and man power to the other while using them for one. They are characteristically very demanding strategies that require complete usage of all resources.
However, the best thing you can do, and I guarantee you that there are only two or three teams that can do this, is to excel at one of them and merely satisfy the requirements of the other in order to switch between tactics. You may be perfect in one and quite good in the other, and can use both of them at different times, but if you try to combine them with finite resources, you will fail like England.
Right now, Gareth Southgate and the English national team must accept that they are behind Germany, Spain, Italy, France and Portugal in terms of tactical strength.
Nevertheless, their squad, and especially the clubs where they take most of their players, is superb in executing the counter-attacking strategy. Almost all of their offensive power; Jamie Vardy, Dele Alli, Adam Lallana, Marcus Rashford and Jesse Lingard play for teams that use counter-pressing. These players are most effective when there is an intense press on the opponent's defense and interceptions are made in the opponent's half.
This is where England can find a very powerful offensive strategy that can bring the team on the level of the top teams in Europe. Southgate has sufficient resources to build such a strategy, now it is up to his talent to organize the collective action among these players.
Roy Hodgson's irrational loyalty to classic English counter-attacking for the past four years only brought more frustration to the country and it was obvious that the team was collapsing against the new football schools in Europe.
Now, the 3-4-3 choice by Southgate may seem like he wants England to play a game of domination, but as their performance against Germany shows, this is not the case. What they displayed was more of a mixture of domination and counter-pressing, and not a perfection of either of them. Thus, they could not play the game they wanted against Joachim Löw's Germany, and I suggest that England transform themselves into a direct counter-pressing team.
First of all, my readers may point out that I have always been an advocate of teams having a variety of strategies, and have written many times that a team should be able to switch between tactics without losing efficiency. Nevertheless, in the case of England, it is not quite the same as a team that can switch between two strategies without problems.
England is more like a team that tries to bring two vastly different strategies into one, and thus create a confused and unrecognizable strategy. Now, even though I preach variation, I believe no one in their right mind would suggest that counter-pressing is compatible with domination. You cannot simply supply enough time, space and man power to the other while using them for one. They are characteristically very demanding strategies that require complete usage of all resources.
However, the best thing you can do, and I guarantee you that there are only two or three teams that can do this, is to excel at one of them and merely satisfy the requirements of the other in order to switch between tactics. You may be perfect in one and quite good in the other, and can use both of them at different times, but if you try to combine them with finite resources, you will fail like England.
Right now, Gareth Southgate and the English national team must accept that they are behind Germany, Spain, Italy, France and Portugal in terms of tactical strength.
Nevertheless, their squad, and especially the clubs where they take most of their players, is superb in executing the counter-attacking strategy. Almost all of their offensive power; Jamie Vardy, Dele Alli, Adam Lallana, Marcus Rashford and Jesse Lingard play for teams that use counter-pressing. These players are most effective when there is an intense press on the opponent's defense and interceptions are made in the opponent's half.
This is where England can find a very powerful offensive strategy that can bring the team on the level of the top teams in Europe. Southgate has sufficient resources to build such a strategy, now it is up to his talent to organize the collective action among these players.