Do Newcastle play the long ball game and does it matter?
Posted on September 14th, 2011 | 78 Comments |
After England’s 1-1 draw against the United States in the 2010 World Cup Franz Beckenbauer had this to say:
“What I saw from the English in their 1-1 draw against the United States had very little to do with football.
“It looked to me as if the English have gone backwards into the bad old times of kick and rush. I am not sure if the England coach Fabio Capello can still change much there. The English are being punished for the fact that there are very few English players in the Premier League clubs as they use better foreign players from all over the world.”
Beckenbauer had the last laugh too of course because we subsequently crashed 4-1 to Germany, but is his general damnation of the long ball game valid? And I ask because there have been a few questions lately about Newcastle’s game plan and whether or not Alan Pardew prefers the long ball game.
One of the main advocates of the long ball game is Charles Hughes, whose book ‘The Winning Formula: The Football Association Soccer Skills and Tactics’ allegedly demonstrates statistically that most goals are scored within a maximum of 5 passes. And Hughes used his position as head of coaching for the FA in the 1990’s to promote the long ball strategy, which has somehow become more associated with English football than the football of many other countries, even though many other countries do indeed play in that style anyway.
In the 1994 World Cup the team whose goals came as a result of the most passes was the Republic of Ireland and they went out in the second round, yet Brazil, who won the World Cup, scored most of their goals from three or fewer passes. So does this tell us that the long ball game is the most successful way to play?
I’d suggest is doesn’t because it’s not that simple. Statistics can be a blunt instrument and you could argue that what those raw statistics fail to take into account that Brazil may have been (and probably were) a more skillful side in general and could have employed most methods of play more successfully.
I think one particular opinion about the long ball game is wrong though and that’s that it is only employed by teams who lack skill. Clearly that wasn’t the case with Brazil in ’94 and I don’t think that’s the case in general. It is a legitimate tactic that’s lauded in a more than just Charles Hughes’s coaching manuals.
The main criticism of the long ball game is that it isn’t as much fun to watch and that’s true enough. We all like dazzling football and the ‘possession game’ but that isn’t necessarily winning football either. Remember Inter Milan’s game against Barcelona in 2010? Inter Milan had a 3-1 lead from their home game and in the return leg Barcelona had 75%-85% of the possession (depending on which stats you read), which is astonishing, but could only get one goal against José Mourinho’s side who, Mourinho claimed, deliberately gave the ball away to avoid ‘losing focus’ (I doubt they did – that’s more likely to be a typical Mourinho’s wind-up). It does prove that possession football isn’t everything either though. Sure, Inter didn’t win that game but they did enough to get through.
The point of all this, I think, is to suggest that both the long ball game and the possession game are perfectly valid tactics and a manager must tailor his approach based on the players he has and the opposition he’s facing and truly good teams will be able to play – and play against – all forms of football.
So, if – as the accusation goes – Alan Pardew is employing the long ball game, does it matter as long as we get results?
I’d like to quote the well-known philosopher Vin Diesel here;
“It doesn’t matter if you win by an inch or a mile, winning’s winning”
As long as we are picking up the points that’s great – could be worse, we could still have Big Sam, he has the most defeatist tactics known to man