Anything about food and soccer ( 2 of my favourite activities )

Friday 5 January 2007

Different style of football philosophies

In my first entry, looking at the different style of football philosophies by the so called big four teams in England ( Sorry if offend, Newcastle or Tottenham fans) Manu, Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool.

In my opinion, I feel that Manu and Arsenal can be considered under the same football philosophy and the other group will be Chelsea and Liverpool.

Manu and Arsenal have managers that decide that football should be about entertaining the fans and spectators so they will play a more open brand of football in the majority of the games. It is exciting to watch from a spectator perspective as it is more thrilling. They do not believe in seating back when they are 2 goals up. They will go for the juggler and try to score as many as possible.

In some people viewpoint, this is a waste of energy as you should slow the tempo down and do not tire the players out by playing at such a high tempo when you are leading. Howevere I feel that football is about atacking play and I personally favour such an approach. However in recent times, it seem that this style of play is getting less popular as it does not always result in the team winning matches.

On the other side of the equation, are teams like Chelsea and Liverpool which play a more pragmatic style of football. These are teams that will take a lead then will fall back and let the opponent attack them before hitting them on the break. This style of play would need a very strong defence to allow the team to fall back and are confident that they will not concede. In addition you require very fast players so as to make the counter attack effective.

Howver these style of football in theory is the most efficient mean to win matches as the team that have to do the attacking will usually leave gaps to be exploited. The team which is the best in this philosophy will be Chelsea. ( athough the loss of John Terry and Petr Cech is making this tactics not effective) However this style of football can be quite boring as it will be one team with everyone at the back hoping to capitalise on the offensive team making a mistake.

As a spectator, I would like to watch attacking football which are teams like Barcelona, Manu, Arsenal.

What is your opinion on which brand of football would you prefer to watch?

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