Quote:
Originally Posted by Tietäjä
I did, and I do agree that a switch to a clear 4-5-1 to dominate the mid pitch was a very good one from Del Bosque. It isn't the first time I vote for Spain to add on flanks, and while Pedro isn't as technically talented as many in the Spain squad are, he makes up for it by rigorously working in both directions. He somehow reminds me of Park Ji Sung. I think succesfull modern football requires support in front in term of attacking full backs (e.g Maicon, Ramos, Johnson), but it needs to be backed up by midfielders covering more ground.
What comes to the game being really dull. It was a very tactical game, however, my personal preferences lean more towards finding fast paced, attacking football spiced with the occasional mistakes fun to watch. I'm not so much a fun of chess-like ball moving ad infinitum. This is just preference - and this is why I found say Germany - England a good game to view, and Ghana - Uruguay. In contrary to all Spain games so far, they provided with a bunch of pace and events. The extremely slow possession play (slow to the point where you're bound to have 8 men standing in the box before you even consider passing in) isn't so delightful for me, while it does seem to excel very well at grinding 1-0 wins. The super slow pace and extremely cautious play just kills it for me - I don't find watching building up balls from near the opposition box back down to keeper and back up again too entertaining.
I don't hate the playstyle because I'd dislike it for no particular reason. My disapproval of it has to do with the kind of games it results in - and has resulted in this world cup. Predominantly extremely slow paced, low goal, low chance, low mistake type of football. Mourinho is partially to blame for building up (a very succesful) counter tactic for the Spanish control ball, but this is what we're going to be seeing from now on.
I understand some people fancy it due to the technical quality of short passes, touches, and controlling the ball, but there's only so many short passes I'm keen on watching when the flair of a Messi doesn't provoke the great sparks to break the silence in the offensive side.
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In all fairness, I think Iniesta played a better WC then Messi. He plays a similar role as Messi does for Argentina.
What I do like about Spanish style is that even if there are 3 opponents around the player with the ball, they can always find some player to pass it to. Very rarely will you see someone shooting the ball away in a panick reaction. Even in defense, Spain still passes rather then shooting the ball away.
I did especially enjoy watching Pedro. He's more a fast paced winger and he managed to beat his guy several times. Combine that with a Torres in form and you'd have more goals.
The thing is, this playing style often creates alot more goals, as we managed to see in the qualifying games of Spain. Strangly enough, that hasn't been the case this WC.
Another thing is that EVERY opponent that played Spain on this WC played rather defensive and cautious. With the exception of Paraguay perhaps. Attacking against Spain is lethal if you do not convert your chances, as shown in the Paraguay game
And it seems only Swiss managed a clean sheet against Spain.