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Comment: George Dearnaley
I guess it’s true of all team sports that involve a ball, that if you don’t have possession, you can’t play. Wednesday night’s football feast between Spain and Germany should be used as coaching material for every school kid in South Africa.
The three main elements of modern football:
1. Organisation – defend and attack as a team, this comes from good organisation and structure.
2. Speed – both speed of action and speed of thought (insight), the modern game is played at a high tempo and a quick counter attack is a great weapon.
3. Technique – every one of the Spanish players can play – from the best passer of the ball (Xavi) to the hardman at the back (Puyol), they can all use both feet, can control it and pass it and keep possession.
Arsene Wenger is a big fan of possession with penetration – there is no use in keeping the ball if you don’t get behind the opposition and create chances – but Spain showed last night that if you have enough possession, even if you don’t penetrate quite as much, you can frustrate the opposition to such an extent that their game plan is nullified because they can’t do anything without the ball.
Germany missed Thomas Muller down the right flank, and although they did create a couple of good chances, there wasn’t enough of the rampant counter attacking football we saw against Argentina and England, simply because they didn’t have the ball and were on the back foot defending for most of the game. Ozil and Podolski were absent while Schweinsteiger spent the entire match trying to police Xavi, Iniesta, and Alonso when he came forward – not easy.
The goal itself was unique in that the Germans are brilliant at defending set-pieces, and yet it was Puyol’s towering header from a corner that broke their defensive resolve. As the game headed toward the final minutes, it was Spain playing the classic counter attack and if Pedro had lifted his head and squared to Torres in the 90th minute, the Spanish striker might have ended his goal drought.
The key to possession football is good technique (controlling the ball, passing the ball), good vision (knowing where your team-mates are so you can pass to them) and good movement (off the ball running into space to receive the ball). If you coach kids or have a kid who plays, you can’t do worse than preach this mantra: “control, pass, move”. That sums up Spain last night – and it was beautiful to watch.
George Dearnaley played for Bafana in 1992/93 and was top goal scorer in SA in 1992. George's money WAS on Argentina. His kiss of death is now on Holland!
George Dearnaley will be writing exclusively for Sport24 for the duration of the Soccer World Cup.
I guess it’s true of all team sports that involve a ball, that if you don’t have possession, you can’t play. Wednesday night’s football feast between Spain and Germany should be used as coaching material for every school kid in South Africa.
The three main elements of modern football:
1. Organisation – defend and attack as a team, this comes from good organisation and structure.
2. Speed – both speed of action and speed of thought (insight), the modern game is played at a high tempo and a quick counter attack is a great weapon.
3. Technique – every one of the Spanish players can play – from the best passer of the ball (Xavi) to the hardman at the back (Puyol), they can all use both feet, can control it and pass it and keep possession.
Arsene Wenger is a big fan of possession with penetration – there is no use in keeping the ball if you don’t get behind the opposition and create chances – but Spain showed last night that if you have enough possession, even if you don’t penetrate quite as much, you can frustrate the opposition to such an extent that their game plan is nullified because they can’t do anything without the ball.
Germany missed Thomas Muller down the right flank, and although they did create a couple of good chances, there wasn’t enough of the rampant counter attacking football we saw against Argentina and England, simply because they didn’t have the ball and were on the back foot defending for most of the game. Ozil and Podolski were absent while Schweinsteiger spent the entire match trying to police Xavi, Iniesta, and Alonso when he came forward – not easy.
The goal itself was unique in that the Germans are brilliant at defending set-pieces, and yet it was Puyol’s towering header from a corner that broke their defensive resolve. As the game headed toward the final minutes, it was Spain playing the classic counter attack and if Pedro had lifted his head and squared to Torres in the 90th minute, the Spanish striker might have ended his goal drought.
The key to possession football is good technique (controlling the ball, passing the ball), good vision (knowing where your team-mates are so you can pass to them) and good movement (off the ball running into space to receive the ball). If you coach kids or have a kid who plays, you can’t do worse than preach this mantra: “control, pass, move”. That sums up Spain last night – and it was beautiful to watch.
George Dearnaley played for Bafana in 1992/93 and was top goal scorer in SA in 1992. George's money WAS on Argentina. His kiss of death is now on Holland!
George Dearnaley will be writing exclusively for Sport24 for the duration of the Soccer World Cup.
