I admitted i have not been catching all the matches of WC 2006. However there's are few points worth noticing in this world cup. In my opinions, the revival of holding mid-fieldier is on the rise now.
France disposal of Brazil team were partly because Zidane had re-discovered his form to win balls and changes the ball in his flavor, not forgetting the amount of space, the Brazil had offered him. In addition, his partnership with Thierry Henry were put to much devastating effect and were constant thorn throughout their offensives. But one person remains unspoken, Claude Markele, the unsung hero of both Chelsea and France. Markele's reading of positions were excellent, couples with his pace and positional awareness and vision, he has an uncanny talent of predicting opponent's attacking moves and intercept it. Some of the African nations now deploy holding mid-field and forge a archor point in the field's half.
England used Owen Hargeaves as holding mid-fieldier in their yesterday defeat's formation 4-1-4-1. Owen played to his strength and won my hearts. It's a testimonial why Sven had previously used him in a different position and he did not played to his strength and shut critics why he is still a Bayen Munich's man.
Despite playing with 10 men, Owen acting as archor soaked up almost all Portugal's offensives and disrupted their flow to a greater extends, additionally having a holding mid-fieldier allows the left, right mid-fieldiers or wingers to maraude the opponent's defenses. Markele precisely dampened Brazil's attack and allows Zidane to create more space and chances for Franck Ridery to pressure up and pushes the Brazil's defense down within their own halves.
The galls of the coach to drop non-performing players is also a key point in this tournament.
Marco Van Basten, Scolari & Jurgen are few coaches that do not put players based on their reputation or rather based on the selection of players to suit the formation. Sven is notoriously refused to drop Beckham or Lampard even when they are'nt performing to expectation. Frank Lampard scored many goals for Chelsea and it's clearly shown that Lampard had fired many salvoes and yet to find the net.
Despite most were within the goal post, if you can't score, you lose confidence. Simple as that. Coming back to Beckham, it's obvious he lacked the fitness and pace in taking right mid. Since he can't out paced defenses, Beckham is as good as a team player selected to take free kicks and corners. Lacking the paces and unwillingness to defend, he constantly exposed Jamie to opposition's attack. Sven also would likes to have Beckham, Gerard and Lampard on the field, it's pretty known that Gerard and Lampard cannot be on the field together, because Owen's position will be compromised to suit his ideals.
Apart from that, the forward's formation also changed relatively, which was why he brought only 4 strikers in the world cup, as Gerard and Lampard both could attack as well, so why need more strikers? But he was wrong big time as Lampard himself was losing confidence, so Gerard has to double back to cover those hole Lampard created.
Resultantly, this also upset Rooney as he has to play lone striker and media hyping that he can bring the world cup home, thus shouldering him with big responsibilities. So Sven is playing all 4 of them because the British public's wishes. Sven is no idiot, so he obliged to their wish.
So in reality, England had paid the price for Sven's folly and refusal to combat opponents with right formations and tactics. Scolari knew he could out-wit Sven once again and played to his strength, despite the Portugese players were unable to break-thru the English's defense.
He knew the penalty shoot-out is going his advantage if it goes beyond extra time. Not forgetting Portugal did deposed England in Euro 04 on penalty shoot-out as well. Ricardo was again the show stopper then.
Constrastly, Brazil also paid it's price when Ronaldinho was strapped to his allocated role, devoids of freedom to express himself likes he did for Barcelona. So the coach's idea is to form a diamond's formation to suit to suit Ronaldo, despite fatty did scored three goals, but seriously he was'nt tested at the highest level until the French's encounter.
The next key thing to winning is the deployment of speedy forwards in an all attack formation. The German, Dutch, France, Ghana, Argentina showed that marauding forwards is the key ingredient to create chances and score goals. England clearly had the ingredients but were never used extensively. Aaron Lennon, Rooney, Dafoe and Walcott were not effectively brought in or utilised. One wonder what in Sven's head.
As the world cup edging to an end, we could only wish the final contestants battle it out in with an attacking mind than playing defensively till the last second.
