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Just as happens every 4 years, the 'experts' have now decided how football should be played & (WHAT A FUCKING SURPRISE) it's the way Spain play! Well bugger me! Apparently if you don't particularly enjoy watching Spain you shouldn't bother watching football & this tournament has signalled the death of the 2nd striker. I aplogise for ever enjoying watching Cruyff doing it better than Spain ever have or France or Brazil with better players & concede I prefer a tippy tappy sideways 5 in midfield 1-0 to Brazil 1970 any day & in reality it's all been shite until now.

Now we get the clamour for England to play the same way. Fucking great. We can put a load of square pegs in round holes, spend the next 2 World Cups going over various theorys & then we'll play like ....ENGLAND!! A half baked, alien, tactically fucked England that doesn't know whether it's coming or going, is part Spain theory, part whoever the fuck wins the next World Cup theory & part 'we don't know what the fuck we're doing so lump it down the park' theory. IE EXACTLY LIKE WE DO NOW.

And we'll probably still have Emile fucking Heskey up front.

Meanwhile someone other than Spain will probably win the World Cup playing in a totally different formation that they're all used to because they've got great players in a balanced team playing a style THAT SUITS THEM.

Morons.

Ted Hughes wrote:Just as happens every 4 years, the 'experts' have now decided how football should be played & (WHAT A FUCKING SURPRISE) it's the way Spain play! Well bugger me! Apparently if you don't particularly enjoy watching Spain you shouldn't bother watching football & this tournament has signalled the death of the 2nd striker. I aplogise for ever enjoying watching Cruyff doing it better than Spain ever have or France or Brazil with better players & concede I prefer a tippy tappy sideways 5 in midfield 1-0 to Brazil 1970 any day & in reality it's all been shite until now.

Now we get the clamour for England to play the same way. Fucking great. We can put a load of square pegs in round holes, spend the next 2 World Cups going over various theorys & then we'll play like ....ENGLAND!! A half baked, alien, tactically fucked England that doesn't know whether it's coming or going, is part Spain theory, part whoever the fuck wins the next World Cup theory & part 'we don't know what the fuck we're doing so lump it down the park' theory. IE EXACTLY LIKE WE DO NOW.

And we'll probably still have Emile fucking Heskey up front.

Meanwhile someone other than Spain will probably win the World Cup playing in a totally different formation that they're all used to because they've got great players in a balanced team playing a style THAT SUITS THEM.



Morons.

I agree

We wont get anywhere if we ask the players to do things for their country that they don't do at club level, because most of them are too fekking stupid to be able to do it.

I have to say I got fucking sick and tired yesterday of all the pundits praising Spain to no end and wank over how fantastic they are to watch.... am I the only one who thought their 1:0 wins were incredibly boring to watch?

No doubt they got the skills but I don't think they really showed them... there were more interesting team.

I agree with all above.

In any case Spain (read Barcelona) have a crop of very good players come together at the same time. In 4 years they'll be back to normal, just like the last 80 years.

I really enjoyed the Spanish approach but it was very noticable that Fabregas directness had an immediate impact on Spains attack.

Possessing the ball is one thing but it's useless unless you are creating chances.

Maybe the World Cup Final would have been more open and chances more abundant if both sides tried to play attacking football. Throughout the whole World Cup Germany and Holland were praised for camping on the edge of their box, kicking the shit out of any skillful players then playing kick and rush up the park.

Why does everyone praise a side full of average thugs who would have struggled against northwich victoria and attack a team of talented footballing players who try to play football the right way?

There is no definitive way of playing football because the game has so many styles in different countries where usually due to weather there are different tempos to the game. Looking back Spain from the start tried to go out and win the game, Holland like Germany were waiting for that one set piece chance to nick a goal just like a non-league side in the first/third round of the F.A. Cup.

Ted Hughes wrote:Just as happens every 4 years, the 'experts' have now decided how football should be played & (WHAT A FUCKING SURPRISE) it's the way Spain play! Well bugger me! Apparently if you don't particularly enjoy watching Spain you shouldn't bother watching football & this tournament has signalled the death of the 2nd striker. I aplogise for ever enjoying watching Cruyff doing it better than Spain ever have or France or Brazil with better players & concede I prefer a tippy tappy sideways 5 in midfield 1-0 to Brazil 1970 any day & in reality it's all been shite until now.

Now we get the clamour for England to play the same way. Fucking great. We can put a load of square pegs in round holes, spend the next 2 World Cups going over various theorys & then we'll play like ....ENGLAND!! A half baked, alien, tactically fucked England that doesn't know whether it's coming or going, is part Spain theory, part whoever the fuck wins the next World Cup theory & part 'we don't know what the fuck we're doing so lump it down the park' theory. IE EXACTLY LIKE WE DO NOW.

And we'll probably still have Emile fucking Heskey up front.

Meanwhile someone other than Spain will probably win the World Cup playing in a totally different formation that they're all used to because they've got great players in a balanced team playing a style THAT SUITS THEM.

Morons.

I said it before the tournament, you always get these fucking fools during the World Cup.

There has never been nor will ever be ONE system that will win you stuff. There are lot of good systems and you use them according to league you are on, the players you have got, how large your home pitch is and million more variables.

i cant begin to tell you the times i have suggested that Barca and now Spain are actually boring to watch.. IF you have seen them play few times. A lot of people who only see them now and again are just goo goo eyed and cant even begin to see what i am talking about. Their passing game is easy on the eye yes, but in terms of both a full 90 mins and then a full season of that you see that they are akin to trained monkeys, yes they play that way well.. but actually too well, so they go through this formula again again again and again. They get away with it cos eventually it usually works, the times it doesn't work you then see how little real creativity they have outside what they train to do. They simply cant mix it up, lack any initiative to be direct. The CL final was a good example, crying out for a directness almost the whole game they just continued to pass their way to the area, spread it wider and cross into a line of Milan players 5 strong all taller than them.
It wasnt until Pique decided something desperate had to be done and to run into the box that anything different occured and by then it was just too late. For a side with so much talent and technical ability at its disposal it is pathetic imo.
Bottom line is the pattern of play is set, you know exactly what they are going to do and watching becomes like one of those old kids drawing books, join the dots.
Fabregas did make a difference, and like Barca, Spain need one class player who doesn't conform to the way they play and remains an unknown quantity and a source of real genuine creativity.

Niall Quinns Discopants wrote:

Ted Hughes wrote:Just as happens every 4 years, the 'experts' have now decided how football should be played & (WHAT A FUCKING SURPRISE) it's the way Spain play! Well bugger me! Apparently if you don't particularly enjoy watching Spain you shouldn't bother watching football & this tournament has signalled the death of the 2nd striker. I aplogise for ever enjoying watching Cruyff doing it better than Spain ever have or France or Brazil with better players & concede I prefer a tippy tappy sideways 5 in midfield 1-0 to Brazil 1970 any day & in reality it's all been shite until now.

Now we get the clamour for England to play the same way. Fucking great. We can put a load of square pegs in round holes, spend the next 2 World Cups going over various theorys & then we'll play like ....ENGLAND!! A half baked, alien, tactically fucked England that doesn't know whether it's coming or going, is part Spain theory, part whoever the fuck wins the next World Cup theory & part 'we don't know what the fuck we're doing so lump it down the park' theory. IE EXACTLY LIKE WE DO NOW.

And we'll probably still have Emile fucking Heskey up front.

Meanwhile someone other than Spain will probably win the World Cup playing in a totally different formation that they're all used to because they've got great players in a balanced team playing a style THAT SUITS THEM.

Morons.

I said it before the tournament, you always get these fucking fools during the World Cup.

There has never been nor will ever be ONE system that will win you stuff. There are lot of good systems and you use them according to league you are on, the players you have got, how large your home pitch is and million more variables.

Damn straight.

I agree with what has been said before, I understand peoples opinion of spanish playing beautiful football.. because their passing was so crisp and clean etc but they never really showed all that much going forward.. it seemed to be passed around the midfield and defence for 85 minutes a game and their was a 5 minute period where spain attacked with some conviction.. and they generally got that one goal then it was pass around the midfield for rest of time. As was said before Inter showed that often the attacks were very predictable and if you can get structure in place it wasn't that great.

Secondly I hate when you say you find Spain boring you get hounded down and told you know nothing about football and you should go back to watching rugby because you clearly a bandwagon supporter of football

I wont even start on what the Spanish press think here - they are so far up their own arses it´s untrue

david yearsley wrote:I wont even start on what the Spanish press think here - they are so far up their own arses it´s untrue

What?
You were expecting a balanced viewpoint?
haha

dazby wrote:I really enjoyed the Spanish approach but it was very noticable that Fabregas directness had an immediate impact on Spains attack.

Possessing the ball is one thing but it's useless unless you are creating chances.

And Jesus Navas as well.

Scatman wrote:

dazby wrote:I really enjoyed the Spanish approach but it was very noticable that Fabregas directness had an immediate impact on Spains attack.

Possessing the ball is one thing but it's useless unless you are creating chances.

And Jesus Navas as well.

Xavi & Iniesta know each other's games so well & have an almost telepathic understanding it's amazing to watch at times but it's not the 'be all & end all'. With Barca it's been players like Messi, Ronaldinho, Eto, Henry, even Ibrahimovic who've made them extra special & imo Spain have looked a better, more entertaining side when they've handed more responsibility to the substiutes & 'gone for it'.

The way the BBC fawned over Spain at the end of the final was embarassing. Iniesta had a decent tournament, but he wasn't head and shoulders above anyone else like they were making it out to be, and there was no need to ridicule the choice of Forlan for the Golden Ball, the man who carried Uruguay to the semi-finals. Iniesta wasn't even Spain's best player at the World Cup, that was Villa - they were very reliant upon moments of brilliance from him when the rest often struggled to break teams down.

DPBBlue wrote:The way the BBC fawned over Spain at the end of the final was embarassing. Iniesta had a decent tournament, but he wasn't head and shoulders above anyone else like they were making it out to be, and there was no need to ridicule the choice of Forlan for the Golden Ball, the man who carried Uruguay to the semi-finals. Iniesta wasn't even Spain's best player at the World Cup, that was Villa - they were very reliant upon moments of brilliance from him when the rest often struggled to break teams down.

Forlan seemed to be the only player at the tournament with the ability to master the ridiculous toy ball. He deserves the award just for that imo.

Ted Hughes wrote:

DPBBlue wrote:The way the BBC fawned over Spain at the end of the final was embarassing. Iniesta had a decent tournament, but he wasn't head and shoulders above anyone else like they were making it out to be, and there was no need to ridicule the choice of Forlan for the Golden Ball, the man who carried Uruguay to the semi-finals. Iniesta wasn't even Spain's best player at the World Cup, that was Villa - they were very reliant upon moments of brilliance from him when the rest often struggled to break teams down.

Forlan seemed to be the only player at the tournament with the ability to master the ridiculous toy ball. He deserves the award just for that imo.

agreed, its was great to see Forlan get it, I was sure it was goin to either Villa or Sneijder. Full marks to Forlan he was brilliant. Imho Iniesta despite scoring the 2 goals didn't have a great wc, he was bordering on poor for the first few games (although i think he may have bein carrying an injury)

Ted, I want to pull you up here. We've had discussions in the past about tactics and you've always admired Barca's style and suggested we go down that path.

There is no doubting that Spain and Barca's style is the most superior method. It's natural for others to copy their style. I'd love it if City played that way. Watching them would be a heck of a lot easier.

dazby wrote:Ted, I want to pull you up here. We've had discussions in the past about tactics and you've always admired Barca's style and suggested we go down that path.

There is no doubting that Spain and Barca's style is the most superior method. It's natural for others to copy their style. I'd love it if City played that way. Watching them would be a heck of a lot easier.

I love watching Barca. Barca have Messi & attack like fuck home & away. Spain don't.