Những bài viết hay về bóng đá Hà Lan & Thế giới: Bert quits !!

Oranje's Euro 2012 exit will cost the economy millions of euros
​

Monday 18 June 2012


The elimination of the Netherlands from the Euro 2012 football championships will cost the Dutch economy tens of millions of euros in lost income, according to retail research group GFK.

Oranje crashed out of the competition on Sunday after losing 2-1 to Portugal. The Dutch squad, which had been one of the favourites, failed to win a single point in the group round.
Now supermarkets are counting the cost of investing heavily in Euro 2012 products. In total food retailers are set to miss out on €20m in income from Oranje-branded cakes and snacks, GFK research shows. The stores had based their purchasing on a quarter-final place at least.

250 campaigns

According to the Telegraaf, discount supermarket group Lidl is giving all its Oranje-related produce to the country's food banks rather than try to sell it at a discount.
Frank de Bruin of research group Activate en Co told Nos television there were 250 marketing campaigns based around Euro 2012, almost 100 more than during the World Cup two years ago.
Expectations had been high, De Bruin said. ‘Losing is difficult but in fact Oranje fever had been dampened after the Germany match and consumers had already had enough,’ he said.
Café and bar owners are set to lose out on €12.5m and beer groups such as Heineken have scrapped television commercials. Nos reports that the Ster television advertising company had based its fees on Oranje reaching the final and is now offering a 50% discount on ad slots during the rest of the competition.

The end of forward thinking
​

Football without strikers? It seems unthinkable, but Carlos Alberto Parreira, who led Brazil to World Cup glory in 1994, predicts 4-6-0 as the formation of the future

​

​

Fernando Torres - one of a dying breed? Photograph: Paul Thomas/AP
​

Five years ago, at the coaching conference he hosts in Rio de Janeiro, Carlos Alberto Parreira made a prediction that left the room stunned. Discussing how tactics might evolve, the coach who had led Brazil to victory in the 1994 World Cup, suggested that the formation of the future might be 4-6-0.
True, wingers had once seemed sacrosanct, only to be refined out of existence and then reinvented. Yes, playmakers were undergoing a similar process of redevelopment. But centre-forwards? Could football really function with no centre-forward - without a recognised forward line at all? The answer came in this season's Champions League final: yes, it could. Manchester United won the world's premier football tournament with a team that featured no out-and-out striker.
Such radicalism remains rare, for while it may represent the highest form of the game, a system without forwards is hugely difficult to play effectively. United scored six goals in their first eight games of last season and ended up forlornly using John O'Shea as a central striker in their goalless opening-day draw with Reading, who finished with the second-worst defensive record in the league. It takes time for effective flui***y to be achieved and that is why, given the limited number of training sessions available, no nation at Euro 2008 will follow the no-striker route.


Even in international football, though, strikers are vanishing. Of the 16 teams in Austria and Switzerland, fewer than half are likely to start with two forwards. The first international match, between Scotland and England in 1872, involved 13 forwards; you will not have seen that many in the Euros until the fourth or fifth day of the tournament. Not that a surfeit of strikers necessarily means plenty of goals: that first international finished 0-0.
Roma showed the way two seasons ago, fielding as their lone front man, Francesco Totti, who had previously been seen as a classic trequartista, operating in the 'hole' between attack and midfield. Totti was not fixed. Operating as a focal point as, say, Didier Drogba was for Chelsea, he held up the ball, drifted, and created space for his team-mates to break into. Roma's 4-1-4-1 formation frequently became 4-1-5-0. United beat Roma (minus Totti) 7-1 last year in a Champions League quarter-final, but Sir Alex Ferguson, having broadly turned away from 4-4-2 after a humbling 3-2 defeat by Real Madrid in 2000, had seen enough. Roma's was the model to follow.


For much of the season just finished, United deployed Wayne Rooney as the nominal front man. He constantly foraged deep and perhaps he has, as Ferguson suggested, been 'too unselfish'. But it was Rooney's movement, and the intelligence of his interchanges with Carlos Tevez, that created much of the space for Cristiano Ronaldo, who profited with 42 goals. United's system was, in effect, 4-2-4-0. At times, particularly in Europe, Ferguson fielded an extra holder in midfield, which usually meant Ronaldo central in the Totti role (4-3-3-0).
That in itself is nothing new. The Austrian 'Wunderteam' of the early 1930s had great success with Mathias Sindelar, a centre-forward who constantly dropped deep, and Vsevolod Bobrov did similarly for the Dynamo Moscow tourists who so delighted British crowds in 1945. It was then Nandor Hidegkuti's role as a deep-lying centre-forward that so perplexed England when Hungary won 6-3 at Wembley in 1953. 'The tragedy to me,' said England's centre-half Harry Johnston, 'was the utter helplessness... not being able to do anything about it.' If Johnston followed Hidegkuti, he left a hole in the centre of England's rearguard; if he stayed put, Hidegkuti roamed free.

The solution to that problem was zonal marking, developed by Zeze Moreira in Brazil in the 1950s. The notion that Brazilian football is only about artistry and free expression is laughable. The history of tactics is the story of the attempt to achieve the greatest balance of attacking flui***y and defensive soli***y, and the reason Pele and Garrincha, say, were given such freedom was that their formation allowed them to do so. By the time of their first World Cup win in 1958, Brazil were comfortable in a zonal back four while the rest of the world persisted with the man-to-man back three of the W-M system.
That was when the systematisation of football, the acknowledgement that the game was not simply a matter of individual battles, but about the most efficacious deployment of players, really took hold. It had begun in the 1930s in Switzerland, where Karl Rappan, a former Austria international, had grown frustrated that his semi-professional Servette side were regularly overpowered by fitter opponents. He introduced a sweeper, providing ad***ional cover for three defensive markers, and encouraged his sides to sit back and let the opposition pass the ball in front of them. Similar thinking would later lead in Italy to catenaccio.
As nutrition and the understanding of physical preparation improved in the 1960s, the great Muscovite coach Viktor Maslov introduced 'pressing' at Dynamo Kiev, which may be seen as the birth of modern football. His sides would hound the opposition in possession, but their system was good enough that players covered those pressuring the man with the ball, closing up gaps that might otherwise have been exploited. That mode of football developed at Dynamo Kiev under their great coach Valeriy Lobanovskyi and at Ajax under Rinus Michels. The Ajax style may have grown up almost organically among players who had played together from a young age, while Lobanovskyi, pioneering the use of computer technology in coaching, imposed his vision on Dynamo Kiev. For all the difference of ideology, though, the way the sides played was almost identical.


That style reached its apogee with Arrigo Sacchi's AC Milan, as they won the European Cup in 1989 and 1990 - the last team to win Europe's top trophy in successive seasons. He demanded that, when his players were not in possession, there should never be more than 25 metres between his two forwards and his back four. 'All of our players,' he said, 'always had four reference points: the ball, the space, the opponent and his team-mates.' There were, in other words, no fixed positions: everything was relative.


That his philosophy was effective can hardly be doubted, but it did not make his system popular with the players. Ruud Gullit, in particular, objected to the repetitive training sessions necessary to develop the required level of mutual understanding.
'I told him that five organised players would always beat 10 disorganised ones,' Sacchi explained. 'And I proved it to them. I took five players: Giovanni Galli in goal, Tassotti, Maldini, Costacurta and Baresi. They had 10 players: Gullit, Van Basten, Rijkaard, Virdis, Evani, Ancelotti, Colombo, Donadoni, Lantignotti and Mannari. They had 15 minutes to score against my five players and the only rule was that if we won possession or they lost the ball, they had to start over from 10 metres inside their own half. I did this all the time and they never scored. Not once.'


Sacchi insists that football has not advanced from his great side. 'Many believe that football is about the players expressing themselves,' he said. 'But that's not the

case. Or, rather, it's not the case in and of itself. The player needs to express himself within the parameters laid out by the manager.'
Sacchi is scathing of the modern trend for 4-2-3-1, believing the use of two midfield 'holders' to provide a platform for the creators as pandering to the egos of those attacking players - which may explain the brevity of his spell as sporting director at Real Madrid in the galacticos era, when Claude Makelele was expected to provide defensive cover for Zinedine Zidane and Luis Figo. Like Lobanovskyi, he values 'universality', those willing take on more than one role.

Perhaps Sacchi is fundamentalist in that regard, for United's system is based on multifunctional players: a winger who can play as a centre-forward and centre-forwards who can play as attacking midfielders. Even the two 'holders' are more varied than Makelele. Universality breeds fluency, and that means that the one-dimensional centre-forward of old, the target-man or the poacher, is becoming a thing of the past. Maslov, who effectively invented 4-4-2, and was criticised for it, foresaw modern developments. 'Football is like an aeroplane,' he said. 'As velocities increase, so does air resistance, so you have to make the head more streamlined.'
That said, 4-6-0 is no panacea, as the former Scotland coach Andy Roxburgh, who is now Uefa's technical director, explained. 'The six players in midfield all could rotate, attack and defend,' he said. 'But you'd need to have six Decos in midfield - he doesn't just attack, he runs, tackles and covers all over the pitch.' Deco is a classic example of a universal player, something he combines with high levels of physical fitness.'

At a lecture he gave in Belgrade last year, Roberto Mancini, who has just led Internazionale to their third straight title and is in the running to replace Avram Grant at Chelsea, insisted that the likely evolution of football will be more to do with improved physical preparation than with tactical development. It is debatable, though, whether it is possible to separate the two: the style of Dynamo Kiev and Ajax only became possible as rationing came to an end and sports science developed, for 'pressing' places great physical demands on players. In a fully systematised team, nobody can be carried - everybody must be carrying out their share of work.
A system with no forwards places a premium on fast, accurate passing through the midfield, which is fine on a good day. There will always, though, be days when the passing fails to click, or when a team is forced on to the back foot and needs an outlet for holding the ball and relieving the pressure. Ferguson has acknowledged that he is in the market for a centre-forward this summer to fulfil the role that Louis Saha - fast, mobile and decent with his back to goal - would have played had he been fit.


As fitness improves, so the demands on forwards change, not least because defences cannot be relied upon to lose shape as they become exhausted. Modern centre-
forwards must be universalists, a hybrid of the old strike-partnerships. Drogba and Emmanuel Adebayor are both battering-rams and goalscorers. A Thierry Henry or a Dimitar Berbatov is capable of dropping deep or pulling wide, as adept at playing the final ball as taking a chance. Somewhere in between the two extremes are ranged Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Samuel Eto'o and Fernando Torres. Just as wingers and midfielders had to, forwards are having to reinvent themselves.
What, then, can we expect to see in the way of tactics in Austria and Switzerland? Neither Sacchi nor Lobanovskyi enjoyed significant success at international level. It is, Sacchi admitted, 'impossible' to develop a fully systematised approach in the time available to international coaches. So the Euros will be more about individuals than the Champions League, about the sort of gap-plugging Sacchi so despises. There will be less flui***y which is why, for instance, Ronaldo can become isolated for Portugal in a way he rarely is for United.


'Systems are dying,' said Slaven Bilic, the Croatia coach. 'It's about the movement of 10 players now.'
Even in international football, the tendency is for football to follow Maslov's aeroplane, and to bank on players breaking from midfield to supplement a diminishing number of forwards.


It is increasingly looking as though Parreira may be proved right.

Holland 2 – 0 Turkey: Camouflage for defensive frailties
​

​

In the first competitive match of Louis Van Gaal’s second spell as Holland manager, the home side beat Turkey 2-0. That score line, however, is flattering to the Dutch, who were left unpunished for a series of individual mistakes in defense, most notably during the first half. A well-taken header by Robin van Persie proved vital to change the face of the game and the home side sat on a one goal lead for most of the match.​

Holland’s 4-3-3

The starting line-ups​

Van Gaal announced during his first press conference that he would stick to a 4-3-3 formation, looking to dominate possession and exploit a wide winger offense. For this match, he omitted Van der Vaart, Van der Wiel, Nigel de Jong from the squad entirely and left Stekelenburg, Mathijsen and Huntelaar benched throughout the game.
With six players coming from the Eredivisie, this was a young Holland side. Th youngest in a competitive match, in fact, since almost 17 years(via Infostrada). Bruno Martins Indi partnered John Heitinga in central defense and Jordy Clasie made his debut as the passing/holding midfielder, with playmaker Sneijder and box-to-box man Strootman in front of him. On the wings, the days of inverted wingers are over, with Robben fielded left and Narsingh right. Robin van Persie returned to the starting line-up, being preferred over Huntelaar this time. Feyenoord’s Daryl Janmaat made his debut at right-back, being preferred over Ajax’ Ricardo van Rhijn, but the Ajax-man replaced him at half-time with Van Gaal later expressing his disappointment in Janmaat’s performance.

Turkey’s 4-2-3-1

In midfield, Turkey manager Avci made his most obvious choice. While a combination of a genuine holder and a passer was expected, he went with two holders in both Emre and Topal in order to contain the potential threat from the Dutch midfield. In the second half, Nuri Sahin was introduced to restore the holder/passer combination when chasing the game.
Up front, Umut Bulut started the game and was later partnered by Burak when it became clear that Turkey needed a goal here.

The first fifteen minutes

Right from the kick-off, it became clear that Turkey was not going to grant space to the home side. They started with a relatively high defensive line and significant pressure on any Dutch possession.
Theoretically, a good option to defend against pacy wingers like Robben and Narsingh, might have been to sit relatively deep and absorb pressure, while looking for quick breaks. However, this would probably allow the Dutch passing oriented midfield too much time on the ball and also not bring out the best of star player Arda Turan. All in all, Avci’s choice to install pressure seems very reasonable.
The opening phase saw two pushed up defenses and a short, but wide playing field. Both teams got their share of goal scoring chances, but a glaring error in communication with goal keeper Krul almost saw Martins Indi opening the score in his own net.
Right after that move, though, Holland opened the score. Many may have focused on Van Persie’s excellent technical header that allowed him to score from the corner, and rightly so, as the Manchester United striker reproduced the way he scored the 3-2 winner over Southampton last weekend. But the build-up to the corner also revealed a lot about the Dutch offense.

Van Persie dropped from the striker position, received the ball at feet and played Robben in behind Turkey right-back Hamit Altintop. Van Persie’s false-nine qualities proved vital in this, and many more, offensive moves in this match. Hence the earlier case to look for team results, rather than comparing goals scored by individual strikers to settle the debate between Van Persie and Huntelaar.
With the being scored by the Dutch, the outline of the game changed. In fact, it’s so very simple that you hardly hear it said aloud. Not conceding became the first priority, as it would win the match, and for Turkey, the reverse happened. The team needed at least a goal to prevent their opening game of the 2014 World Cup qualification to end in defeat. That is not to say that Holland was never looking to score a second goal, or that Turkey went all-out attack, but it’s an important game-changer to take along.

The rest of the first half

After the opening goal, a very open, end-to-end phase ignited, with both teams having chances to score, but neither doing so. The best Turkish chance arose from an error by Jetro Willems, that allowed Arda Turan a one-on-one with goal keeper Krul. However, the Atletico Madrid man missed Turkey’s best chance of the game.
In tactical terms, the battle between Robben and his former Bayern team mate Hamit Altintop was very interesting. Robben clearly had the better of his opponent in terms of pace, but the crucial deciding factor was Robben’s excellent support. Now playing on the left, Robben finds himself close to Sneijder’s comfort zone. The Inter play-maker ]always drifts into this left-of-centre offensive area and his link-up with Robben was excellent here. This may even form a good reason to position Robben on the left wing, rather than having him pull off his trademark outside-in dribble from the right wing.

The second half

Shortly after half-time, Van Gaal already made his second substitution, removing Jordy Clasie, in whom he, surprisingly, later said to be disappointed because of a lack of forward passing. The introduction of Leroy Fer added physical presence to the Dutch midfield and proved an excellent move when later Avci introduced passing midfielder Sahin over holder Emre.
Turkey did gain the slight advantage in terms of possession and also in terms of chance creation (think of Sercan Sararer’s close range header), but as time wore out for them, they gradually became over-offensive. With Burak introduced as second striker, their formation became much like a 4-2-4 at best. As a result, the passing length increased, with more and more hopeful balls launched forward. This allowed Holland an increasing grip on the midfield area, where the introduction of Fer led to an increase in duels being won.
In injury time, Luciano Narsingh doubles Holland’s lead to give the match a flattering, but deceiving 2-0 final score line.

In the end

This is a dangerous match to look back on. The 2-0 final score line tends to cover up the fact that things could very easily have been otherwise had Turkey snatched one of their excellent goal scoring opportunities. The best and most goal scoring opportunities fell to Turkey, but scoring the first goal allowed Holland a different approach to the game. Imagine if the 0-0 score line still existed during the second half, Turkey wouldn’t have been forced to deplete the midfield in order to try and scrape a goal – you may even doubt whether this was a wise move at the 1-0 score line.
This 4-3-3 is very much an all-or-nothing formation for Holland. The team was lucky with Turkey lack of conversion today, but certainly harbors the qualities to make this formation work against inferior opposition and the remainder of the qualifying campaign runs the risk of being a bad reflection of what’s going to be in stake for the team against equal sides. On a more positive note, Van Gaal successfully introduced several youngsters to the team, thereby meeting one of his early goals as national team manager.