I’m back again, having survived the football overload that is the extracurricular combination of Copa América and UEFA Euro, which followed on the Battle Royale called NBA Playoffs. I’m actually in Canada right now so I could comfortably watch all of this without dying from sleep deprivation.
As you can deduce from the title this is mainly going to be about Brazil’s awkward elimination from the Copa América Centenario. I always thought there is only one national football team whose style inherently sets it apart from everyone else. Sure, there were or are teams that play in a particular, unique way for a decade or so, thereby maybe characterising an era – think of post-WWII Hungary, late 60s-to-early 70s Netherlands or current day Spain (among others, of course) – but those teams more or less manufactured an identity. There’s only one team though, in my mind, whose style is defined by its culture and not the other way around, and that’s Brazil[1]. In case the Dark Ages of Dunga flashy-thinged your memory like Agent J this was the essence of Brazilian football as recently as the start of the millenium. Those were the days, when Robinho played like a 10-year-old trapped inside the body of a 15-year-old.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying you should just line up 10 Futsal players, put your best freekick shooter between the posts and abandon any structure or safeguard. But I opined for several years now that organisation and individualism don’t have to be mutually exclusive, and that specifically applies to The Brazilian Job. Moreover, I think Brazil has the obligation to play to its identity, just because no one else can. So, let’s try to create a system to cover and permit individualism and freelancing[2].
First, we’ve obvioulsy got to look into the current, i.e. Dunga’s, squad and its problems. Maybe opposed to his reputation Dunga’s Brazil did not consistently have problems or lack creativity. They actually played some pretty impressive games in the not-so-distant past and arguably their best performance came in the loss to Colombia at the Copa América 2015 when they played similarly to the system I am going to conceive now. Dunga’s Brazil was highly depending on personnel, though – all of us remember the shame and sheer horror of The 7-1, but few remember that Brazil was missing both Neymar and, more importantly, Thiago Silva. Thus, it is important to assigne several players to a position which can execute a role similarly. Assembling and balancing a team is probably the most obvious of Dunga’s failures, however, he did not create a coherent strategy either and this, in the end, was the reason for the defeat at the hands of the Peruvians (quite literally so). Brazil’s build-up in that game consisted mostly of up to 4 players – the centre backs and defensive midfielders – standing on each other’s feet and playing long diagonal balls from the central deep third to the wings (mainly the right one). They tried to capitalise on Peru’s compactness and individual mistakes as well as their own individual quality in isolated plays and quick 1-2 combinations. That’s pretty much it. Filipe Luís and Willian or Gabriel occupied the wings, poor Dani Alves stayed deeper or in the half-space waiting for combinations but was mostly bypassed. Brazil lacked both individual quality in strategic roles and a general strategy, and we’ll try to correct that now.
As mentioned earlier the purpose of this system is to merge the inherently Brazilian individual quality with a structure and organisation to provide stability and consistency preferably independent of personnel. Therefore, we obviously need the gifted ones of which there’s fortunately no shortage, but also a shitload of balance players[3]. And that’s essentially how we will put together the team, focussing on indispensable individually-gifted players, consequently indispensable balance players, and reproducibility using altered personnel. (Sneak preview: there’ll be 2 irreplaceable players.) This resulted in the following first XI.
The basic formation, if you want to put a label on it, is an asymmetrical 4-2-3-1 with Filipe Luís manning the left wing (on offense), being the nuanced force of nature he is, and Marquinhos staying deeper on the right side. In build-up, this essentially results in a back three of Thiago Silva as the conductor flanked by David Luiz and Marquinhos, two of the more dynamic half backs[4]. This enables the central midfielders to stay higher up the pitch, where they are more effective, and not drop back. The main reason for this is the lack of a truly strategic central midfielder so the charge is passed to Thiago Silva and a couple of players providing connections higher up the pitch. On defense, there is a variety of more simplistic systems – 4-4-2, 4-4-1-1, 4-3-3, etc. – which should be sufficient since it’s hard to create a cohesive pressing system for a national team and the focus for Brazil should be on the phase of offense anyway. Nevertheless, a fierce 4-4-2/4-4-1-1 pressing is totally realistic with these players.
So far, so good. A couple of the decisions further up front might not be that reasonable for you at first, but all of them make sense looking at the big picture. As I said the quasi-back three permits the midfielders playing in higher areas and there might not be a more diverse-yet-congenial Brazilian terzet on the current football stage than Fernandinho, Marcelo and Oscar. Fernandinho is a perfectly fine central midfielder for this team having a huge range[5] as well as solid positioning and passing. The former is especially valuable for this system which includes David Luiz, Neymar and Marcelo in prominent roles, and the latter is more or less the requirement to make this team in the first place. Now, Marcelo is playing in an odd position here but he is a brilliant, borderline-manic left back drifting and initiating combinations through the left half space. This system, especially considering the players on the central-to-left side, is constantly providing holes for him to fill and players to fill the holes he’s creating. There are several options and mechanism for build-up: either, Neymar moves inversely, Filipe Luís provides width high on the left wing and Marcelo occupies the area behind them initiating high-speed combinations from there; or, Filipe Luís stayes deeper and Marcelo moves higher up the pitch for combinations with Neymar, Oscar and Firmino; or, Marcelo does something crazy I can’t even come up with.
Anyway, the left side will be focused in build-up with most of the combinative[6] and creative players on that side. Firmino as a kind of fluid, combinative, balancing forward would be an almost perfect option for this system. He is both a technically sound player in tight spaces as well as a smart drifter into open areas displaying a huge range, and his versatility would create different options – either move towards the left half space for combinations or drop back to balance other players’ movement or occupy the wings if the initial “wingers” move inside. The absolutely perfect, and maybe the most critisised, player for this system, though, is Oscar who had a rough stretch lately. However, he would basically play a Fernandinho-type role higher up the pitch, on a higher level and on a wider spectrum. He might also be the perfect Brazilian player for the current state of football being smart, creative, combinative, technically sound and even highly versed in press (considering he is playing in England since he was 20) – there’s only one thing that he is not: flashy. Therefore, as I previously said, Fernandinho and Oscar complement the midfield perfectly and there is essentailly a balance or semi-balance player on all levels – an axis running from Thiago Silva through Fernandinho and Oscar to Firmino. A different kind of balancing player is manning the (higher area of the) right side: Lucas. Since most of the combinations and compressions are happening on the left side and Marquinhos is staying fairly deep – which leaves some areas wide open and thus further requires Fenandinho’s range – a player is needed to provide width on the right side and keep the defense honest. This role actually underutilises Lucas – who might be my favourite Brazilian and one of my favourite football players overall – but there certainly are tougher problems to deal with. Lucas is a balance player in a different sense, because of what he’s doing with the ball, not away from it. He is a rather rational, linear dribbler with an unusual yet evident penetrating power. Even while succeeding he is subtle and not dominant[7]. So, this is the system I think would allow Brazil to play to its strengths and culture while also not being chaotic or unbalanced – long story short, a system focused on quick combinations through the left side triggered by a lot of movement and switching as well as technical skills. However, the system itself is only one part of the current problem.
As I said the system needs to be independent of personnel and fortunately it is, we can replace almost everyone with at least one other player – except for two players as mentioned earlier: Marcelo and Thiago Silva. I admit, Marcelo’s role is rather flamboyant but that’s only partially due to me being a fan of him. He’s got such a unique profile it would be a shame not to emphasise him, and with Filipe Luís there’s another top3 left back on the squad anyway. Thiago Silva’s role is equally debatable, although for different reasons. While not being the best centre back in football anymore, it’s merely his body slowly forsaking his mind. He’s still brilliant, knowing where to position himself, how to structure his team’s build-up, and how to balance his team (or David Luiz), only he might not be athletic enough anymore to cover up for everything all the time. However, the asymmetric back four, essentially shifting into a back 3, with a balancing defensive midfielder in front of them should put less of a burden and strain on Thiago Silva.
For all other players, or roles, there are replacements available, at least two for most of them. It is actually quite impressive that Brazil yields that many decent and diverse players without being successful at major tournaments. Juventus’ Sandro could take on the task of manning the left wing although he would naturally play that role more simplistic than Filipe Luís. Marquinhos would be my first option as a centre back which is only due to my vaster knowledge of the players capable of playing the passive right back than of young Brazilian centre backs. The right back position is actually pretty interesting because you could make the case that shifting Marquinhos inside and play any of Danilo, Fabinho and Mário Fernandes on the right side might be an improvement over David Luiz. All 4 of those right backs play for regular Champions Leage participants (Paris SG, Real Madrid, AS Monaco and CSKA Moscow, respectively). Fernandinho’s balancing central midifielder role might be hard to replicate and I’ve selected two different options: a) Rafinha who had some injury problems lately but could be a very good, although different balance player as he would essentially provide connections via passing in the central areas without Fernandinho’s range; b) Elias whose performance in the national team basically depended on the players surrounding him. Elias was part of all the aforementioned games – the good ones against France and Colombia as well as the bad ones during the Copa América Centenario. He can very well be the balancing and connecting player but entrusting him with the build-up might be too much. The front four, expectedly, displays an almost numbing supply of Brazilian talents, maybe with a surprising amount of rational, balancing types. Young Fred, playing for Shakhtar Donezk (at the moment), is a technically sound, creative, yet suprisingly balancing player who already pushes for consistent playing time. Lazio’s Felipe Anderson might be the most interesting option, though. He displayed quite some improvement and growing in the last years and should be able to play a variety of roles – he is similarly rational and linear as Lucas, but more focused on combinations than dribblings and technically sound enough to excel in tight spaces; furthermore, he is already impressingly effective in his actions and decisions, and takes on roles on offense as well as on defense. Overall he is one of the more intriguing young players in European football. Bernard is another relatily rational, combination-focused option for both Oscar and Lucas. The sheer mass of penetrating, dribbling wingers, however, does not require any lengthy explanations in my opinion. As a highlight, I came up with two interesting, maybe unorthodox options for the fluid forward position: Robinho and Raffael. Robinho’s career seemed to be a constant variation between over- and underestimation but nowadays he might be a very good player for this position/system. Raffael was probably always, at least internationally, underestimated but he could (and does) shine within such a system.
MORE TO COME…
[2] I’m looking at you, David Luiz.
[3] I plan to write an article on the undervalued species of the balance player, but for now this has to suffice: a balance player is literally a player who is balancing – but balancing what you might ask. That depends on him and/or his team, and it can range from individual teammates to the entire orientation of the team.
[4] The outer central backs in a back three. My labelling is, from the inside outward, central back – half back – full back – wing back.
[5] That might change in the upcoming years, of course, although he is still only (a young) 31.
[6] I know this word does not (yet) exist, but I cannot come up with a decent translation that doesn’t degenerate into a full description. Combinative characterises a trait of a player, the way he (or she) tries to create an attack by (quick) combinations with his surrounding players which involves not just technical skills but also foresight and understanding. Some players rely on dribbling skills, some rely on athleticism. Some do this. Combinative always reminds me of the Spursian ball movement.
[7] I mean, watch this! There are no unnecessary movements.
Vintage Euros
I’ll admit it right from the start: I’m not a huge fan of the new Euros format. I think it adds both teams to the tournament that lower the overall quality and games to the schedule that are pretty boring since teams have the chance to advance with three scoreless draws[8]. And that’s just the group stage. With an additional round in the knock-out stage it’s a pretty safe bet there will be disappointing games[9]. So, I wanted to see what the tournament would look like using the classical format. To get to that point we proceed in the following way:
- We need to distill 15 teams out of the 9 qualifying groups and add France to create the hypothetical starting field. Therefore, we select the 9 winners of the qualifying groups as well as the 6 highest-ranked runner-ups.
- We rank the runner-ups as were the third-placed teams in the actual qualifying stage. Thus, a ranking is created out of the runner-ups using the results of the qualifying groups after excluding games against 6th-placed teams because one group only featured 5 teams.
- We want to create an actual tournament, so we have to draw groups. Now it gets a bit tricky but we make it as simple as possible. At first we seed the teams into 4 pots based on the UEFA National team coefficient as it was done for the actual draw. Afterwards, we put those teams together that share a group in the actual tournament, starting with pot 1 and then assigning the teams from the other pots, which leaves us with only 6 teams (in different pots) – 3 teams in pot 2 (obviously, since two of them head their own groups in the actual tournament), 2 in pot 3, and 1 in pot 4 for which there is only one spot left. Thus, there are only 5 teams for which we actually have to draw their opponents.
Long story short, we get these groups:
- Group A: France, Switzerland, Croatia, Albania
- Group B: England, Italy, Austria, Wales
- Group C: Germany, Belgium, Poland, Northern Ireland
- Group D: Spain, Portugal, Czech Republic, Slovakia
Now, consider that only two teams out of each group make it to the knockout stage. Sorry France, Croatia, Switzerland, one of you has to go. Same holds for you Germany, Belgium and Poland. And look at that Group B. England, Italy, Wales and Austria. Imagine the qualifying-stage version of Austria and this group would have been downright absurd. Sure, it would definitely play into Conte’s hands. But still.
Furthermore, consider which teams don’t make it to the final stage in the classical modus – Hungary, Iceland, Republic of Ireland, Romania, Russia, Sweden, Turkey, Ukraine – and which teams didn’t make it to the knockout stage in the actual tournament – Albania, Austria, Czech Republic, Romania, Russia, Sweden, Turkey, Ukraine. We could have avoided a lot of bad football, by some accounts teams # 11, 13, 15, 16 and 19 – 22 out of 24. Also, we would have avoided the unbalanced brackets with Belgium having a good shot at the final[10] and the Bracket of Death just by virtue of the knockout stage being deadly from top to bottom.
[9] Who would have thought it would involve Cristiano Ronaldo and Luka Modric?
[10] Thankfully, that didn’t happen.
My take on the Durant-Warriors madness
I actually like Durant’s move although my overall assessment will depend on his reasons for both leaving OKC and joining the Warriors. Here’s what I would have done in this situation and what I hope is his plan going forward, but first let’s summarise the boundary conditions.
- Both Russell Westbrook and Kevin Durant are ball-dominant players, and even though handing the keys to the offense to Westbrook resulted in a more stable, less erratic OKC team – due to Durant’s ability as a spot-up shooter – it seems like wasting Durant’s talent to me. Also, Westbrooks’ occasional hero-ball moments apparently have put Durant off, at least to some extent. Thus, in my mind, splitting up Durant and Westbrook, and actually building two teams seperately around them, is the most reasonable action from a neutral point of view. It might not just increase the overall quality of the NBA but also improve OKC in the long run – if Westbrook stays next summer which might now be in jeopardy.
- You might say: sure, that’s a sensible argument, but why go to the Warriors then?! Well, if you have the opportunity to build (probably) the best team of all time which also features a highly sophisticated, altruistic scheme and, by most accounts, a comfortable atmosphere – and winning plays its part in that – why wouldn’t you do that? As Kevin Arnovitz said, the Warriors are now basically an incarnation of a video game. Who wouldn’t enjoy that situation?
- Now you might say: yeah, sure it’s going to be fun, but that contradicts your first point! Well, I didn’t say Durant should end his career there. The Warriors had to drastically thin out their roster to get Durant, which is somewhat contrary to their identity, and Steph Curry is still on that cheap contract. He will command a lot of money next summer so that the Warriors would have to get rid of even more players to keep him and Durant (and Iguodala) – and that still doesn’t include the latest projection of next year’s cap which is lower than expected. It might just be that the window to create this fire-raining, apocalyptic monstrum of an NBA team consisted of a couple of days in July 2016.
I guess you are sensing by now what I’m going for. In a perfect NBA world, in my opinion as a more or less neutral observer, Durant leaves OKC so that they can build around Westbrook-Adams spread pick-and-rolls. He joins the Warriors to build this superteam for the only season it is actually possible without breaking down the Warriors’ long-term roster structure. And after one season – possibly setting all kinds of records and opening the Seven Seals – he’s leaving for greener pastures, i.e. a team built around him. By the way, these pastures might literally be green as Boston would be a plausible location. The Celtics currently have a high floor-low ceiling roster, no all-encompassing star[11] and, potentially most importantly, a great coach. Plus they play in the Eastern Conference where they might already be the second-best team. Danny Ainge[12] also has enough assets at his disposal[13] to even trade for a third top-tier player, next to Horford and Durant, and still surround these three with a decent roster – especially regarding the cap level and all of their players on rookie contracts.
So, I generally like Durant’s move on condition of it being the start of a larger chain of events.
[12] The Celtics’ President of Basketball Operations – I like these designations in American sports.
[13] Shout-out to the Nets!
SportStatisticsShootaround 