A pragmatic manager doubted by fans? They often win the World Cup
A pragmatic manager doubted by fans? They often win the World Cup: England’s performance in the Nations League has not been encouraging, with the team going winless through six games and scoring only twice in open play.
This is especially concerning given that 2018 is a World Cup year. Every loss has led to more scrutiny of manager Gareth Southgate.
There are enough complaints leveled at England’s manager to fill a bingo card: he can’t make the most of the players he has, he’s too slow on the pitch, and he relies too heavily on a few key contributors. Remember Southgate’s conservatism; it’s the icing on the cake.
The team’s lack of originality this year has been noted, but in international football, realism is a virtue.
According to historical data from major tournaments held in the last few decades, this may even be an advantage. While this style of play may seem at odds with the free-flowing, aggressive teams who typically win trophies in the club game, it is necessary for a team to win the World Cup.
National sides just cannot duplicate the devastatingly effective presses and smooth offensive interchanges employed by the likes of Manchester City and Liverpool. There are a lot of managers who struggle with this issue.
Statement
Roberto Martinez, the manager of Belgium, said this about club level preparation: “At club level, you have 60 sessions pre-season to prepare for your first game.”
Martinez made this statement in his new book, How to Win the World Cup. “It’s recognizing that I wouldn’t be able to work in the same manner because, at the international level, we have five camps per year, and it’s just not the same as meeting the players every day.”
Being a tough opponent is the first step for every national team that wants to win a major event, which is why such limits force teams to focus on the fundamentals.
Fans, especially in the modern era, may find this annoying, but it’s important to remember that many managers who have won the World Cup have also faced intense criticism at home before leaving for the tournament.
The Argentine side in the late 1980s and early 1990s is a prime example of this phenomenon.
While Diego Maradona’s heroics in leading Argentina to World Cup victory in 1986 and the final four years later are legendary, Carlos Bilardo was never widely popular with Argentine fans, in part because of the latter’s pragmatic approach to the game.
Many Argentines questioned Bilardo’s ability to lead the team to the 1986 World Cup Finals due to the team’s lackluster performance in qualifying and the coach’s perceived conservatism.
“We got criticized for our style of play and the players I called up,” Bilardo said after the game. Some people even said it was a bad idea that I made Diego Maradona captain.
It’s easy to see why Bilardo put so much faith in Maradona; the star player led a disciplined team to victory at the World Cup, and the No. 10 position flourished despite the manager’s conservative tactics.
Remarks
One of the players, Néstor Clausen, remarked, “With Maradona, you couldn’t talk about tactics or technical aspects because he just invented things on the spur of the moment.” Bilardo took a more tactical approach to coaching the team.
It means, “Maradona would never have scored the goal he did against the English by just going out on his own field to score” if he had adopted the tactical plan put out by Bilardo.
It’s not just Bilardo who’s been accused of stifling his team’s imagination. Before leading Brazil to its first World Cup victory in 24 years at USA ’94, Carlos Alberto Parreira was criticized for being overly defensively focused.
When France manager Aimé Jacquet lined up with Didier Deschamps and Emmanuel Petit in the middle of the field and left more creative players on the bench, he faced the same criticisms four years later.
This discontent intensified as the tournament progressed, but with France’s 3-0 victory against Brazil in the final, it was quickly forgotten.
Deschamps then used the same strategy to win Les Bleus’ second star in 2018, amid criticism from some who claimed he had mishandled the current crop of outstanding French players by dropping Karim Benzema.
There are certainly plenty of examples of pragmatists winning the European Championship on the list of champions. Just try telling the fans of Denmark, Greece, or Portugal that their team’s success was not worth the effort.
Head coach Luis Aragonés arranged even the famous Spain team that started an era of dominance by winning Euro 2008.
Declarations
Sid Lowe said of Aragonés after the Euros victory, “It was Aragonés who used tiki-taka to shield a defense that appeared suspect (but which he’s worked to improve), sustain possession, and dominate games.” Aragonés was booed and criticized by spectators and the Spanish press for benching Ral, yet he still led his team to victory by trusting his gut.
Joachim Löw, too, had his most success after taking a more cautious tack. There was skepticism when he took over as Germany’s manager after having served as Jürgen Klinsmann’s assistant at the 2006 World Cup.
Talented Germany teams led by Löw lost the final of Euro 2008 to Spain and then were eliminated from the World Cup in the quarterfinals in 2010 and the European Championship in the semis in 2012.
Even though Germany’s offensive was brimming with quality, coach Joachim Löw saw that his team’s inexperience at the back was costing them.
He realized that he needed to be more realistic if he wanted to win the World Cup, so he took a more even-keeled approach, and his team ended up winning in 2014.
Frustrated England supporters can learn something from this. Although Southgate’s squad has not been absolutely dominating opponents in recent matches, they are not as distant from finding a winning formula at the international level as they would appear.