Football is a vastly different game in 2023 than it was some two decades ago. Back then, the vast majority of teams – both at club and international level – lined up with a rigid 4-4-2. The aim of the game was getting the ball out wide and whipped into the box for a pair of strikers – usually little and large combo alla Peter Crouch and Jermain Defoe or Emile Heskey and Michael Owen – to attack.
England’s national team was one that famously struggled due to their formation under Sven-Goran Eriksson. The Swedish boss was chosen as the man to lead the Three Lions through their golden generation, and he had talents such as Wayne Rooney, Steven Gerrard, Frank Lampard, John Terry and David Beckham on his hands. Unfortunately for the English, Eriksson was unable to find a way in which Lampard and Gerrard could play together, instead sticking with a 4-4-2 that only brought three successive quarterfinal exits.
On punditry duties for BT Sport, both Lampard and Gerrard, as well as the likes of Rio Ferdinand and Joe Cole, have repeatedly stated that they felt the issue with England’s golden generation was a lack of tactical astuteness from the management team. They have been quoted as saying that the team was often sent out without instruction and simply expected to find a way through. Unfortunately, that didn’t come to fruition.
In the years since the 4-4-2 has been phased out. Nowadays, managers implement much more fluid systems and certain teams have reaped the rewards. But which tactical tweaks have brought the most success? Let’s take a look.
Inverted Full Backs
A tactical invention straight from the mind of Pep Guardiola is the inverted fullback. Now, most of us think of a full-back as a defender who stays wide on the wings and overlaps to provide an attacking option. But once that full-back has been inverted, things get shaken up a bit. Instead of hugging the touchline, they like to drift inside and join the midfield providing an overload and more passing lanes to get the ball either into the striker or, to the wingers who now have more space as opposition players have been dragged inside.
The iconic Spanish manager first implemented the new tactic at Manchester City with the addition of Joao Cancelo. The Portuguese defender was a traditional right-footed right-sided full-back however, Guardiola moved him over to the left-hand side and tasked him with the job of cutting inside with the ball and becoming an extra man in midfield. Guardiola’s understudy – namely Mikel Arteta – has also implemented the inverted full-back role into his Arsenal team and to devastating effect.
The man that the former Everton midfielder has chosen to invert is Oleksandr Zinchenko, who was signed from Manchester City, The Ukrainian is known for his technical abilities and is often considered wasted as a left full-back. For his national team, he plays in a more attacking midfield role as he is one of the best players in the Ukrainian line-up. Arteta has seemingly taken note, and Zinchenko is crucial to Arsenal’s style of play.
His move inside allows the Gunners to often have three men in central midfield, freeing up bags of space for left winger Gabriel Martinelli. The result of Arteta’s tactical proficiency saw the Gunners finish second in the Premier League. They are now considered one of the frontrunners for European glory, and the latest Champions League odds have Arsenal down as +850 fourth favorites for glory.
False Nine
The False Nine has become somewhat overused in recent years. Many simply feel that throwing a midfielder up front was playing with a false nine, but that simply is not the case.
Pep Guardiola was the first man to play with the false nine at Barcelona when he moved Lionel Messi inside from his favored right-wing position into a more central role. It was a controversial decision at the time, especially considering the fact that the Blaugrana had just moved heaven and earth to bring Zlatan Ibrahimovic to the Camp Nou, moving on iconic striker Samuel Eto’o in the process. But Guardiola stuck to his guns, and ultimately, he was proven right.
The False Nine pretty much is exactly what it says. Rather than playing with an out-and-out striker down the middle, a false nine would play in more of an attacking midfield role, creating space for wingers to make darting runs from the touchline through the middle of the pitch. Plus, when your false nine is Lionel Messi, he too is going to get plenty of goals, just as he proved in 2012 when he broke the record for most goals in a calendar year with a mighty 91.
Spain also played with a false nine during the 2012 European Championships. With favored striker David Villa out injured, Vincente del Bosque headed to Poland and Ukraine with a strike force of Fernando Torres, Alvaro Negredo and Fernando Llorente. However, none of those truly complemented Los Rojas’ tiki-taka style of play.
As such, Del Bosque took the decision to play Cesc Fabregas in a central striking role in the hopes of the former Arsenal captain linking up the play and bringing the likes of Andres Iniesta and David Silva to the fore. The result was emphatic. Spain romped to their second straight European crown, decimating Italy 4-0 in the Kyiv showpiece.
