"The Champs-Élysées is a busy street;
We gettin’ down with everyone we meet..."
--Art vs. Science, "Parlez vous francais?"
Paris. Cultural capital of Europe, a city of artisans and architects, and the focal point of a country that has just won the right to host Euro 2016. The latest leg of my European jaunt, it also features one of the craziest football pitches I've ever seen. On the rooftop of an apartment complex in outer suburban Paris, an astroturf pitch with white goals - no nets - resides surrounded by high walls of wire fencing. From this pitch you can see the entire skyline of the French capital; the hazy cityscape mixing with the green trees and parks around the city in the evening sky. Surely a distracting sight for neighbourhood footballers having a game after work, the Eiffel tower completes the picture by standing proud just behind one goalie’s left shoulder.
But Paris isn’t all just about beauty and pretension - it also produced artists who mocked the status quo of what was considered to be ‘art’ - Marcel Duchamp once submitted a urinal to an art show under the name 'Fountain' and drew a moustache on a small picture of the Mona Lisa, entitling it ‘L.H.O.O.Q’ - which when pronounced in French sounds remarkably like ‘She has a hot arse’ in the native tongue. To put it mildly, he caused a bit of a stir. On a grander scale, he was challenging the fact that art needed to be beautiful; indeed, that it had become sanctified and self-important.
With this in mind, it seems fitting that the city that I write this from should be the French capital. For today I shall be addressing the age old problem of football philosophers everywhere - do you want to win beautifully, or do you just want to win? It seems to expectation these days is not just to achieve victory in a football game, but to dictate it in such a way that your football becomes an artform in itself. The longball to the head of a big man and then the back of the net becomes the works of 'primitives' who aren't playing in the ‘true spirit of the game’... Whatever that means. I wonder what Duchamp would have made of that?
A Trip Down Memory Lane
Over history, commentators have lauded teams that play attacking football. But as the game goes on, teams seem to be getting better at defending rather than attacking - to consider deploying the anchor man rather than the playmaker. Are teams getting worse, or are we just stuck in the past? One must remember that the first football formations used were incredibly ‘attacking’ in their mindset. At the dawn of the 20th century, the most popular formation was the 2-3-5, or ‘pyramid’ formation. This was used all the way up to World War Two and, amusingly enough when you consider the famous ‘four-four-f*****g-two’, appears to have had its roots in England.
The 2-3-5 began to be exposed however by the ‘W-M’ formation, another English invention, which saw more players pulled into midfield in what was essentially a 3-2-2-3, and the Italian ‘metodo’ formation, which also pulled two of the five forwards back to the midfield. The Italians proceeded to win back-to-back World Cups in 1934 and 1938 based on this system, even though as one commentator put it, ‘The other team does all the attacking, but Italy wins the game’. Sound familiar? Doesn’t sound too much like ‘the beautiful game’, right?
Again though, appearances can be deceiving. By the time the 1958 World Cup came around, the Brazilians had taken to using four defenders. Four! What kind of super-defensive drudgery was this? Well apparently it was the kind of drudgery that won World Cups - and scored a fair number of goals. Brazil’s fullbacks would ‘bomb forward’ and essentially create an almost 2-2-6 formation; and with the strength of their attacking play, opponents would be overwhelmed and unable to strike back into their undermanned midfield and defence. When Italian sides of the 1960s began to use ‘Catenaccio’ formations however, the defensive and midfield lines were strengthened considerably. The primary function of this system was not to score goals, but to prevent the opposition from doing so. It was, after all, initially developed at a relegation-threatened club!
In 1966 the English sprang the 4-4-2 on the world, and all of a sudden we only had two strikers. In little over fifty years, the game of football had gone from an attacking fleet of five to a lonely pair! Fast forward thirty years, and the ’90 and ’94 World Cup finals didn’t feature a goal from open play between them. In 1998 a counter-attacking France beat an offensive-minded Brazil, and though the Brazilians were able to gain revenge by lifting the 2002 trophy, the 2006 final saw both Italy and France deploying two defensive midfielders. As such, a definite trend had emerged leading to defensive, results-driven football - something now being levelled as a criticism of Australian coach Pim Verbeek.
Is Bold Beautiful?
Ask your average fan whether he’d like to see his side win any old game with a boring, grinding 1-0 victory or play out an entertaining, free-flowing 3-3 draw, and in many instances Joe Blow will say, “Oh, I just want to see good attacking football”. But ask that same fan if he’d like his team to grind out a win in the Championship game or go down swinging with a 4-5 loss, and they’ll always choose the boring win. To say the least, we are an interesting and hypocritical lot, us football fans.
What is ‘beautiful’ football, anyway? Lots of goals, I suppose. Well, doesn’t that just indicate a rubbish defensive effort? I mean, take the Roar-Glory game last year where there were almost more own goals than actual strikes. Some absolute defensive stinkers were made by both sides - and while I’m sure the game was entertaining for the neutral, both sets of supporters are probably cringing just thinking back to it.
Spain are the media’s ‘beautiful’ team of the moment - and, I’ll hasten to add, I myself also enjoy watching them play. I appreciate accurate, precise, and well-controlled passing that results in a defence being split apart; and the Spanish are certainly good at doing that. But I also enjoy watching a team completely shut an opponent out; a highly-fancied side being denied by a determined minnow giving the proverbial 110%. Or even the clash of two close rivals, grinding out a 0-0 draw full of passion and the odd lunging tackle.
The World Cup is, at its heart, a knockout competition. One mistake sees a fancied team take an early exit, and the failure to practice for penalty shootouts can cost a side dearly. Free kicks can be the difference between the glory of a final or the comparatively meaningless 3rd vs. 4th playoff. Is it then any surprise that teams choose to take the safer, more defensive route? To counter-attack rather than take the initiative? Is a team that tries to play offensively from the kickoff being bold and beautiful, or are they being foolish and putting their World Cup campaign at risk? Do they concentrate on the 'art' of football, or the 'science' of winning a football match?
The more we - or perhaps, the media and certain commentators on the game - demand attacking, creative, exciting football, the more we fail to notice that the game has progressively been getting more defensive. Barcelona are a common lovechild of the footballing world, but it was tough, counter-attacking football from Inter Milan that won the Champions League. Did their fans decry a lack of attacking creativity, or declare a need for the team to match Barca’s ‘beautiful’ game? I doubt it.
Therefore people - I put it to you. In the face of a game getting ever more defensive, do you want your team to win games in this World Cup, or do you want them to play attractive football? And while you’re at it, why don’t you tell me what that means...
