Search This Blog

Tuesday, June 21, 2016

0 : 0

In my days, that's about 100 years ago, soccer was played in the 1,2,3,5 formation.
That is: 1 goal keeper, 2 defenders, 3 midfielders and 5 attackers.
Scores were accordingly high: 6:5, 3:2, or similar scores were not the exception but, more likely, the norm.
During the 1930s, when Austria had, what was called "The Wunderteam" ( The Miracle Team)
they were undefeated for 14 consecutive international meetings. between April 1931 and December 1932 the "Wunderteam" defeated Germany in Berlin by a score of 5:0 and at the return match in Vienna, Austria's team won 6:0. This same team defeated Switzerland 6:0 Hungary 8:2 and all other challengers by similar lopsided scores.
During the late 40s and early 50s a similarly brilliant team was fielded by the Red/White/Red.
They also played in the 1-2-3-5 formation. I remember Walter Zeman in Goal, Hannapi, Occwirk, Happel, the three midfielders, up front the inimitable Charlie Decker, and, of course, several other very talented forwards. 
Then, the line ups changed over several variations to the famous 1, 4, 2, 4 system. (4 defenders, 2 midfielders and 4 attackers.)
Now we are talking about the two "Viererketten" the chain of four, even the chain of 6.
I have observed teams playing the 1, 6, 3, 1 line up. That means: 1 goal keeper, 6 defenders strung in an almost impenetrable line from side to side, 3 midfielders and one lonely attacker.
It must be stated, however, that every man on the field is in motion, which means that an outside defender may well join in the attack and score a goal.
The system is, however, "defense-oriented" and results mirror this attitude.
Examine, if you will, the results obtained during this EM.
In  28 games a total of 51 goals were scored. This means about 1.8 goals per game. (there were also 2 exciting 0:0 results.)
A pretty meager harvest. Don't you think ?


above and below:

Soccer in Bleiburg !

(Not the E.M.)



No comments: