Good defence is no guarantee of success

Roar Pro

By David V., 19 Mar 2009 The Crowd is a Roar Pro

Tagged:: EPL, football, Serie A, World Football

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In the long annals of Italian football, it’s not unheard of for teams to struggle, despite a sound defensive record, assuming, of course, that conceding a goal a game or less is considered the measure of good defense.

Bologna were relegated from Serie A in 2004-05 after a two-legged play-off with Parma (the two clubs swapped places three years later), a season in which Bologna plummeted from top half security to relegation trouble.

But the most amazing stat was that they’d conceded just 36 goals in 38 games – only Juventus, AC Milan and Sampdoria let fewer goals in.

Bologna only upheld a time-honoured tradition.

In 1980-81, Brescia were relegated from Serie A despite conceding only 25 goals in 30 games. And going back to 1966-67, Mantova finished a respectable nonth place with 6 wins, 22 draws, 6 defeats, scoring 22 and conceding just 23.

Dino Zoff kept goal, and in the final round Mantova scored a title-denying 2-1 win over Inter.

Similarly, Catanzaro were at best a mid-table Serie A outfit during its golden years of 1978-82 in which a certain Claudio Ranieri was part of their defence and the Calabrian side maintained a sound defensive record throughout that period.

And Catanzaro crashed big time after Ranieri left.

If nobody is surprised this happens in Italy, it’s hardly an Italian phenomenon.

Only last season, Leicester were relegated to the third tier of English football for the first time in their history – despite their record of conceding 45 goals in 46 games being bettered only by Crystal Palace in last season’s Championship.

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The Crowd Says (4) | Page 1 of Comments

Vicentin said | March 19th 2009 @ 11:08am | Report comment

Well David I’ve always thought there was some merit in scoring one more than your opposition. I think it is great that these teams went down despite their excellent defence – there always needs to be two sides to the equation. I know you to be a bit of a historian, so have you got a balancing piece (or comment) to this article which highlights teams that conceded a sackful of goals but still managed to win a league? My head says it has probably been a while but I’d like to be pleasantly surprised.

cheers

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Pippinu said | March 19th 2009 @ 12:11pm | Report comment

oh, oh – someone may have mentioned Brescia in a slightly negative light!

You never told me Brescia’s hey day consisted of stringing together a stack of nil-all draws with the occasional 1-0 win thrown in!

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David V. said | March 19th 2009 @ 2:46pm | Report comment

Considering I’m from the “pass, move, score more than the opposition” school, it might just be my nature. Well… Gamba did show that mentality to win the ACL last year didn’t they?

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Pippinu said | March 19th 2009 @ 2:57pm | Report comment

And also showed it in losing against Man Utd 5-3 in the WCC. They could have just put 11 behind the ball, but chose not to, and thus it was actually a very entertaining game of football.

Many would claim that Man Utd played well within themselves – and maybe they did – but I’m fairly certain that van der Sar did not enjoy picking the ball out of his own net three times!

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