A-League tactics starting to stack up with Europe

This weekend I watched a fairly underwhelming Turkish Super Lig game which, when compared with the same situation occurring in the A-League, became rather illuminating.

Before we get to that though, here’s a hypothetical question for you.

Your A-League team is away from home and starts the game defensively, looking to settle for a tight draw. The plan didn’t work though, and you’re now 3-1 down early in the second half and the opposition have just had a player sent off.

Would you expect your team to stick with their approach or change their tactical philosophy, using your numerical advantage to press your opponent while committing more players to attack as you chase a result?

This is the situation Manisaspor found themselves in on Saturday and their coach Kemal Özdeş decided to stick with his original plan.

While the visitors eventually narrowed the margin to 3-2, it was Istanbul who dominated the latter stages of the game and walked away with all three points.

Whether by design or because their players were unable to do so, Manisaspor’s inability to alter their tactics in light of the game’s new reality cost them the result. It also capped the potential of the game as a spectacle.

I bring this up as I’m certain if we saw this kind of performance from an Australian team they would be roundly criticised by pundits and fans.

For the record I watch a number of Turkish games a week and this is not unusual in a league that has a massive drop off in quality from top to bottom.

I’ve also seen similar situations in Greece’s top flight, a league that I’d roughly put at the same level as Italy’s second division.

I bring this up because the comparison gives us an insight into how we expect our teams to play.

There was a lot of discussion following Pim Verbeek’s reign as Australian national team coach about how comfortable we should be with the reactive way the Dutchman set the Socceroos up. One argument that was often mentioned was Australian football doesn’t have a style of play.

In my opinion what this comparison shows is, even if it’s not completely explicit yet, we very much do. There is something in our cultural mentality that demands we seize an opportunity when it’s placed in front of us.

It’s the same thing that makes Australian fans feel uncomfortable with conceding the initiative to a team that isn’t vastly superior to their own, just as Istanbul was to Manisaspor.

Thankfully in the case of clubs like the Central Coast Mariners, Brisbane Roar and Melbourne Heart we now have teams who are adding a detailed system of play to back up this philosophy.

The continued development of this area is crucial and it’s why many have been imploring the virtues of raising the technical level of Australian coaches – whether it be by importing knowledge or encouraging it to grow organically.

Why is it important? The enthralling nature of almost all the games over the last 12 months when either of Brisbane, Central Coast and, this season, the Heart have met should be evidence enough.