Celebrate Leicester for proving there’s more than one way to play

Fuss -You will note who wrote the article, which is actually a run-down and a look forward by the writer, who in his book "inverting the Triangle" gave as good a breakdown to tactical progressions as I have read. Where I have a slight advantage over Jonathon Is that I actually saw many of the teams he can only write about but in saying that I can only concur with his observations. This game of ours is an ever changing spectacle and so many of the innovations have now been developed to the next step that I suppose it is inevitable the the "wheel " will ultimately reach it's " full circle" and we will be back where we started all those years ago. Actually my interest was not raised at a football match but at a college lecture when I first heard of what the lecturer called the "Meisl Theory" an investigation into what could be achieved in the field of "human movement". Hugo Meisl was an Austrian who pondered what could be achieved if and whenever 10 men of equal intelliigence,physique,fitness and football skills could be put on a field. He foresaw that he would cut the "work done" by 50% as a player would simply remain where his "run" had taken him and his teamates would "simply "wheel" to take up the required structure that the team started with. Meisl stresses it was only a theory but it is widely recognised that it was this thinking that started the tactical revolutiion. Remember Meisl cited this before World War 2,at least 40 years before the supposed "Total Football" as practiced by Ajax was unveiled. Cheers jb

Super article - worth storing in your archives. jbinnie, I think you'll enjoy this trip down memory lane... This section was a beauty: "The first international between Scotland and England played at Partick in 1872.. Against England’s 1-2-7 formation, Scotland lined up in a radical 2-2-6" Note: the "1" refers to the number of defenders; not the attacker! :-D Back to the future: how football’s tactical evolution has begun to invoke the past https://www.theguardian.com/football/2016/may/12/future-football-tactics-evolution-invoke-the-past

If you want to use SFC as an example, there is no better example than Terry Butcher, who lasted barely one season, even though SFC made the finals that year (from memory), but there was a great dislike amongst the fans in the manner SFC played. However, Lavicka was every bit as boring to the neutral, but winning silverware makes it easier for the fans of the winning club to gloss over such trivialities (as following an utterly boring team).

I think the author is intimating that many soccer fans would view the style as "ugly", which is true, as a general rule, we soccer fans do not view the direct form of football as constituting jogo bonito, but I agree with you (and I think the author agrees as well) that there is great joy to be had in seeing teams working out different ways of winning - we don't want to see teams all try and play the same way.

There have been a few studies undertaken over the years. The statistic includes goals from pens and free kicks (obviously). It's this very statistic which has inspired generations of coaches into trying various forms of direct game plans - Ranieri has hit the jackpot with Leceister in refining an ultra quick counter-attacking game where the goals come from limited possession (there can be no greater efficiency in soccer). If you have followed the game for as long as I have, you will know intuitively that the statistic quoted is spot on the money. Fans will bring up examples of wonderful goals which involve long passages of possession - more often than not citing Argentina's famous goal in the 2006 WC against an inept Serbia - which, if anything, underscores precisely why the statistic is very much on the money.

As far as I recall, Chelsea fans never turned on JM......in fact the players are held up to blame for the diappointing season - by the fans I mean. The problem that Abramovich faced was his desire for the team to win and his desire to watch fast flowing attacking football. It appears that Jose can deliver one on a fairly regular basis but the other is sporadic. At Sydney FC I got the impression the SFC fans have patience with GA whereas the media and fans of other teams lost patience and became ultra critical. I still argue that given two options, most fans will choose trophies over style and entertainment. In the back of the mind is always the hope you will get both.

bto, the thing I didn't get nor like in this article is that the author on one hand says that there are many ways to win (agree 100%) but then dismisses Ranieri's style and call it 'ugly'. Leicester may have a more direct style of football it doesn't make it ugly in my book. I have never been a fan of teams who base everything on possession and need 50-60 passes in the midfield to launch an attack. I know many loved the tiki taka barca or spain used to play, i didn't. Again I have no problem with ppl preferring this style but pls don't call anything that's different 'ugly'. Kante is a superb player and I loved watching him disrupt those teams who loved possession and wanted to make him/leicester run. Well he sure did (run) and wasn't too bad at it! Quality or what's entertaining or not is in the eye of the beholder.

"more than 50% of all goals in soccer are scored with 3 or less passes." Do you have a link to that statistic, or is it just your gut-feeling?

I too would have categorised Leicester's game plan as being predominantly a counter-attacking one (hardly surprising), but they did it very well, and they were lightning quick - that's something which really stood out when I watched them - they were as fast (in the movement of the ball) as any team I have ever seen. I agree with the author here, there's more than one way to skin a cat, and statistics are on his side - more than 50% of all goals in soccer are scored with 3 or less passes.

I've watched only Leicester vs MU lately and Foxes defended to counter attack. So, I like to ask whether Foxes play attacking football in matches against weak or weaker teams usually? If a team can change the way of playing suitably and variably, both the coach and the team are good.

There's also a theory that the more money you throw at big ego players the worse the teamwork. You have to be a great people manager to put together a winning team and winning culture. I love the story about how Ranieri buys his team pizzas when they win. Its worth a lot more that the thousands of Euro bonuses, that the big heads will just blow on coca1ne anyway, and a lot cheaper too. Its about being mates and building a team. Bravo Claudio!

Winning is one thing, winning in a certain manner is another. When you would have two teams in the UCL final that want to cancel each other out it wont be a great game to watch. The the other side of the world in the A-League the semi finals and grand final where the teams wanted the ball and to attack and look what kind of matches they were. Having teams that want to play fight ball(re-active play) and just only focus on winning its not going to be pretty and the actual games would be almost unwatchable and when you don't win in that way it doesnt goes well i.e look what happened with Chelsea under Mourinho and even with Sydney FC under Arnie the fans will turn on the team and the media will hammer them.

Cheers fussball. Awesome graphic. As are the rest of the pics.,., Pictures really do tell a thousand words eh?

Perso I feel you are being overly dramatic here. "In fact, Ranieri made winning ugly, a certain type of thrilling." Do you really think Ranieri's football is all about winning ugly? I think many Chelsea fans liked his work a few years back and same at Monaco, he played a very attractive football (got promoted to ligue 1 in his first year, finished 2nd the following one) and was the coach who made James Rodriguez a household name in Europe which lead to his Real Madrid transfer. And from what I have seen this year, Leicester rarely/never parked the bus. They probably played a bit more defensively in the last couple of months, which is understandable, but overall they did play football.

Graphic that captures how relatively low the Leicester City wage is compared to the biggest clubs in EPL. Also shows that other clubs with low wages were mediocre. Lots of hard work went into Leicester's success - it was not just some fairytale fluke that can occur in a knock-out competition. http://i1175.photobucket.com/albums/r621/FussIUL/leicester_zpskntjoas9.jpg

Well put Buddy, Winners are Grinners and the rest can please themselves, love it. Playing pretty is nice but silverware is nicer.

Fadida youre right.., that Leicester proved you don't need to match the spending of the Goliath clubs in order to win the epl. I understood what you meant.

Agree wholeheartedly. I enjoy watching Barca, Bayern, Arsenal, etc, but I also enjoy watching different teams with different styles of play. That's why football is so great, because you can play in a variety of ways.

Totally agree, I even mentioned this very point the other day. LC are still in the top 30 richest football clubs in the world though. That's what makes the EPL so brutal, everyone is rich.

It's all relative Rick. If you spend 30 million but others 400 million, I'd argue you don't rely on money