As I’ve banged on a lot already, so much so you’re probably bored of it, virtually every single player in the Nike “Write The Future” advert was dumped out of the cup before the quarter-finals. It’s easy to say in retrospect “They got the wrong players! If only they’d put Thomas Mueller or David Villa or Diego Forlan in”. But this would be missing the point entirely.
Football is a team game, yet rarely do we commemorate entire teams in our collective memory. Individual players always stand out; even when we do pick out great team units, such as Brazil in 1970, inevitably it’s always in the context of names such as Pele, Rivelino and Jairzinho.
More than ever now, the team is more important than the individual. The typical formation for many teams is 4-2-3-1 or 4-3-2-1, with an emphasis on a pressing game, crowding out the park when the opposition have possession, a lone striker to hold up the ball and a midfield that pushes up to support him in attack. As standards of football rise and the gap between teams gets smaller, it becomes a game of making the most of tiny percentages; the strategy relies on supreme fitness and high levels of concentration to make the most of every pass, tackle and interception.
When it’s done well, it’s done beautifully, as the Germans demonstrated so brilliantly against Argentina today. Teamwork to the individualistic footballer is just about passing, but it is of course of much more than that - positioning yourself to give your teammates options, knowing when to sit back and when to break so as not to expose your fellow players, where to make those runs to to distract a defender. Germany displayed these all brilliantly, while Argentina’s philosophy of going out and enjoying themselves came horribly undone; with an organised defence shutting out Messi the likes of Tevez and Di Maria were left to forage on their own, poking shots in from outside the box.
Not that this is just a story of efficient, well-drilled Germans - there is plenty of talent in the side, especially in that midfield of Muller, Ozil, Schweinsteiger, Khedira and Podolski. But that’s all five of them, not just one star like Argentina and Messi. What Joachim Low has done so well is to blend his many talents with an organised system suited to the modern game. They were a joy to watch and a real lesson in how to blend skill and pragmatism in a contemporary side. To a lesser extent, the Netherlands and Uruguay, two other semi-finalists, have adopted similar approaches.
With that in mind, perhaps individuals such as Rooney, Drogba, Ronaldo and co all flopping isn’t such a surprise. All of them played in teams that were geared more around them - including most ludicrously, Capello’s tactic of playing Heskey not for his ability but as a physical distraction from Rooney - and all came undone early on from either a lack of creativity or sheer tactical naivety.
Meanwhile, the more pragmatic Germans and Dutch march on. This detraction from “stars” gets people moaning. Before the tournament, there were complaints that both the Netherlands and Brazil had more “boring” setups than in the past, with their emphasis on teamwork over stars; this chimes with the subtext of the Nike adverts that individuality is what makes football entertaining. As Germany proved today though, it’s possible to entertain with teamwork, and it was brilliant stuff. More of this please.
