Germany have emerged as a formidable team during this world cup. Despite this, England could have easily pushed them and maybe even won. However, thanks to Capello’s frankly ridiculous tactics, this never looked like happening.
4-4-2 is dying. 8 or 9 years ago it was the swiss army knife of formations. Balanced, adaptable and flexible, most club sides utilized it in some way shape or form. As football has progressed however, 4-4-2 has become easily exploited and pushed into lower leagues in the same way 5-3-2 was in the early nineties.
Why then, does Capello continue to use it? The poor performance against the USA should have got the alarm bells ringing and when the entire team failed to wake up against Algeria there were rumours that even the players weren’t comfortable with what they had been asked to do. John Terry’s press conference showed as much to the media and public.
A slight improvement against Slovenia seemed to put the public’s fears to rest but it only served to paper over the cracks. When the USA scored their late winner against Algeria and it became apparent we’d face Germany in the last 16, I began to worry that a thrashing would be dealt out and the England team would undoubtedly be on the receiving end.
As many people pointed out, man for man we could definitely hold our own against a young German side. On the day, many of the players turned out embarrassingly poor performances but the truth of the matter is that there is only one man to blame and it isn’t the linesman or the referee.
4-4-2 vs 4-2-3-1
Germany lined up the same way they have throughout the tournament in a 4-2-3-1 shape that allows Mesut Ozil space to roam freely behind the a lone striker. Ozil is a very dangerous, positionally aware player that creates havoc in defenses with his intelligent running and excellent distribution. Capello must have known about how dangerous he was after his match winning performances against Australia and Ghana. Australia lined up with a 4-4-2 and were completely dominated by the Germans. Ghana allowed Ozil space once throughout the whole of their game and he thanked them by driving home an excellent strike.
For Germany's third, Ozil simply runs into space during a quick counter. The defender is forced to come inside to pick him up, leaving Mueller completely unmarked
Capello didn’t change his tactics or side from the Slovenia game and as a result, Ozil was given space he could only have dreamed of before the game started. He was involved in all but one of his sides three goals either with an assist or intelligent play.
Again, Ozil finds himself in acres of space and simply skips past Gareth Barry to create the fourth goal.
When playing 4-4-2 against a formation which has a player “in the hole” like 4-2-3-1, it allows the player to drop between the lines of defense and midfield and creates real problems. Does a defender move out of position to pick him up? If he does, he risks allowing one of the wide players to drift inside and exploit the gap, which Podolski would have been more than happy to do. So, surely a midfielder drops deep to counteract the problem? The problem there is that this creates a 2 vs 1 situation in midfield. Schweinsteiger or Khedira would have been left with space as a direct result and could easily become as dangerous as Ozil was with time on the ball.
As it turned out, neither of these things happened regularly and Ozil popped up all over the pitch exploiting space and creating chances. At one stage he’d simply drifted out into a wide position when Ashley Cole had got forward. Nobody made any attempt to pick him up. Lampard briefly noticed the problem in the first half and started dropping slightly deeper to try mark him, however once the second went in he understandbly began to push forward in an attempt to get back into the game.
Klose was also excellent in his lone striker role, making intelligent runs and consistently dragging Terry and Upson out of position. Muller and Podolski took full advantage and between them scored three of the four goals.
For the second, Klose (yellow) has drifted wide allowing Terry to come forward in an attempt to win the ball from Ozil (blue). The result is a stretched defense meaning Mueller has acres of space to run into. Ashley Cole comes across in an attempt to close the gap but leaves Podolski (red) in acres of space when the ball eventually arrives.
A Change in Shape?
Once 3 down, Capello displayed what can only be described as an infuriating disregard for tactics. He changed precisely nothing. He brought on Emile Heskey, a striker with a worse international goalscoring record than former Paraguay goalkeeper Jose Chilavert and Joe Cole, a player who has been struggling for form of late.
The bringing on of Cole was especially frustrating. Milner can’t be considered anything like a winger this season but he provided real width on the right. Cole’s tendency to drift inside looking for space meant that England had players on both wings who were failing to provide the necessary width to break the German defense down. England never looked like scoring in the second half and Capello failed to do anything about it.
Bob Bradley (USA Manager) saw his team struggling against Ghana and made the bold move of bringing off a player after just 35 minutes in an attempt to get back into the game. Changing the shape meant the USA became the better side and pushed Ghana all the way. There was no such bravery with Capello. A limp, lifeless performance from both players and manager alike meant an early tournament exit at the hands of an excellent side.
Intelligent Tactics
If 4-4-2 wasn’t right for this game, what was?
To start with, any formation with 3 in midfield would have fared better. In a 3 v 3 midfield battle England arguably have better players and could have retained the ball better and created space for themselves. Allowing Lampard the license to get forward gives England a real goal threat from midfield and with Barry and Milner, one of them can pick up Ozil while the other looks to take Schweinstegier out of the game.
Gerrard is unfortunately pushed out to the left again, simply because his positional indiscipline means putting him in the midfield would mean Lampard has to pick up his defensive duties, something we have seen time and time again when attempting to play the two together.
With a choice of either Lennon, Joe Cole or Wright-Phillips on the right providing width, the prospects begin to improve, especially considering this puts Rooney into a lone striking role that has seen him score so prolifically for his club this season.
Essentially, imitating the German formation could have resulted in a much more even game. Unfortunately, Capello seems to insist on sticking with an antiquated formation which has been found out in recent times (see Germany vs Australia for a perfect example) and if he continues to allow his stubborness to get in the way of sense, we shouldn’t expect any world beating performances from England in the forseeable future.
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