Some last-minute thoughts . . .
Last year I wrote something about styles and stylelessness in soccer, and I’m thinking about that again as the Champions League final approaches. Everyone knows, because fifty articles a day say so, that Barcelona has a very distinctive style of play. You can name it and describe it, and you can see clearly when other sides try to imitate it.EDITOR’S NOTE
In this our year of 3741, it probably goes without saying. But we will be tweeting, on Twitter, about the game, so if you want to swing by our mom’s virtual basement (i.e., the bar at the Liberty Hotel), please say a virtual hello. Xavi may be the perfect embodiment of the style, but it’s bigger than he is, and everyone knows it. Whenever Victor Valdés starts a Barça possession not with an aimless punt but with a sharp clean pass to Piqué or Busquets, the crowd at Camp Nou cheers. “Even our keeper plays the Barça way!”
But how to describe the play of Manchester United? It’s not tiki-taka, it’s not kick-and-rush; people don’t necessarily think of Man Utd as playing a possession game, though in the Champions League only Barcelona has had the ball more (62% of the time for them, 58% for Six Alex’s boys). Is it fundamentally an attacking style or a defensive, counter-attacking style? If these questions are hard to answer, I think that’s because the real genius of Alex Ferguson—especially in recent years, but going back even to the Cantona era—is to sign players who have extremely vivid personal styles and allow them the full expression of their own inclinations.
Think about it: how many players are more distinctive in their approaches to the game than, say, Manchester United’s attacking players? 
Rooney, Chicharito, and Berbatov offer three radically different, yet extremely effective, ways of playing up front; each of them moves on the pitch in instantly recognizable ways; none of them could be confused with anyone else. When Brian posted the cool Gareth Bale cartoon he remarked that “Peter Crouch’s run [is] instantly recognizable even though he’s four white squiggles and a blue dot,” and I imagine that you could reduce Man Utd.’s forwards to stick figures and still recognize their somatic profiles.
And you could make the same point about the rest of the team: it’s absolutely true to say that Park Ji-Sung, Nani, and Ryan Giggs are all attacking midfielders, and yet the point seems somehow misleading, so different are their approaches to the game, so differently do they just move.
Some of this is simply a function of the sheer quality of the players. Bad soccer players are all alike, but every excellent soccer player is excellent in his own way. And yet the individual quality of Barcelona’s players is always subordinated to the team’s approach, an approach consistently taught at every level of the organization. Manchester United seems to do almost the opposite: despite occasional attempts to create a sense of uniformity, the effective mantra seems to be, Let Nani be Nani; let Chicharito be Chicharito; let a thousand flowers bloom.
I leave further Maoist analogies as an exercise for the reader, and just hope for a fun match.
Read More: Barcelona, Manchester United
by Alan Jacobs · May 28, 2011
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That’s the reason MU has produced more indivisual talents than any club in the world in the recent years 🙂 ! Their brilliance shines at MU and away from MU !! #GGMU 🙂
Interesting to think about how this sits with SAF’s general mistrust of superstars.
@Brian Phillips Makes me think that what he mistrusts is a particular attitude often associated with superstars. Paternalism in the locker rom counter-balanced by libertarianism on the pitch. He doesn’t restrain the flair of Nani or Valencia any more than he did that of Cristiano Ronaldo or, long before, Cantona.
@Brian Phillips @Alan Jacobs Ahhh, Well I think the man has changed significantly since I started watching the game in earnest thirteen or so years ago. When he came up with the kids, he represented a tactical revolution (also a motivational one- he got them to act like real professionals, something that was lacking even into the mid 90’s in the english game). Because of his success, I think he’s disappeared into the pack stylistically because everyone, particularly in the premier league, has to coach like he does. While he has his temperamental faults, he’s been highly adaptable (taking the team as it is, more or less).
I think we underplay how “unprofessional” pro soccer was in the nineties. I’m pretty sure Lineker was having a smoke at half time. I was fortunate to play under some guys who played in the league in those days, and they always say there’s no way they could hack it now. That has a lot to do with SAF and his approach to professionalism and the game.
“Xavi may be the perfect embodiment of the style, but it’s bigger than he is, and everyone knows it. ”
I’m not so sure this is true. I’ve been thinking about what made Spain’s run to World Cup victory so boring versus how thrilling it is to watch Barcelona. Yes, Barcelona has played some duds this winter, but that’s the exception, and they certainly never strung 7 dull games in a row like the Spanish national side did. They were the best team, but their victories were mindnumbing, and their sole defeat was interesting mostly for its unexpectedness.
My go-to answer has been that Spain couldn’t call upon Messi, while Barcelona could. But thinking back, I think the main thing is that Xavi had a bad World Cup, but it didn’t matter because Iniesta, Puyol, Pique and especially Villa, all had great a tournament. Yeah, Xavi had a ridiculous number of completed passes at the World Cup, but only two of those passes resulted in a goal and one of them was a corner kick (to be fair to Xavi, the other was that wonderful backheel to Villa against Portugal).
The World Cup victory does demonstrate that even without Xavi in fine fettle, that style does grind out victory, but it doesn’t sing. At the 2008 European Championship, they were as inspiring to watch as Barcelona. But during the last World Cup, few people fell in love with the Spanish national team, but plenty of people fell out of love.
Oh, and I forgot to add… Xavi has been great this winter. He’s been a joy to watch. It’s not a matter of decline so much as that he just had a rather mediocre tournament. He wasn’t bad at the World Cup by anyone’s standards except his own.
@Kári Tulinius Good points. This is not to disagree, but just to point out what an odd role Xavi plays in the Barça attack: Dani Alves had more than twice as many assists as Xavi this year (15-7).
@Alan Jacobs Yes, that is true. I suppose a better analogy is the Euro 2008 where Xavi shined. I can’t find the stats off hand but he had at least 4 assists that I can remember, including the one to Torres in the final, and scored a goal. He was, deservedly, the man of the tournament.
@Kári Tulinius I’d have to disagree. I don’t think that Xavi had a bad WC at all. I’d say the “boringness” (I, personally, didn’t find them that boring, but I am aware I’m in the minority there) of Spain was down to two things: 1) del Bosque’s insistence on playing two central midfielders in Alonso and Busquets; and 2) almost every team they played playing some combination of “park the bus” and “tackle them off the pitch”. Spain were scintillating in 2008 because the ability of their style to overwhelm the opposition was unexpected, but by 2010 — with, crucially, two seasons of Barca playing the same style — teams knew that to play an open game against Spain would be to be played off the pitch. The majority of teams adopted the “Mourinho approach” and tried to soak up the pressure and rely on quick counters to score. And as against Barca, the only teams to have some success against Spain were the teams that were able to employ the lightening fast counter.
Xavi’s contribution to play cannot be measured by assists. He is far more than that — he is the metronome at the heart of the midfield that keeps both Spain and Barca ticking, and I think, even forced out of his ideal position by having to accommodate both Alonso and Busquets behind him, he was successful by any measure at the WC.
@Angharad Ah well. I guess we’ll just have to agree to disagree on that 🙂 I think he was fairly ineffective in comparison to his brilliance at Euro 2008. I also think that reducing him to a ticking metronome is unfair. Yes, he keeps the ball in motion, but more than that, he also supplies killer passes and his movement stretches his opponents out of position, creating space for others to work in. And he scores with some frequency.
I’m not saying he was bad at the World Cup. He certainly wasn’t dead weight that lunked around South Africa, but he didn’t put his mark on the tournament in the way I expected. Instead the standout players in the Spanish team, for me, were Iniesta and Villa, though Puyol, Pique and Casillas were also notably excellent at the back. And Fabrégas deserves credit for his performance in the final.
There’s a curious phrase used in rugby, where a commentator (maybe just Bill McClaren actually) might describe a particularly elegent, composed or skilled player as being a real ‘footballer’.
I think of Manchester United as being a club which has held a long respect and love for great footballers, always being prepared to give them the freedom to play as they see fit and not weighed down by too many tactical dictums. From Edwards and Best to Giggs and Scholes, they’ve always taken the view that if you’re old enough, you’re good enough – an attitude that gave birth to their marvellous reputation for developing young talent.
Maybe it’s a Scottish thing. Busby, Docherty and Ferguson came from a footballing culture that has traditionally prized technique, swift distribution and good vision. All three of these managers were prepared to back youth and were happy to accommodate the odd maverick. Just the one usually though. Anymore than that and you’ll have something that could be starting to resemble anarchy. Fergie was happy to let Eric do his thing in his team and wander here and there, but as soon as Ince started with his delusions of grandeur, he was shipped out.
I often think that Fergie does drain some of the individuality from his players, even if that improves them. I think Ronaldo is a lot more expressive in Madrid than he was at Man U, he dribbles more, plays more flicks and he shoots a little more.
Roonney also used to be a lot more of an unpredictable player, chips from outside of the box, volleys from outside the box, weaving dribbles.
Nani also doesn’t attempt to take on as many players as he used to.
Maybe all these things have made said players better all round in that they keep the ball better but I think it also takes some of the fun from their football.
It probably takes someone with the personality of Cantona to resist Fergies overtures on style. Although Messi has said that when he moved to Barca coaches tried to convince him to play differently and he flatly refused. You can see when watching videos of him as a youngster, exactly the same style.
One of my favourite ever players had an extremely distinctive style. Juna Carlos Valeron;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDtAsomXAkA
Man u is must be a technical team.. They play with their teammates, I mean they help each other to win the game.. They follow their game plan.. I think they are great in dribbling..
I agree with Kari “I suppose a better analogy is the Euro 2008 where Xavi shined. I can’t find the stats off hand but he had at least 4 assists that I can remember, including the one to Torres in the final, and scored a goal. He was, deservedly, the man of the tournament.”