Is 1-0 hoofball-park-the-bus the new era of winners in football?

Leicester and Atletico revolutionizing a new dawn in football after the garbage tiki-taka years. Praise be the lord.

What a time to be alive

4-4-2 is the best formation in the world imo

I don't think both the teams deliberately adopted this playing style. More to do with optimum utilisation of the options they had. They did it efficiently so kudos to them.

Leicester are the 2nd highest scoring team in the PL. Just thought I'd leave that there....

Isn't this question asked all the time? Teams adapt all the time lol, it's why the CL hasn't yet been retained etc etc.

What necessarily works now likely won't be successful next season, it's a copycat sport and always has been but only those who adapt and change are able to stay at the top.

No one style works forever, hell not even more than a year in most cases.

Calling Atlético hoofball? Get lost

RealGunner wrote:4-4-2 is the best formation in the world imo

4-2-3-1 is better but I agree 4-4-2 beats most formations

4-2-3-1 is crap for the most part.

4-4-2 >>>>>>>>>> that

Generalizing that Atleti and Leicester play the same way is utter ignorance.
Apart from the same formation theres nothing similar with the 2 teams play.
And its not the same type of 4-4-2 either. Leicester second striker is essentially a hard working attacking midfielder who can score goals and main striker too is nothing similar to the main striker of Atleti. LC plays essentially hence with a 4-4-1-1.

And Leicester if they are hoofing they are not doing it deliberately either. Its just that they are playing to their strengths and also sometimes they had no choice but to. Vardy has got pace to burn and they have some really neat passers in midfield. And initially in the 1st half of the season when teams attacked them it was an excellent counter attacking technique as space opened up at the back for Vardy. So technically Leicester aren't a hoofball team per say ala a Stoke or some others.
I am sure therefore that next season things will change and they will develop a new system for their CL campaign.

Also I agree to the notion that 4-4-2 and its variations if properly used are the best formations in football. Just basic stuff and not overcomplicated rocket science like some clowns like lvg are professing.

Like others have kinda pointed out, we have two separate things here, park the bus tactics and long ball tactics. They can be used together, but by no means have to be together. Atletico nor Leicester play long balls as their primary attacking strategy.

Moreover, I feel that the aerial side of football has got unfairly a negative image to it in the 21th century. Way too many fans seem to think it's a "lesser" or poorer way to play the game. It even gets mocked. Yet I have recently seen four top level matches where a team would have benefited from having a big target man in the box: the two Atletico vs Barca games, the Atletico vs Bayern game and our game against Villarreal. Barcelona, Bayern and Liverpool created very few chances against these excellently drilled defences. In all these matches I was thinking "if Barca / Bayern / Liverpool just had a big target man in the box to win a few headers, provide some knock-downs, flick-ons, bounces in the box, they'd create more scoring opportunities than banging their head against the wall like this."

As someone who appreciates the aerial game just as much as playing it on the ground, I gotta say I'm delighted that especially Atletico and in a little lesser way Villarreal are showing how effectively you can defend against the supposedly sexy, always-keeping-it-on-the-ground type of teams, no matter how much talent their opponents carry in their teams. I believe that is going to help managers (and fans) realize to not discard the aerial side of football the way it's been largely discarded in this century.

I think one of the reason hoofballs are antagonised or looked down upon is due to the crappy FIFA games.

Art Morte wrote:Like others have kinda pointed out, we have two separate things here, park the bus tactics and long ball tactics. They can be used together, but by no means have to be together. Atletico nor Leicester play long balls as their primary attacking strategy.

Moreover, I feel that the aerial side of football has got unfairly a negative image to it in the 21th century. Way too many fans seem to think it's a "lesser" or poorer way to play the game. It even gets mocked. Yet I have recently seen four top level matches where a team would have benefited from having a big target man in the box: the two Atletico vs Barca games, the Atletico vs Bayern game and our game against Villarreal. Barcelona, Bayern and Liverpool created very few chances against these excellently drilled defences. In all these matches I was thinking "if Barca / Bayern / Liverpool just had a big target man in the box to win a few headers, provide some knock-downs, flick-ons, bounces in the box, they'd create more scoring opportunities than banging their head against the wall like this."

As someone who appreciates the aerial game just as much as playing it on the ground, I gotta say I'm delighted that especially Atletico and in a little lesser way Villarreal are showing how effectively you can defend against the supposedly sexy, always-keeping-it-on-the-ground type of teams, no matter how much talent their opponents carry in their teams. I believe that is going to help managers (and fans) realize to not discard the aerial side of football the way it's been largely discarded in this century.

Can't agree with this. I think crossing to a big targetman is very easy to defend against. If we look at Atletico's results against both Barca and Real in recent years, it's Barca with the midget frontline that got 7 wins in the last 8 games against them and Real who have only 1 win in their last 8 games despite having excellent aerial and physical players in Ronaldo, Bale, Ramos, Pepe etc. and utilizing a lot of crosses.

Some teams are just excellent defensively and hard to break down, no matter if you try crosses or ground football.

Art Morte wrote:Like others have kinda pointed out, we have two separate things here, park the bus tactics and long ball tactics. They can be used together, but by no means have to be together. Atletico nor Leicester play long balls as their primary attacking strategy.

Moreover, I feel that the aerial side of football has got unfairly a negative image to it in the 21th century. Way too many fans seem to think it's a "lesser" or poorer way to play the game. It even gets mocked. Yet I have recently seen four top level matches where a team would have benefited from having a big target man in the box: the two Atletico vs Barca games, the Atletico vs Bayern game and our game against Villarreal. Barcelona, Bayern and Liverpool created very few chances against these excellently drilled defences. In all these matches I was thinking "if Barca / Bayern / Liverpool just had a big target man in the box to win a few headers, provide some knock-downs, flick-ons, bounces in the box, they'd create more scoring opportunities than banging their head against the wall like this."

As someone who appreciates the aerial game just as much as playing it on the ground, I gotta say I'm delighted that especially Atletico and in a little lesser way Villarreal are showing how effectively you can defend against the supposedly sexy, always-keeping-it-on-the-ground type of teams, no matter how much talent their opponents carry in their teams. I believe that is going to help managers (and fans) realize to not discard the aerial side of football the way it's been largely discarded in this century.

interesting point of view...
And let's not forget that the only reason Bayern is still in UCL is because of 2 header goals against Juve. And ironically, this comes from a tiki-taka Guardiola team.

futbol wrote:

Art Morte wrote:Like others have kinda pointed out, we have two separate things here, park the bus tactics and long ball tactics. They can be used together, but by no means have to be together. Atletico nor Leicester play long balls as their primary attacking strategy.

Moreover, I feel that the aerial side of football has got unfairly a negative image to it in the 21th century. Way too many fans seem to think it's a "lesser" or poorer way to play the game. It even gets mocked. Yet I have recently seen four top level matches where a team would have benefited from having a big target man in the box: the two Atletico vs Barca games, the Atletico vs Bayern game and our game against Villarreal. Barcelona, Bayern and Liverpool created very few chances against these excellently drilled defences. In all these matches I was thinking "if Barca / Bayern / Liverpool just had a big target man in the box to win a few headers, provide some knock-downs, flick-ons, bounces in the box, they'd create more scoring opportunities than banging their head against the wall like this."

As someone who appreciates the aerial game just as much as playing it on the ground, I gotta say I'm delighted that especially Atletico and in a little lesser way Villarreal are showing how effectively you can defend against the supposedly sexy, always-keeping-it-on-the-ground type of teams, no matter how much talent their opponents carry in their teams. I believe that is going to help managers (and fans) realize to not discard the aerial side of football the way it's been largely discarded in this century.

Can't agree with this. I think crossing to a big targetman is very easy to defend against. If we look at Atletico's results against both Barca and Real in recent years, it's Barca with the midget frontline that got 7 wins in the last 8 games against them and Real who have only 1 win in their last 8 games despite having excellent aerial and physical players in Ronaldo, Bale, Ramos, Pepe etc. and utilizing a lot of crosses.

Some teams are just excellent defensively and hard to break down, no matter if you try crosses or ground football.

The thing is that even the best play-it-on-the-ground teams start crossing the ball much more when they come up against a well parked bus. I'm not saying it's easy to attack by aerial balls, but you do increase your chances of creating something with them if you can put on a proper target man instead of your Suarezes, Benzemas, Lewandowskis and Firminos who are not going to win a single 50-50 aerial ball against a good center-back.

"Park-the-bus teams" usually have tall and competent enough centerbacks to deal with aerial balls. Which striker could realistically dominate Terry and Carvalho or Walter Samuel and Lucio or Gimenez and Godin in the air? I don't think the chances are much better than any other way of attacking. Which defender was it again from a newly promoted team who said defending the crosses to Fellaini from LVG's United was as easy as defending in the Championship?

Here's another real life problem. Let's say for a second you are right and pumping aerial balls into the box makes sense against super defensive teams. Are teams like Bayern or Barca going to have Andy Carroll sitting on the bench the entire year only to put him on once or twice in a season against teams like Atletico?

A target man CF doesn't have to dominate the CBs. It's enough if he wins a certain % of aerial balls - which he will. And I'm not saying those won balls must be headers on goal. "Second balls" are important and often lead to unpredictable chances in and around the box. In fact, the CF doesn't necessarily even have to win a ball, but if he can just distract the CB's headed clearance enough so that they cannot control where it's headed, that can be just as good a second ball for others to attack as a won ball. Fellaini, for example, is easy to defend against in the sense that he won't score a lot of goals from crosses into the box, but he's not easy to defend in the sense that the CB is going to win every ball against him and clear it in a controlled fashion.

Some teams have adopted an approach to football that largely ignores the aerial side of the game. Yet every team start crossing the ball more when they are faced with a good park-the-bus defence. That just doesn't feel rational to me.

Obviously an Andy Carroll is way, way too good to sit on the bench for 90% of the season, but there are a lot of fringe players at all clubs, I don't see why, say, Barcelona couldn't have a decent big center-forward in their squad for a bit-part role. Or if I do see why, it's only because people have developed themselves this idea that having a target man in a team that aspires to play beautiful, dominating football is somehow dirty and embarrassing.

Art Morte wrote:

Some teams have adopted an approach to football that largely ignores the aerial side of the game. Yet every team start crossing the ball more when they are faced with a good park-the-bus defence. That just doesn't feel rational to me.

I think teams start crossing when they run out of ideas. At our worst under Tata, Alves was the leading crosser in La Liga. And that was with Messi in the middle. It made no sense whatsoever, we were simply lost tactically.

Even if you don't mean scoring from headers directly but knocking the ball off to a teammate etc., a park-the-bus team will have 11 men in and around the box. Most balls will be blocked and intercepted and cleared very quickly unless it luckily falls optimally.
A team relying on the big targetman tactic will also not only require the appropriate striker but great crossers. But Barca for example doesn't have consistently great crossers (Alves' crossing can be very hit and miss). We have Messi and Neymar on the wings playing as inside forwards (strong left foot on the right wing, strong right foot on the left wing, not optimal for a crossing game by design).

I don't think there is anything wrong or embarrassing with crossing, Real Madrid and Bayern cross a lot. Madrid are averaging 24 crosses per game, the 2nd most in La Liga. But look what their fans say when they fail to win yet another game against Atletico. They moan that they lack creativity from the middle apart from crossing.

To see how one must beat Leicester watch Arsenals two matches against them this season.

Peccadillo wrote:To see how one must beat Leicester watch Arsenals two matches against them this season.

Yeah, refereeing mistakes.

Atletico are not a hoofball team, they are a counterattacking team. They keep their shape narrow and force the opposition to resort to crossing/attacking from the flanks, it's up to Godin and Gimenez to head the ball clear. They have players with good technical abilities and vision in midfield to make that final pass too. Denying soace in the middle is a key part of their plan. It's a 4-4-2 but there are no real wingers, Koke and Saul sit narrow most of the time.