Good Defending: A declining art in Modern football?

Football is a sport where teams need a good mix of both attack and defence.

While there are great attacking players in the modern game (Messi, Ronaldo, Aguero), it seems there has been a steady decline in the quality of defenders the game currently has.

While there are good defenders like Germany’s Phillip Lahm and Manchester United’s Nemanja Vidic, the ones belonging to the current era just do not have the defensive flair of say the early 2000s, which had great defenders like Italy’s Fabio Cannavaro and Allesandro Nesta.

Vincent Kompany, one of the Premier League’s best defenders!

Italy has always produced good defending talent, as evident during the 1970’s (when Inter Milan used the ‘catenaccio’ style of play, an ultra defensive approach with a ‘sweeper’) with players such as Francesco Baresi good enough to break into any World XI squad.

Also, there were legends like Germany’s Franz Beckenbaur (Pele himself admitted Beckenbaur to be the most difficult defender he had ever faced!), who are considered amongst the best defenders to have played the sport.

Though the current game has promising talent like say Chelsea’s David Luiz, the emphasis upon attacking soccer and tactics may be one of the reasons as to why defending in the modern game has lost its charm.

We rarely nowadays see a last gasp tackle or a spectacular clearance, which was frequent during the days of Maldini and Cannavaro.

Also, teams in the modern game tend to employ two attacking full backs (Marcelo, Lahm), instead of the more traditional stopper in the right and left wings.

The modern game is more attack oriented with even defenders expected to get on the scoring sheets.

Though there are players such as Sergio Ramos and Ashley Cole in the modern game, who make defending in football look exciting, we hope the beautiful game regains the lost flair of good old fashioned defending, replete with last gasp tackles and goal line clearances, a la Cannavaro!