Possession vs counter-attack: Who wins?

Jose Mourinho and Pep Guardiola – Great practioners of the two distinct schools of football in the modern game.

Catenaccio, tiki-taka, total football – the beautiful game has never been and probably never will be short of footballing philosophies that aim to maximise the potential of the supreme athletes that man the great sides of the game. Great coahes and managers like Arrigo Sacchi, Helenio Herrera, Rinus Michels, Sir Alex Ferguson, Arsene Wenger, Jose Mourinho and Pep Guardiola are constantly innovating and analysing, trying to come up with the one strategy that will trump them all and win them the ultimate goal – utter footballing domination.

However, coming down to the brass tacks, underneath all these fancy names and squiggly lines on the chalkboards of these master coaches are essentially two fundamental schools of footballing strategy – possession football and counter-attacking football. Two strategies that couldn’t be more different on the face of things but which share an underlying strain of similarity that many often overlook.

Possession football

Heralded by ‘purists’ as the true form of the game, possession football essentially revolves around a basic tenet – pass and move. As the name suggests, the style’s aim is to ensure that the ball is kept in the team’s possession for the longest time, thus adhering to a logical truth – one can only score when one has the ball, whether it yourself or the opposition.

This most basic form was taken to new heights by the great Total Footballing Ajax and Dutch sides of the ‘70s, epitomized by the opening goal of the 1974 World Cup final which the Dutch scored within a couple of minutes from kick-off. After an intricate series of passes where they toyed with the German defence, the play culminated in the master, Johann Cruyff, being brought down in the penalty box. The Germans hadn’t even got a boot on the ball when Johan Neeskens swept in the resulting penalty.

The great Brazil side of ’82 and ’86 based their joga bonito on a form of possession play that brought out the best of their incredible midfield of Falcao, Zico and the indomitable Socrates as they got everyone to fall in love with their smooth, refined and seductive style of play.

The art of possession football today, however, is synonymous with one name – Barcelona. And their style is called tiki-taka, which evolved out of the famed Catalan academy – La Masia. Tiki-taka would be taken to its zenith by the great side managed by the inimitable Josep ‘Pep’ Guardiola, and would be brilliantly adopted by Luis Aragones and Vincent Del Bosque for the all-conquering Spanish national team.

The style basically means having a large number of players within short passing distance and constantly moving the ball about amongst themselves, with the team not afraid to pass the ball back into their own half in the hope of pulling opposition defenders out of position and creating the slightest gaps in their defence (the mind harks back to many a Xavi corner that would end up at the feet of either Victor Valdes or Iker Casillas without the ball ever touching an opposition player).

Barca and their tiki-taka triangles

The Barcelona and Spain vintages of recent years have taken possession football to an almost fanatic extreme. Their plays are based on the strength of one of the strongest midfields ever assembled – Xavi, Iniesta and the enforcer Busquets (whose ability to pass the ball under pressure is often overlooked due to his dramatic persona), along with the equally competent passing and selfless running of their forwards Pedro and David Villa (during the Pep heydays).

The moves are all marked by the constant movement of every member of the team, creating little triangles amonsgt themselves that enable the man in possession to have at least two short passes open at the same time while ensuring that the ball is constantly moving away from the opposition – be it forward, backward or sideways.

These little triangles happen at such frightening speed, especially against a more openly attacking team, that it’s almost impossible for a defence to handle the mesmeric one-touch passing (when the finish at the end is provided by the genius of Lionel Messi, even fewer can resist). As the video depicts, the style remains true to the basic philosophy of passing and moving while ensuring the opposition do not get the ball at any cost – football being reduced to a game of piggy in the middle (the rondo).

This constant movement of the ball forces opposition players to run after it, wastefully expending energy and thus creating openings in otherwise packed defences through sheer frustration and exhaustion. And with the maestros Xavi and Iniesta in attendance (players who can thread the ball though the eye of a needle as easily as the door of a farmhouse), the slightest opening can prove to be deadly.

In the past decade or so, it’s not just in Spain that possession football has become a rage; the wonderfully unfulfilled potential of the Argentine squad of Germany ‘06 was also on show for the whole world to see as they mesmerised a hapless Serbia & Montenegro defence in a beautifully worked out 26-pass move that culminated in one of the great team goals (the defending takes away a little shine from the goal itself, but there is no denying the quality – especially in those final five or six passes).

And the great Arsense Wenger built his great Arsenal sides on the basis of possession football – the English, who are used to a more direct form of football, often accuse him of attempting to pass the ball into the net.

But there is the disclaimer that the greatest Arsenal side of his (the invincibles with Vieira, Bergkamp, Henry et al) were not purely possession football oriented, having embraced counter-attacking football and taking it to levels of purity few had ever seen on a football pitch.

Bayern Munich’s Thomas Muller celebrates after scoring against Barcelona in the 2013 Champions League semi-final

Counter-attacking football

Many people deride counter-attacking football as reactionary and lacking much creativity on the counter-attacking team’s part – these people probably think of Sam “Allardici” Alladyce’s preferred ‘strategy’ of hoofing it up to the big guy up top – or route one football – as counter-attacking football. They cannot be more wrong.

While it is essentially true that a counter-attacking side is dependent on a solid defence and does sit back and allow the opposition to come at it, the hallmark of a great counter-attacking team is what they do when they get the ball (usually well within their half). Uncoiling with the ferocious velocity and cold-blooded ruthlessness of a viper strike, the great counter-attacking sides were and are based on a great physical phenomenon that few defences can handle – extreme speed.

The thrust of the strategy lies in using this speed effectively with intelligent runs taking out defenders and creating space and visionary (and immediate) distribution from the back and the midfield, providing the perfect base for the cutting edge finishes that are generally fast, simple and uncomplicated.

While most teams will make opportunistic use of an opposition’s slip-up or shoddy move to try and engineer a counter-attack, some, like the exhilarating Romanian side of USA ’94, base their entire game-plan around it.

Romania and the art of the counter

The goal that the utterly magnificent Gheorghe Hagi rammed in against a stunned Argentina perfectly epitomizes this brand of football.

As soon as Illie Dumitrescu recovers the ball deep in his own half after a failed Argentinian corner, there is no dithering or hesitation. He turns and immediately accelerates straight through the heart of the midfield while alongside him, as if set off by a rocket-powered clockwork mechanism, his teammates set off at a blindingly fast pace too. Tibor Selymes on his right flies past him in a sweeping arc that takes him to Dumitrescu’s left, dragging the covering defender ever so slightly to the left along with him.

That’s all the space Dumitrescu needs as he jinks to the right just as he reaches the penalty box, taking out the man chasing him (Jose Basualdo – who had lost the ball in the first place), and pauses for just the right amount of milliseconds before calmly playing the ball out to the man he knows is arriving to his right. Gheorghe Hagi, the magnificient wizard of the Carpathians, arrives perfectly in time to smash the ball into the Argentinian net with extreme prejudice.

10 seconds. 10 seconds is all it took to get the ball from their own half to the opposition net. Direct, fast, intense – this was counter-attacking football at its best.

The great East European sides of the past like the magnificent Red Star Belgrade team of the early ‘90s were also teams that had been set up with the one thought in their collective mind – precision engineered counter-attacks.

The three great Manchester United sides under Alex Ferguson were also heavily indoctrinated in the religion of the counter-attack. In the 26 years that Ferguson was in charge, United scored well over 100 goals on the counter. The team used the extreme pace of the wingers (Ryan Giggs, Andrei Kanchelskis, Cristiano Ronaldo et al), the great distribution skills of the keepers (Peter Schmeichel and Edwin Van der Saar) and the vision of the midfielders (Eric Cantona, Paul Scholes, Roy Keane) to great effect as they mastered the art of the counter and high-paced one-touch forward passing to rip apart defences time and time again.

While Jose Mourinho is derided for negative football these days, much of his best football came when his teams attacked at high speed – think Arjen Robben at Chelsea and Ronaldo/Angel Di Maria at Real Madrid – and had visionary distribution from the middle: Deco at Porto, Sneijder at Inter and Alonso at Real. Bayern Munich’s great side under Jupp Heynckes too used the counter to wonderful effect, especially when they eviscerated Barcelona 7-0 over two legs of the 2013 Champions League semi-finals.

Ancelotti’s Real Madrid did the same to the now Guardiola-marshaled Bavarians the next year at the same stage of the same tournament, when they ripped them apart with a display of scarily fast counter-attacking (fate, irony, destiny, Pep Guardiola being taught a lesson in not trying to fix something that clearly isn’t broken at all, call it what you will).

Arsene Wenger is one manager who has employed both counter-attacking football and possession based football to good effect over the years.

Possession or the counter? Who wins?

The two styles share a strain of similarity in that both styles are heavily reliant on an effective midfield – the great Romanian side mentioned earlier was one of the pioneers of the much talked about 4-6-0 formation, packing the side with midfielders. It was a tactic that made for the most exhilaratingly fast uncoiling of a team on a counter (yes, Pep’s great false striker role has its genesis in counter-attacking football – oh, the sweet irony!).

And the influence of the Catalan midfield on tiki-taka is too obvious to be discussed any more, both styles are also extremely reliant on good distribution from the back and the pressing and ball winning midfielders who rob the ball off the opposition. It’s what they do afterwards that sets them apart so dramatically.

Talking in a pure footballing sense, both styles are not without their faults – the counter-attacking strategy fails abysmally against any team content to sit back and hold on for a draw or counter themselves. On the other hand, the possession style is entertaining when playing against a team that attacks, but when faced with the two banks of four that most smaller, less ambitious teams (or a parked bus, as the Special One immortalized the strategy as) revert to, it quickly descends into a mockery of itself – the ball being passed in the defence and midfield without ever entering the final third, as the team searches for an opening to play that killer ball in behind or through the opposition.

This is a problem that Spain and Barca have faced over the past couple of years; their fanatic adherence to possession has given them a lack of flexibility.

Success is the willingness to adapt

The great counter-attacking sides that had been nullified by the possession-obsessed sides (after all, you can’t counter-attack when you don’t have the ball!) are now back in full force. Their counter-attacking is backed up by an almost maniacal pressing (within the opposition half like Dortmund and any Marcelo Biesla managed side, or slightly deeper like Real and Netherlands), taking the game to the stubbornly possession obsessed teams. This allows them to play as much as they want within the non-risky two thirds of the pitch, and then press hard to win back the ball and hit fast and hard on the counter.

This titanic clash of styles was most recently and evocatively on show during the World Cup in Brazil when Spain faced off against Netherlands. The Dutch, under the aegis of the wily Louis van Gaal, dropped their own possession based 4-3-3 and moved to a more defensive and counter-attacking 3-5-2. While the game will go down as an abject humiliation of the possession style and a great victory for the counter-attacking style, it may have been very different if David Silva had converted that gilt-edged chance deep into the first half after a near complete period of patient Spanish domination.

After all, within seconds of that miss came the extraordinary sight of Robin van Persie flying though the air as he scored with one of the greatest World Cup finishes of all time.

The second half would see counter-attacking at its best, and with Netherlands breaking fast as Spain took greater risks in pushing forward, the inherent genius of the strategy came to the fore – the human F-22 Raptor that is Arjen Robben ripping the Spaniards apart in a display of the greatest counter-attacking skill.

Arjen Robben counter attacking with extreme prejudice agaisnt the Spanish pass-masters

The same World Cup, however, would see the worst of the strategy as Netherlands and Argentina sat back, both sides looking for the counter, effectively ‘parking the bus’ to play out arguably the dullest semi-final in World Cup history. It is telling therefore that the eventual winners Germany played a brilliant blend of possession and counter-attacking football where they displayed patience when they got the ball, but did not hesitate to break fast when they saw the opportunity – the ideal blend of direct (think Brazil 0 – Germany 7) and patient football (the final itself and most of the tournament), adapting strategies as and when the situation demanded it.

However, after seeing Spain and Barca end trophyless and humiliated (kind of in Barca’s case), if you think possession football is out of fashion, wait till Guardiola gets the Bayern super-machine purring again, Luis Enrique re-creates the poetry of tiki-taka at its Catalan home and the young guns like Thiago Alacantra come into their own for the Spanish national side. Rest assured, they will adapt as great coaches and great footballing sides are wont to, and come up with a higher form of possession football. At the same time, we can also safely assume that the great counter-attacking masters will come back to try and trump the possession kings in this never-ending war of great footballing philosphies.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder

The possession style is to football what foreplay is to lovemaking – a patient, drawn out, romantic affair that soothes, calms and inevitably seduces the mind with the assurance of a consummate lover. Counter-attacking football is a far more primal affair – wild and urgent, bringing with it the surge of adrenaline and the heady rush of exhilaration that only the act itself can bring.

That is not say the two extreme styles are in any way mutually incompatible. In a weird twist of rational logic, the greatest sides have always been willing to adapt to changing situations on the pitch – the possesion-obssesed 70s Ajax and Dutch sides and more recently Arsene Wenger’s Invincibles often counter-attacked with a directness and thrust few could comprehend. Similarly, the great Milan sides of Sacchi and Capello and the United sides of Fergie – teams that were essentially based on a counter-attacking philosophy – had the mastery to play the ball around the park as they damn well wished when they figured that the counter wasn’t on.

Germany mixed direct and patient football well at the World Cup in Brazil.

As to the question of which is a better style of football, that’s like asking what’s more beautiful – a Picasso masterpiece or a Michelangelo sculpture. Beauty, as always, lies in the eye of the beholder. With the incessant human need for comparison, the modern trend of analysing every single step and shadow, and the almost unhealthy obsession with statistics, we often forget to enjoy the beauty that is being created, taking shape and being played out right in front of us.

Having said that, and while acknowledging that the sight of tiki-taka at high speed (like Spain vs Italy in the Euro 2012 final) has very few parallels in sport, for me personally, nothing compares to the thrill of a beautifully executed counter. Nothing quite sets the nerves afire as much as the sight of a Ryan Giggs running at a furiously backpedalling defender or an enigmatic duo of Cristiano Ronaldo and Wayne Rooney ripping apart defences with the ease and speed of a hot knife going through melting butter.