For a long time in the early development of football, the striker and the defender were the only two major formation systems in the football world, and the "midfield" as we know it today has been considered an insignificant mistake for centuries and ignored. Of course, today's people have already appreciated the outstanding contribution of the midfield position to the complete football formation, and many managers in later generations have even created a "no-front formation" that completely reduces the forwards (such as the 460 frontless formation used by Roma, Barcelona, and the Spanish national team for a long time). With the gradual deepening of people's understanding of modern football concepts, more and more football formations that tend to strengthen the control of the midfield have come into being, and the small editor of this article will start from the concept of "four midfielders" to analyze in detail the advantages and disadvantages of the three derivative formations of the 442 formations in today's football.
A brief description of the early development of modern football
Chaotic times
Before introducing the five-midfield football formation to you in detail, Xiaobian believes that it is necessary to take you to a general understanding of the ups and downs experienced by modern football in the early stage of its development. Unlike today's glory of football in the world of sports, modern football was not sought after by many people in the early days of its birth, and this sport was for a long time as a leisure and entertainment program for soldiers in the British army. By the mid-to-late 13th century AD, by chance, modern football finally came out of the barracks and entered the lives of the secular people, and people quickly showed great interest in this sport that tested teamwork and personal physical coordination. In less than 10 years, football in Britain became a "national sport" that could compete with the fencing and spear competitions that had been circulating for hundreds of years.
It's not so much a football game as it is a "group fight."
It is a pity that modern football has not been able to enter the road of standardization for a long time in society. People understand the sport as a relaxation program at best, and not much really thinks of football as a sport that spends time training or developing detailed and formal rules. As can be seen in the picture above, early football was better called "playfulness" between people than a sport.
Period of shimmering light
Unlike many ancient sports, football was completely at a stage of stagnation in its original six or seven hundred years, and it was not until the mid-19th century that some visionary sports practitioners gradually developed the idea of improving the sport, and it was this series of ideas to improve football that gave this sport, which had reached the brink of chaos, a chance to regain its life.
Oxford's rigorous approach paved the way for the birth of written rules for football
In 1848, Oxford University, a world-famous university in Oxford, England, planned to invite another famous university in England, Cambridge University, to participate in a friendly football match. The oxford university authorities only hoped to strengthen the cooperative relationship between the two universities and strengthen the exchange and learning between students through such a football friendly match, but no one expected that the Oxford University sports department responsible for organizing the football friendly match showed a surprisingly rigorous approach. This group of young university students combined with fencing, marksmanship and other sports that were widely spread on the European continent at that time, and believed that if they wanted to hold a high-level football friendly match that was in line with the identity of the two schools, they must formulate a series of logical and fair football rules.
This proposal was initially strongly opposed by the Oxford University's Sports Department, partly because it was very close to the start of the friendly match, and it was not realistic to want to set the rules of football on an ad hoc basis; the second reason was that the Oxford University's sports department managers believed that the friendly match was only to strengthen the cooperation between the two universities, and there was no need to rise to the height of special rules. Under this stalemate, Oxford students gave full play to the school motto of "rigorous governance", insisting that the development of a series of normative field rules was a strong evidence of further cooperation between the two universities, and finally the Oxford university administration, in desperation, could only allow the students to this opinion but stipulated that the work must be completed within a week.
Translated as the Cambridge Rules of Chinese
Who would have thought that the stubbornness of Oxford students at that time made an indelible contribution to the development of modern football and even to the glory of today's football. A week later, the Cambridge Rules, which had a profound influence on the initial rules of modern football, were introduced: the rules detailed that football could not use both hands in a game, and the strong basis for determining the victory or defeat of both sides was the number of times the ball was sent into the opponent's net during a single game... Of course, the cambridge rules are great in that they for the first time stipulated that the number of participants on both sides of a football match should be 11 (at that time, the number of people in a dormitory at Cambridge University was exactly 11, so the rule-makers set the number of people on a single team as well), which is still used today. Today, these rules seem to be the basic definitions that any football fan is familiar with, but in the 19th century, when people were completely blank about the football system, they really laid a solid and stable foundation for the development of modern football. Since then, more and more regions and even groups have begun to pay more attention to the formulation of football rules, and football has officially entered the era of standardization today.
Period of rapid development
The initial emphasis on the rules of football was effective in helping the sport enter the path of standardization, but given that there was no official body regulating the operation of modern football at that time, people often formulated soccer formations based on their own understanding or references to their predecessors. In such an environment, the football rules between various regions in the United Kingdom have produced large or small differences, and football teams in different regions have almost no way to complete the game under the same football rules, and the spread of football has fallen into a bottleneck period during this period. Many visionary football practitioners began to realize the importance of a full takeover of football by official institutions.
The birth of the FA has made an outstanding contribution to the standardization of players
At the end of 1862, 10 English regional football teams came together to express their expectations for the establishment of an officially governed football body. The English government, seeing the booming of modern football at the time, also recognised that official regulation played a very important role in the promotion of the sport and its leading position in the world. In 1863, the First Officially Administered Football Organization in the History of World Football, the English Football Association, was officially established in London, England. At the beginning of its establishment, this institution clearly stipulated that the government should carry out effective control, and was mainly responsible for the preparation and organization of the English domestic football league, the registration of English athletes, the selection of outstanding athletes to form the English national team, etc.
The establishment of the FA opened a new door for the development of modern football, the sport officially from the previous social control into the era of government control, modern football on the fast train of rapid development.
The birth of four midfielders
The birth of the football formation
Although the hardware of football has been significantly improved in the 19th century, people's awareness and understanding of football is still in a rather primitive era. It was not until the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century that many footballers realized that standardizing the position of players on the field had a significant effect on the cultivation of overall technical and tactical styles. In such a background environment, the first football formation in world history, the "nine-forward and one-guard" formation, has stepped onto the historical stage.
Illustration of nine fronts and one guard
As shown in the figure above, the so-called nine-forward and one-guard formation refers to the accumulation of nine strikers in the midfield area, leaving only one goalkeeper plus a defensive partner at the back. Such a personnel arrangement naturally seems absurd today, but in the early 20th century, when the modern football formation was just born, it was a well-deserved "golden formation". One of the phenomena of early football is also evident from the formation: there is no midfield position. Indeed, modern football did not have a midfield position in the early development period, so football games were in the era of "balls flying all over the sky" for a long time. So when was the concept of midfield position born? The following small series will come to you in detail.
The birth of the midfield position
Opportunity - the fiasco of the European team in the World Cup in Uruguay
Statistics of the teams of the 1930 FIFA World Cup in Uruguay
In 1930, the World Cup, a major event in world football, was successfully held in Uruguay, South America. The European football teams, which pride themselves on being the birthplace of modern football, are full of confidence and want to teach teams on other continents a lesson, but no one thought that the performance of European teams that have contributed a lot to the development of modern football in the first World Cup can only be described as terrible. As shown in the chart above, only the Yugoslav national football team made it to the first round of the four European teams participating in the World Cup in Uruguay, including France, Romania and Belgium, who were eliminated in the first round.
The fiasco in the Uruguay World Cup has led many European managers to ponder whether the multi-striker formation they admired was still suitable for the football environment at that time. Looking at the performance of South American teams in the Uruguay World Cup, their passing ability and physical confrontation ability are far weaker than those of European teams, and they use a more efficient single-soldier attack strategy to take advantage of the emptiness of European team defenders in a single game and often get 10 single-knife chances. Against this backdrop, even though the multi-striker formation could give the team a significant numerical advantage in positional attack, the excessive emptiness of the backline had brought the multi-striker formation to the end of its life in football at that time.
After the End of the World Cup in Uruguay, many European managers began to abandon the multi-striker formation and learn from South American teams to adopt some offensive strategies of quick counterattacks in the front. However, considering that European players pay more attention to physical confrontation, their foot skills and dribbling ability still have a big gap compared with South American players, and the technical and tactical strategy of relying on individual ability to counterattack does not seem to be suitable for them. In such an environment, many managers have turned to seek another way to change the formation in order to achieve the purpose of restraining the tactics of South American players.
The first football formation to include a midfielder , the 2323 formation
Born on June 17, 1886, in a small town in Turin, Italy, an ordinary boy was Victorio Pozzo, who would later change the landscape of European football. Pozzo showed a love of football from an early age, entering the first team of Grasshopper-Club Zürich in Zurich, Switzerland, in 1905 and successfully joining the most prestigious Club of Turin in Italy at that time in 1906 (the Turin football team at that time was in the midst of a period of flourishing team history, and the "Turin God Team", which swept the Invincibles of Italian football in the 1940s, was structured according to the system of the Turin youth team at that time. ）。 Despite joining such a big team early on, Pozzo was not able to show superhuman football talent, and only 3-4 years later he was forced to leave the team because he could not keep up with the rhythm of the first team. The club's modest performance did not dampen Pozzo's enthusiasm for football, and he quickly set his sights on the coaching position and unexpectedly glowed like never before.
Pozzo coaching players (first from left)
Bozzo grew up in mainland England for a long time as a teenager, so he also became a true pro-British person, and his upbringing in England allowed Himzo to learn more advanced football concepts, and he took over the position of head coach of the Blues in 1929, when the Italian national team was in desperate need of excellent results, and shouldered the responsibility of impacting the two World Cups in 1930 and 1934. The European team's fiasco at the 1930 Fifaith World Cup in Uruguay led Pozzo to the idea of changing the team's formation on the eve of leading the team to prepare for the 1934 World Cup in Italy. After much deliberation, Pozzo, with his experience and excellent observation ability, accurately realized that the vacuum area in the backfield and in the middle of the front court had great tactical development value, and in this environment, Bozo created the first football formation with midfield recorded in world football - the 2323 formation.
Pozzo's 2323 formation
As shown in the figure above, we can understand the 2323 formation as a variant of the 253 formation, which was questioned by many fans and the media at the beginning of its birth, and it was generally believed that overturning the multi-forward formation that had been used for many years on the eve of the World Series would not do any good for the team's journey in the World Cup. But Under tremendous pressure from public opinion, Pozzo gave full play to his unique leadership temperament as a successful leader: he did not allow his authority to waver in any way. Pozzo asked all of his team members to concentrate on the construction of the technical and tactical style without being disturbed by outside comments. In the end, they won consecutive world cups in Italy in 1934, Berlin in 1936 and France in 1938, and Pozzo became the only head coach to win both world cup and Olympic champion so far.
The success of the midfield formation at several World Series has led the media who were once critical of Pozzo to start attacking the shortcomings of the multi-striker formation, and many managers have also begun to study football formations with midfielders, seeing the huge increase in control of the midfield. In this context, the multi-striker formation that was popular in European football for half a century gradually began to disappear, and many midfield football formations such as the 424 mushroomed on the stage of world football, and football officially entered the modern trajectory.
The Brazilian won the World Cup by absolute superiority
However, the early football lineup did not invest too many people in the midfield area, most famously the 424 formation used by the Brazilian national team in the 1958 World Cup in Sweden. As shown in the picture above, the Brazilian only placed two midfielders in this formation - Zito and Didi, these two players undertook almost all the midfield tandem guidance tasks of the Brazilian national team in the World Cup that year, and it was with these two perfect performances in the midfield position that the Brazilian finally won the Remit Cup with an unbeaten record of 5 wins and 1 draw, which opened a golden age of samba football.
The key to restraining the 424 formation was quickly found: limiting the two midfielders
The Brazilian's performance at the World Cup quickly allowed the 424 formation they used to replace Pozzo's 2323 formation and became popular in world football. However, this situation was definitely not a good thing for the middle and lower teams that were common at the time, these middle and lower teams often did not have midfield stars who could stand alone, and in the 424 formation against strong teams, they could only be forced to discharge some overly aggressive multi-forward formations or "bus formations" with many defensive players in the backcourt. In such an environment, many managers of mid- and lower-class teams began to try to find a football formation that could effectively restrain the strong offensive ability of the 424 formation. Considering that the attacking system of full-backs plugging in assists was not fully formed at that time, it was thought that as long as the two midfielders in the 424 formation were effectively restricted, the power of this formation on the offensive end could be defused.
The 4 midfielders in the 442 formation can suppress the ball holding of the two midfielders in the 424 formation
After more than 10 years of painstaking research, Maslov, then head coach of Dynamo Kiev in the former Soviet Union, invented the 442 formation in the 1960s that changed the course of football history. This formation can rely on the numerical advantage of the midfield position to form a numerical advantage on the two players holding the ball in the local area, and once the ball is obtained, it can launch a secondary attack with a certain threat. This technical and tactical idea was widely recognized by European football as soon as it was proposed, and was successfully introduced to the Three Lions by the then England national team Alf Ramsey, who eventually won the 1966 World Cup in England with the 442 formation. After the English national team won the championship, the once popular 424 formation came to the end of its life like the previous nine-forward and one-guard and 2323, and the 442 formation took over the vane of world football in a king-like posture and opened a golden age about the full rise of the midfield position. In the next chapter, we will introduce you to the three 442 formations circulating in world football today.
The birth of the 442 formation
442 formation
Parallel positions
The 442 formation is one of the most popular and widely spread football formations in the world today. As early as the 60s of the last century, this formation was invented by Maslov, the coach of the former Soviet club Dynamo Kiev, and since then the 442 formation has maintained a fairly high degree of activity in world football. As shown in the figure above, the 442 formation pioneered by Maslov is a "442 parallel position formation" with a parallel distribution of four midfielders. It is worth mentioning that the so-called 442 formation parallel position has appeared quite low in today's world football, and the reason is that this formation lacks sufficient layering in terms of midfield interception.
The lack of interception hierarchy is the biggest disadvantage of parallel positioning
As shown in the figure above, the 442 parallel stand formation allows the spacing between the midfield and the front and backfield to be stretched to a more obvious distance. Once the opposing player adopts a more concise and clear "long pass rush" style of play when attacking, the attacker who is cruising in the front area has a certain chance of directly facing the back line, and it is obviously unrealistic to rely on the 4 midfielders in parallel positions to quickly return to the position to complete the defense.
The 442 formation makes the offense more three-dimensional
The so-called 442 parallel position in today's world football has gradually been used as a kind of on-the-spot response formation during the game, as shown in the picture above, when the team urgently needs to strengthen the offensive firepower during the game to give up a part of the midfield interception initiative, Four midfielders in parallel positions can provide a multi-faceted and more layered passing route for the team's ball-holding advancement: whether it is a full-back who is actively pressing on the wing or two center forwards who are inserted in the middle of the road at the right time to transform into a shadow forward, they can provide effective fire support for the two forwards in the front. More crucially, the presence of two full-backs allows the team's formation to change from a 442 formation to a 244 formation in an instant.
Diamond-shaped midfield stand
As we mentioned earlier, the biggest drawback of the 442 parallel stand is that it lacks sufficient layering of interception in midfield. In this context, many managers have been forced to abandon this formation in order to find alternatives with a more layered sense of interception. However, the 442 formation has been a masterpiece of offensive and defensive balance in football for a long time, and many managers can't bear to give up their excellent stability, so they began to seek a change from the personnel position of the 442 formation itself. Around the 80s and 90s of the last century, the most widely used branch of the 442 formation, the 442 diamond-shaped stand, officially appeared on the world stage.
The diamond-shaped midfielder is more layered defensively
As shown in the figure above, the so-called diamond-shaped midfield position refers to the diamond-shaped distribution of four midfielders: one center forward is at the front, two full-backs are on either side, and one is in the last position. The 442 diamond-shaped midfield makes the midfielder's sense of interception reach an unprecedented best state in the four-midfield system, the back in the backward position can protect the gap in front of the defender line to the greatest extent, and the two full-backs can greatly enhance the variability of the team on the offensive end, whether in the defense of the side or the moderate insertion of the attack, more importantly, the two full-backs can cooperate with the team's midfield first interception line in the moment when the team turns from attack to defense. They can use a certain degree of high-pressure pressing to effectively limit the opponent's ball handler's ball behavior to achieve the purpose of defusing the opponent's attack at the initial stage.
The diamond-shaped midfielders stand closely against each other and it is difficult to expose gaps
Of course, the advantages of the diamond midfield as one of the most active midfield formations in football today are naturally not only reflected in the defense, but also the diversity that the diamond midfield can bring to the team on the offensive end is also urgently needed by many managers. All in all, the biggest advantage of the presence of a diamond-shaped midfield is its sense of layering, which can also be perfectly reflected in the attack. As shown in the figure above, the 4 players in the diamond-shaped midfield are scattered across the 4 endpoints of the midfield area, and these 4 players do not have to be busy with running positions during the attack and defense like parallel positions, as long as they stick to their positions. As shown in the picture, as long as the 4 players in the diamond-shaped midfield stand in their own positions at both ends of the attack and defense and do not make low-level mistakes, this set of formations is difficult for the opponent to use small-area penetration and long-pass rushing and other technical and tactical methods to complete the breakthrough.
Whether it is today's football or the original football, the back is divided into "plug-in type" and "organizational type"
Many fans and friends may have a little doubt: does the existence of a single back not lead to the lack of offensive manpower in the 442 diamond midfield compared to the parallel position? If you want to solve this problem, Xiaobian must correct a big misunderstanding in everyone's established concept: the back is a position dedicated to midfield interception. As we all know, in today's increasingly diverse world of football, the established responsibilities of each position have been developed to the extreme, and almost no manager will allow a defender to be completely defensive on the field and neglect the offensive responsibility. On the whole, the performance of the back in the world today at the offensive end can be divided into two types: "back insertion" and "passing organization", for Chinese fans, the more famous "back insertion" type of back waist has Barca's Vidal, Guangzhou Evergrande Paulinho, etc.; and the back with passing organization ability is more typical of former Liverpool star Gerrard, former Italian international Pirlo and today's Real Madrid No. 10 Modric.
The back became a "long-range guided sight" in the attack.
On the whole, the main tendency of today's world football for back players is to use good passing feet to dispatch the overall situation close to the defensive line. As shown in the figure, considering the deep position of the back, even if the back completes the ball holding the opponent in a short period of time, the midfield defensive line cannot be quickly pressed forward to form a restriction on the back of the ball, so that the back player has a momentary calm observation and a gap in the ball. At the same time, the three midfielder teammates in front of the back and the two full-backs inserted along the wing at the right time can take advantage of the emptiness of the opposing midfield defense to run a certain degree of reasonable running at this juncture, and the back only needs to transmit the ball to the teammate's running route as accurately as possible in the shortest possible time. Offensive routines like this are not uncommon in world football today, and stars such as Modric, Busquets and Kroos are all good at this.
The biggest disadvantage of the diamond-shaped midfield is the lack of defensive ability
From this point of view, the 442 diamond-shaped midfield seems to be an impeccable formation, so does this formation also have its own shortcomings? The answer, of course, is that the biggest drawback of the 442 diamond midfield comes not so much from the formation itself, but rather from the stricter requirements for the composition of this formation. As shown in the figure above, the 4 teammates in the diamond midfield are more spaced than the parallel positions, and due to the particularity of the 4 players' positions, they cannot easily leave their positions to participate in the defense work during the game, which directly leads to the fact that once there is a low-level mistake in a single position or a breakthrough completed by the other side, the more stable defensive interception surface and offensive organization surface built by the 442 diamond midfield will be completely disrupted. Therefore, the team that dares to use the 442 diamond-shaped midfield position must be a "big club" team with a certain personnel composition base.
In 1999, Manchester United won the Champions League
For example, the Series of glorious achievements of Premier League giants Manchester United in 1999 revolved around the 442 diamond-shaped midfield position they used. In The centenary history of Manchester United, 1999 must have been a glorious year for them to qualify, when they won the championship in the Premier League with a slight advantage of one point over Arsenal, won the FA Cup with the astonishing single-rider of Wells superstar Ryan Giggs, and in the Champions League, they also performed epic Jedi reversals across the era. Such a brilliant record is inseparable from Ferguson's balanced attacking and defensive 442 diamond-shaped midfield formation.
1999 Treble Champion Manchester United main squad (442 diamond midfielder)
Let's take a look at United's starting line-up of the diamond-shaped midfield at that time, they had No. 1 Danish international Schmeichel in the goalkeeper position; in the back line, No. 5 Johnson and No. 6 Stam were the team's two centre-backs, and the two full-backs on either side of them were No. 3 Elvin and No. 2 Gary Neville; in the midfield position, the top central defender position was No. 18 Scholes, and the two front positions on both sides were No. 11 Giggs and No. 7 Beckham. The team's single back was the then popular No. 16 Keane; in the forward line, both No. 9 Cole and No. 19 York have a very strong impact ability, and they are often able to complete delicate small-range connections in local areas with their personal ability to reduce the assist pressure of midfielders.
This lineup is still a star-studded presence even today: Scholes, who was in the center-back position, was one of the most well-known offensive midfielders in English football at that time, and he could greatly presuppose the position behind the two forwards in attack to become a full-fledged shadow forward; and Giggs and David Beckham, who were in the forward position on both sides, needless to say, one of them had the top superstar-level dribbling technology and sense of coordination, and the other had the most powerful passing ability in the history of football at that time. Whether it is an assist on the wing or a small range of cooperation after the close, it seems to be in the water.
Obviously, a large part of the success of the 442 diamond-shaped midfield formation at Manchester United in 1999 comes from the strong configuration of the squad, but even the formation of Manchester United at that time has been completely divided into two parts in the game because of the lack of echo of the diamond-shaped midfield. Therefore, the 442 diamond-shaped midfield is not without reason in the loneliness of today's world football.
Double back stand position
Illustration of the 442 double back standing position
With the emergence of parallel positions, the corresponding double back position will naturally be born. As shown in the figure above, the so-called double back position refers to the two positions in the center of the four players in the midfield who retreat to the front of the defender line to become two uncompromising backs, while the two full-backs act as forwards in attack and defense and run back and forth between the back line and the back line. It is clear from the picture that the so-called 442 double back formation has placed more emphasis on defensive interceptions, whether it is the Blue Army Italy, which has the reputation of "steel defense line", or the Three Lions England, which is good at relying on physical confrontation to gain an advantage, have been solid supporters of this formation.
As we all know, how to effectively maintain the spacing between the fronts in the football world has become a problem that managers have pondered. There are three main gaps in today's football formations: the spacing between the forward line and the midfield line, the spacing between the midfield line and the defender line, and the spacing between the defender line and the goalkeeper. In contrast, the spacing between the midfield line and the defender line, the gap between the defender line and the goalkeeper is much more important on the defensive end than the spacing between the forward line and the midfield line, and many managers of the middle and lower teams are reluctant to give up the advantages of the 442 formation in both attack and defense, but are worried about the lack of midfield interception ability, so they have created this more defensive 442 formation.
The rear protection of the double back makes the front pressure of the forward guard more relaxed
As shown in the figure above, the advantage of the 442 double-back formation in defense is very obvious, that is, it effectively reduces the gap between the midfield line and the defender line. As shown in the figure above, when the team is in an offensive state, the double back will not be too preconceived to participate in the so-called offensive ball holding pressure, they will be more of a position next to the two full-backs plugged in at high speed to protect the gap behind them; at the same time, when the team is in a defensive state, the double back can enter the back line for the first time with a closer distance to the defender line, so that the team's lateral interception area and defensive coverage level have been greatly enhanced. Arguably, very few teams can grasp the rib gap exposed by the double-back formation in a limited attack.
Once the double back is recycled, a large gap in the middle of the midfield is handed over
So does the double-back formation have its own defensive loopholes? The answer, of course, is yes. As we all know, there are two well-established ideas for breaking dense defense in the football world: 45-degree crosses from the perimeter and long-range shots. But considering that the opposing two backs have piled up as many as 5 to 6 players in the penalty area after entering the back line, it is obviously difficult to break the opponent's dense defense if you want to rely on the 45-degree starting point. Against this backdrop, long-range attempts seem to be the last resort to cracking the 442 double-back formation. As shown in the figure, the backwardness of the double back position will inevitably lead to a large gap in the middle of the midfield can only be handed to the other side, once the two full-backs can not be moderately recovered in the defensive process to participate in the restrictions on the opponent's ball holder near the top of the team's penalty area arc, it is convenient to easily obtain a long-range shooting opportunity in the arc of the penalty area and even near the large penalty area line (because the double back is highly likely to enter the penalty area in the defensive state, it is not realistic for them to try to limit the opponent's long-range shooting in the periphery for the first time).
Taken together, the biggest flaw in the 442 double-back formation is that it lacks sufficient restrictions on opposing long-range players. If you look at it from another angle, the biggest loophole in the 442 double-back formation should be that there are higher requirements for the adduction of the two full-backs. Looking at today's world football, almost no full-back can really "attack and defend", so the loopholes in the 442 double back formation may continue for a long time.
supplement
Illustration of the 442 single front waist formation and the 442 single back formation
Of course, the 442 formation has a lot of uncommon derivative lineups in the long process of development, such as the 442 single front waist formation, the 442 single back formation... However, these formations have more or less disappeared in today's world football because of their own overly obvious shortcomings. The three 442 derivative formations we have introduced to you in this issue can be considered representatives of the world football world with a certain degree of circulation and clear use points.
summary
A large part of the reason why the 442 formation can become the most widely used football formation is because it has almost achieved the ultimate balance between attack and defense, the earliest 442 parallel midfield position, although it lacks a certain degree of midfield interception layering, but because it can instantly accumulate up to 6 attackers in the midfield area in the attack, this idea coincides with the offensive philosophy of the late last century, so the 442 parallel midfield can sweep the European football world in the seventies and eighties The 442 diamond-shaped midfield position is considered to be the "closest to perfection" football formation among all 442 formations, which can effectively limit common offensive routines such as long passes and hangings and ground penetration with more layered personnel in the defensive state, and in the offensive state, it can provide space for midfield teammates in front of the field and the left and right full-backs to plug in with the calm holding time brought by the particularity of the position of the back player. However, because this formation has strict requirements for the individual ability of the four players in the diamond-shaped midfield, it is difficult to be more widely used in the football world.
Finally, the 442 double back formation introduced to everyone can be described as modifying the appearance of the 442, which was originally more offensive and defensively balanced, into a stable posture that is more defensive. The existence of double backs can effectively ensure that the team can accumulate a large number of defensive players in the backfield in a short period of time for the opponent's intensive attack, while the move of the double back into the defensive line can also effectively enhance the team's horizontal interception area and the number of people competing for high balls. Under the great advantages of defending in the penalty area, the disadvantages of the double-back formation are also very obvious: there is not enough restriction for long-range shooting. Once the opposing player abandons the move of forcibly penetrating the defensive hinterland in the attack and instead begins to take advantage of the more empty defense of the midfield to take a series of long-range shooting attempts, it is obviously too late for the double back in the penalty area to push the position out of the first place to participate in the restrictions on the opponent's ball holder.
On the whole, whether it is the diamond-shaped midfield formation known as the "closest to perfection" or the more defensive double-back formation without exception, it has its own unique advantages and disadvantages, no football formation is once developed to sweep the invincible hand of world football, people are more with a deeper understanding of the football formation and tacit communication with the players on the field to make more effective adjustments to the on-site response to victory. The so-called football sport still relies more on tacit cooperation and mutual trust between people, and the formation can only play an auxiliary role to some extent. In other words, only with a sharp and mutual trust between players and coaches can this team stand out as a unique presence in today's increasingly competitive modern football world.