The Right Way To Play Football?

From time to time you hear people saying phrases like “the right way to play football” about Barcelona and “he kills football” about a certain a Portuguese manager or even negative “they parked the bus” jibes about the Champions League winning Chelsea side. I don’t think that any right, wrong, negative or positive way even exists.

There’s a trend nowadays to play a Barcelona-like passing style. That is the “right” way at the moment. Twenty years ago everybody worshiped Italians with their tactical Cattenaccio, and Brazilians and Dutch played the “right” way before that.

Opinions seem to change almost every decade. My opinion is that there’s only one important thing in football and that’s results. And if you achieve that then you can say that you played the right way.

People were quick to blame Chelsea last season for being defensive in the Champions League.  And similarly quick to praise Barcelona and Bayern for attacking. The way I see it, in ten years time no one would remember attacking losers, only winners will be remembered. Liverpool Football Club weren’t too attacking in extra-time in Istanbul as far as I remember.

And what is the problem with “parking the bus”? More often than not teams do it when they defend the lead. What is the point of being open in defence and attacking only to get beaten in the end? But if you have the lead or away goal advantage why not protect what you have? Imagine a game of poker, you don’t go all-in after winning one hand, will you?

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Oh, and there’s no such thing as “deserved” or “undeserved” in football. There’s just one constant – goals. Nothing else matters, at the end of the day. Of course there’s an odd refereeing mistake like Andy Carroll’s goal in the FA Cup Final or Frank Lampard’s one v Germany in 2010, but in every other case the team that scored more goals is the best. Chelsea scored a goal more than Barcelona did and that’s why they won. Not because of being “negative” or whatever.

So, I hope that whatever way Brendan Rodgers wants to play will bring results. Otherwise you can praise Skrtel’s courage, Allen’s anywhere-but-forward passing, dominating in 3-nil away and 2-nil home losses. You can be happy with outplaying the mighty Gomel or drawing at the 13th best Premier League team but without results you’re getting the sack and will be remembered as a man who left the team with two strikers; led the team to the worst start in a century and let 35 million striker be loaned out to a newly promoted club who started better than you.

The clock is ticking.

“When team wins players get all the praise. When they lose Manager should take all the blame” – Jose Mourinho.