Quote:
Originally Posted by SuperMatt18
It didn't change the way that big teams play but IMO it did change the way some of the smaller nations in the World Cup play.
I feel like smaller nations used to come out with much more of an attack minded focus and maybe the game would end up being 3-1 or 3-0 but the smaller nations would play positive football and still try to win.
But once Greece proved you could potentially actually win the title as a smaller country by parking the bus and playing a purely defensive shell I feel like the smaller nations did see that happen.
Immediately after that 2004 Euro Cup both the 2006 and 2010 World cups had record low Goal Per Game stats.
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True, but that was a while back now and 2014 saw a big rise in goals.
Also, a major contributing factor to the low numbers after 2008 was that Spain was the team to beat, and the favoured strategy to beat the unbeatable tiki-taka was all-out defense and counterattack. That experiment failed miserably for everyone, but it took a while before Brazil showed in the 2013 Confederations cup final that you can destroy the tiki-taka if you have enough skill and combine it with lethal speed. (A lesson Spain didn't learn themselves, leading to a quick exit in 2014.)
Since the Spanish dominance more teams have adopted some variation of high pressure and ball control, which is often countered with some variation of high-speed offense, leading to what I would consider a fairly entertaining period in soccer.
The underdog trying to play a low-scoring game has been a thing in soccer since forever of course, it's not like that's gone anywhere. (No different from hockey really.) However, when so many strong football nations now have focused on having strong midfields that like to pressure up high (the way Germany and Spain won championships), this often leaves smaller nations with no options. Quite often parking the bus isn't actually their game plan, but simply the result of getting hemmed in their own zone.
(You can see this dynamic more clearly when watching the pre-tournament qualification phase. You get more info on how each team likes to play and the info is easier to digest when there isn't three games per day every day
)
All that said, intentionally giving up ball control and focusing on counters has always been one way to win in soccer. As a personal comment, I've always really appreciated the tactical side of the game, to the point that to me a team optimizing it strengths is always fascinating to watch, even if it's a very defensive style of play. I even liked the way Greece won.
Major caveat:
I am not a football expert and I only really qualify as a soccer fan by this boards standards