The Funny Thing About Group E
By: Inara | November 8th, 2007I was going to post the latest Lyon news, but reading post match comments on Isaiah’s Barcelona Offside, I thought I’d share my thoughts on the phenomenon known as Scottish football.
What is interesting to me is the dilemma that Rangers have created because they are succeeding (to an extent) with their negative tactics.
On one hand, Rangers are doing the smart thing by disrupting their opposition and not allowing them to play. And it’s worked because they are in a group with three attack minded teams who don’t know the first thing about having ten men behind the ball. If Rangers had been in a group that featured teams with similar styles to their own, the outcome would probably be a lot different.
But on the other hand, Rangers are not gaining any admirers despite their success. No one wants to watch them play besides their own fans, and they aren’t getting the credit that their results deserve because for most people, Rangers aren’t playing football but anti-football.
You can look at it two ways. First, if winning is the end all and be all, then yes, even anti-football is a legitimate tactic. But would that really be football? I’m not criticizing Scottish football alone (Liverpool and Chelsea of last year, I’m looking at you).
Then you have clubs like Manchester United and Arsenal, whose open style of football is generally acknowledged to be more appealing to the neutral fan. Many people enjoy watching Roma because they are a breath of fresh air when it comes to Italian football.
And take Lyon’s game against Stuttgart yesterday - it was a fast, thrilling encounter that pleased viewers because it was an attacking game of football.
So my question is - do you guys think that Scottish football deserves to be treated with more respect? Or do you think the criticism their style of play generates is justified? Should Scotland be considered a major footballing nation if they don’t actually play football? Because parking a bus in front of the net is not football.
I’m sure I’ll be accused by Rangers fans for being a sore loser, and that is partially true. It wasn’t fun watching Rangers prevent Lyon from playing (though I will admit that Lyon were crap that night, and Rangers deserved their win).
But it’s not just Lyon fans who are upset here. Barca fans were dismayed by Rangers not only at Ibrox but also at Camp Nou, where Rangers didn’t even show up. How embarrassing was it for Celtic when they hosted Milan, and though they escaped with a draw, they had hardly any shots on goal? And should I even bring up the Euro qualifiers?
I suppose you can argue that Rangers don’t have the attacking quality of Barca, Lyon, and Stuttgart, but it’s not a matter of quality so much as it is a matter of spirit and tactics.
Lyon fans will recall last week’s match against Caen, a newly promoted club with budget on par to that of the poorest SPL clubs. Besides Yoan Gouffran, they don’t have any attacking threats. I would go so far as to say that their entire team would cost the same amount as Fred alone.
But Caen didn’t care. They took the game to Lyon, a team that is far superior to them in terms of talent. Caen lost, though it took two goals in the last ten minutes from Lyon. But Caen fought from the first minute until the last.
Why can’t Rangers do that? What’s stopping them from moving out of their own half? If they’re scared, then maybe the Champions League isn’t the place for them.
Rangers - Lyon will surely be the penultimate match in Group E, and it would be terrible if it ends up being a display of bad football. I just hate the idea that when Lyon go to Ibrox, we will end up seeing the same sort of game that they threw against Barcelona. Lyon might not be the attacking threat that Barca are, but they are still dangerous, especially now that they’ve shaken off injuries and pre-season jitters to reach top form - something that Walter Smith has undoubtedly noticed.
PS: Please don’t construe this as an attack on Rangers, the Scottish Premier League, their fans, or their results. I also acknowledge that negative tactics are used by clubs in other leagues as well, though only Rangers pertain to Lyon. I’m just trying to explain why I and so many others are having a hard time accepting it. Nothing would please me more than to see other underdog nations challenge the top teams and top leagues, but it’s also not right to encourage negative tactics as a winning strategy.
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Comments
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As a cule its frustrating to see teams grind out results against us with “La Autobus” tactics, but I guess it is part of the game.
Interestingly enough, while Celtic has recently been pretty defensive in Europe, a couple of years ago they managed to put up a fight at Camp Nou and managed to gain the respect and admiration of Barca fans. I know Rangers want to move on and get some European money, they aren’t going to win any fans this way.
Posted from
Canada
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I have mixed feelings about this issue as well. As a fan of Scottish football, I want to see results, but I also want to see entertaining football. I want to see 3-0 wins at opponent’s own grounds (ahem), not 0-0 draws at home. I think Rangers have the ability to attack, an ability they are not using because they lack confidence in Europe. I hope that will develop. It’s interesting to make a disclaimer that says “This is not an attack on Scottish football”, after a post that says “They don’t actually play football”. That is going a bit far. I think the Old Firm has a bit of a chip on its shoulder and a complex about Europe, and I would like to see them get over it as much as anyone. Rangers didn’t even bother me against Barca - I thought that was smart. Celtic bothered me much more at Benfica, because I thought their defensive play was a completely wrong-headed decision, and cost them the chance at any points at all.
Posted from
United States -
I suppose I should say that I’m attacking Scottish footballing style, not the institution itself. I honestly think Rangers and Celtic would be capable of more if they took risks. But the kind of performances they put out in Europe are not worthy of a Champions League team, though they are getting results. I just don’t think that the way Rangers and Celtic have been getting results can be called football. Negative tactics are anti-football, no matter who plays it - Rangers, Bordeaux, Liverpool, etc. I also don’t buy that because they don’t have the manpower, they have no option but to play like road blocks.
Rangers did get a 3-0 result at Lyon, but Lyon spent the majority of the game in the Rangers half, had most of the possession. Rangers just sat back and waited to counter. Lyon shouldn’t have conceded the last two goals, but that night they were so awful defensively that they would have lost against a French fourth division team. If Rangers came to the Gerland tomorrow, that wouldn’t happen again. Still, like I said, Rangers deserved that win.
I was REALLY disappointed to see them play like that at Ibrox against Stuttgart and Barca though, and if they play like that against Lyon, that’s just awful. You shouldn’t play like that in front of your own crowd.
Posted from
United States -
Too bad the way this Group E is going to play out (at least from my feelings, mind you) is that it WILL come down to that point Rangers forced out of Barca at Ibrox. After Matchday 5, I think Rangers and Lyon look to be in the same position they are today. If Lyon go to Ibrox needing a WIN to advance…. then Rangers WILL play anti-football they need for the draw to advance.
Posted from
United States -
I think defensive football is a way to bring balance
to the forceto the pitch. If Rangers would play a more open game, they might just end up losing their matches 4 to 8-nil against teams like Barcelona. Underdogs need to use negative tactics sometimes to get their points and IMHO are allowed to do so. You can’t compare a Scottish Premier League team with Chelsea or Liverpool.Posted from
Germany -
I don’t know. On one hand, yeah, defensive tactics can be boring to watch, but on the other hand, “smaller” clubs often get put in a damned if they do, damned if they don’t category when it comes to european performances.
If they come out and attack, they’re called “sloppy”, “undisciplined”, and “leaving themselves open in the back”. If they sit back and defend, they’re playing anti-football. On the flip of the coin, “good” teams (so they call themselves), can seem to get away with all kinds of horrible to watch football with nary a comment. I’m reminded of the Italian sides in the CL who have been performing with cheater’s whimsy (protesting obvious fouls, diving, harshly tackling, sitting in the middle waiting for counterattacks (no I’m not talking about Roma)). Those games actually made me angry in a way that watching the Rangers has not. At least the Rangers have been playing football, albeit defense-heavy football, instead of a competition of “fool the ref”.
But that’s just one part of it and possibly unfair to the Italians. A lot of it I think comes down to the pressure and attitudes towards non-Big-4-country participants. It’s hard to have confidence in your ability to attack openly when the attitude towards your team at the start of the game is that you don’t belong there.
At the same time, they need to get over it. Celtic and Rangers do have talent and can win a game with, if not all out attacking, at least a more mixed game that relies less on counterattacking. Look at Rosenborg, who despite the fact that every single one of their players is being pouched in the January transfer, has played a mixture of offensive and defensive (football and anti-football) and has played directly on their opponent’s tendency to underestimate them.
I don’t know if any of that made sense, but hopefully it did.
All that being said, I do hope that Lyon make it to the Round of 16, but I don’t think it would be the end of the world if they went to the UEFA Cup. I think if they get sent down, they’ll probably win or at least be in the final.
Posted from
United States -
Rangers and Celtic want to join the ranks of teams like Chelsea and Liverpool. And if they want to be considered a European team, they have to play like one.
Rangers and Celtic are in the process of outgrowing the Scottish Premier League, or at least are trying to, but they will always be minnows if they think of themselves as minnows. And that’s exactly what their tactics say about them. They have no confidence in their abilities so they just rely on negative tactics.
It’s not a coincidence that NO ONE likes Scottish football except for Scots and the occasional; Englishman. OK, maybe I’m exagerrating a bit but not by much.
If Scotland want to consider themselves a footballing power, they have to shed the “chip on their shoulder” and play like grown ups.
I’m not a Barcelona, Lyon, Benfica or Milan fan. I couldn’t care which of those teams qualify or which ones don’t. I just want to see good football. People are busy enough as it is, and nothing is worse than wasting 90 minutes on a Tuesday night watching players build the Great Wall of China in front of their goal.
Posted from
United States -
@ Cerberus: “It’s hard to have confidence in your ability to attack openly when the attitude towards your team at the start of the game is that you don’t belong there. ”
You make a good point. But that’s the point of the competition. You have to prove you belong there. Even if Rangers qualify, they aren’t proving anything except they have amazing defensive skills.
Lyon were once Champions League newcomers too. Their first appearance in the group stages EVER was in 2000. No one thought they belonged there. But they worked at it and kept on coming back, and now no one can imagine the Champions League without Lyon.
Posted from
United States -
See, what I don’t understand is how a a club can expect to grow if they are afraid to play teams like Barca and Chelsea. Sure, small clubs face the possibility of being torn apart. But you can’t let that stop you from playing your game. When you excessively adjust your tactics to accommodate the other team all the time, what does that say?
Posted from
United States -
@Inara
Well yeah. As I said, they need to get over it and stop letting the fear overpower them. As I pointed out, Rosenborg plays a mix of defensive and offensive, sacrificing neither, and have managed to have some measure of surprise success. Lyon is still considered a newbie and has played very attacking football and while they had poor results initially, have shown a great amount of ability, enough wherein I believe that if they get sent to the UEFA Cup, they will probably win it and if they make it on, they’ll probably make a spirited surprise run.
Celtic and Rangers need an infusion of confidence, badly. They’ve proven their defense can hold out even against the toughest of opponents. Now they need to show belief in their offense. That means more than one attacker and at least a couple of midfielders willing to play in the OPPONENT’S half for once. If giant-killer Rosenborg can do that and succeed, there is no reason that the Old Firm can’t.
There’s no need to be stupid and play all out attacking, because the big teams like nothing else than to antifootball counterattack smaller teams that attack (oh wait, only evil small teams do that, I forgot), but there is a need for balance. Play back if that’s helping, but don’t sit back and don’t rewrite the whole tactics manual just because the opponent’s team lacks a single guy with a Mac in his last name.
Posted from
United States -
Just an addendum:
This would be a good time to address that problem, especially as Barcelona just gave a clinic on how to take care of an overly defensive team. Moving your back line back can leave a lot open and requires extra diligent performances by both the defenders and keeper.
Posted from
United States -
I basically agree. I’d love to see the Scottish teams play more attacking football. The other issue that comes up with Rangers and Celtic specifically is that they feel like they need to outlast each other. Celtic made so much more money than Rangers last year because of their CL run, and Rangers really felt like they had to go deep into the CL this season to catch up. When you talk about Rangers and Celtic, you still have to consider that they are always thinking about outdoing and outcompeting each other, even more than their competitor on any given match day.
Walter Smith and Gordon Strachan both need to come to grips with the fact that they manage European-quality teams. I know they didn’t play like it, but Rangers are capable of good attacking European football, and so are Celtic. They just, as many of you have said, need to get over their own fears. It comes down to the managers doing so. The players want to attack. Nacho Novo and Scott McDonald want to bulge the net as much as any two players I’ve seen, but they’re being held back by reluctant managers who are afraid to lose. Hopefully confidence will come.
Posted from
United States -
@Ian
I suppose that’s the problem. If the Old Firm ever want to have EUROPEAN success, they’ll need to stop focusing only on domestic squabbles.
That might be what all this “anti-football” stuff is really about. Rangers and Celtic are playing against each other and thinking of the CL as an afterthought.
Posted from
United States -
PS - Since there’s no Norway blog, and no other great place to put this (and since this blog is sort of off the France topic anyway), I can’t say enough about how impressed I am with Rosenborg. Coming from even lower down the European pecking order than Scotland and probably making the Round of 16 with good attacking football is a perfect model for how Celtic and Rangers could approach Europe. Keep it going for all the minnow teams and leagues, Rosenborg. They’ve got to be the surprise team in Europe so far this year.
Posted from
United States -
Yeah Rosenborg are playing great. Beating Valencia twice thats awesome.
Posted from
United States -
I just want to say that the 98 french NT also played crappy defensive football during most of the world cup. And what can you say about Greece in euro 2004!
But football “specialists” will always say of a big team playing anti-football that they have “a very well organized team and a great tactic”, but the same people will say of a smaller team: “They are 11 behind the ball”.
France NT in 98 wasnt playing attractive football and I don’t care I just wanted them to win. Same for Greece, they came back as heroes.Posted from
Japan -
Yeah, although Valencia are completely crap right now. As for the SPL, I’ve always been a Celtic fan, but compared to Rangers, they usually have a much more attacking mentality (the Milan match was not a good example.) Anyway, Rangers are the most boring team to watch right now.
Posted from
Australia -
And just to correct you on the not getting credit. In England, Rangers and the Scottish NT are getting massive plaudits. In fact, watching Football Matters on Setanta last night, one of the pundits was saying how Scotland will beat Italy and go through. The only reason the lyon game against rangers was on sky is because it involved a Scottish team, so naturally they’re gonna hype it up.
Posted from
Ireland
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