Tactics or players – which are more important?

Is the system the most important thing?

System

There has been an argument for many years about whether the individual players are most important or whether it is the system and organisation within which the players take to the field that really matters.

In the old days the original formation was a 2-3-5. The middle player of the three in the middle was called the centre-half and was a basically a play-maker. Eventually, of course, this player was withdrawn into the defence and became a centre-back. In England, we still refer to this player as a centre-half which does cause confusion in other countries.

Defence

When the third player was added to the defence teams started to use what became known as the W-M formation which was basically a 3-2-2-3. This system swept the world and whilst England insisted on having two wingers and a big bustling centre-forward, the rest of the world developed a different way of playing that could make England look silly.

The best example of this was when the great Hungary team of the 1950s beat England 6-3 at Wembley and then 7-1 in Budapest.

Conceding

The W-M formation was tinkered with when teams began to realize that not conceding goals was as important as scoring them. The system became a 3-2-3-2 and then naturally progressed into the 4-2-4 that is still occasionally seen today, usually when a team is desperate for a goal in the closing stages of a game.

The 4-2-4 became a 4-4-2 which remains the preferred formation for most clubs in England. Whilst the top English clubs do play a 4-3-3 or a diamond midfield or some other variations, it is rare outside of the top teams to see anything other than a 4-4-2.

Total

The Holland team of the seventies introduced what became known as ‘total football’. This involved attackers defending and defenders attacking. However, whilst the players became more adept all around the pitch, when they moved out of position somebody always filled in for them to keep the shape of the team. They then swapped back as quickly as possible so that the specialists spent most of their time in their best position.

In other words, even when the game is played with flair and instinct, it can only usually be successful if it is done within a recognized and disciplined system of play.

Tactics

When you look at teams with great individual players you begin to see how important systems and tactics are. Barcelona and Real Madrid both have great individual players. It is arguable which team has the better players in terms of individual ability. Despite that, at the moment, I would back Barcelona every time because they know exactly the system they play within and they are very disciplined within that system.

Obviously a team of bad individual players can never be a great side, but it is possible to take eleven average players and get them to perform way above their individual ability if they are properly organised and know their jobs within the system.

Wonderful

I am not so sure that you would get particularly good results if you sent out a team of eleven wonderful players but gave them no pattern, tactics or system to play within.

The question I ask then is what is more important, the players or the tactics?