Anti-Anti-Football and the 4-6-0
Anti-Anti-Football and the 4-6-0
By Mike Chalmers, writing from Edinburgh
Last night Spain came to Scotland to take on an international side who got beaten by the Czech Republic and landed a scoreless draw with Lithuania*. And Spain are, you know, European and World champions.
The phrase “anti-football” has long since been associated with Scottish football - internationally and in club (mostly European) tournaments. Often used as a type of insult and out of frustration, it was branded on Celtic by Frank Rijkaard when they employed it to knock Barcelona out of the UEFA cup. Rangers recently used a similar tactic to hold Manchester United to 0-0 draw at Old Trafford in the Champions League - no mean feat, especially when you consider how few and far between the latter’s chances were.
It isn’t always pretty and sometimes it doesn’t even work. Like a few days ago. Scotland manager Craig Levein opted for the ultra-rare 4-6-0 formation. As in: “no strikers.” As in: “defend, defend, defend, get the ball back, boot it up field, return to start.” Once cited as the “formation of the future”, when installed against the Czech Republic (a team 10 places worse off in the official FIFA rankings, at time of match) it was more aligned with shooting oneself in the foot. Paul Hartley said at half time (I’m paraphrasing), “it seems to be working okay but it’s only a matter of time before a deflection or a mistake leads to Czech goal.” And that it did…
(Source: philosofooty)
