The insanically warm republic of Qatar which is so hideously unsuited to hose a World Cup of football it isn't funny, was awarded the World Cup in spite of the fact that not only playing a football tournament three-quarters of a mile away from the sun was a bad idea; and in spite of the fact that awarding a country with only one football stadium was a bad idea; and in spite of the fact that everyone in the world knew beforehand that there would be human rights abuses and actual slavery to build said stadiums was a bad idea, because just like awarding the 2018 World Cup to Russia; and in spite of the fact that we knew that Vladimir Putin was a murderous knave, money spoke for money and FIFA was able to wash itself in a giant vat of Shekeleurodollarpounds like Scrooge McDuck.
However, I will be watching this multi-coloured gladiatorial tournament of ball booting like a hypocrite; also in spite of the three bad ideas above.
The Australian squad for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar has finally been announced. I have no idea what Coach Graham Arnold is doing. For the first time since Guus Hiddink, he was given free reign to pick his 26 players and so he has picked his players according to some kind of philosophy; it's just that I do not understand it.
There are 26 players in a squad. To me this suggests that the best option is to build two complete squads of 13; play them both for the opening two group matches; then pick either the best squad to help you escape the group stage for the third game or pick the worst squad so that you give everyone else a rest before the knockout phase. In this way, you make full use of all 26 players because in my mind at least, if you never use a player at a World Cup, then you have wasted their place in principle.
If we then analyse this 26 player squad from this perspective, what we find are 3 goalkeepers (G), 9 defenders (D), 6 midfielders (M), 8 forwards (F). If we split this in twain to make two squads then we get: 1G, 4D, 3M, 4F, with two left over. A goalkeeper is a given. That means that the resultant formation in principle is best expressed as either 4-3-3 or 4-2-4.
This is what puzzles me. We are playing France who are the World Champions, Denmark who on occasion can be very dangerous, and Tunisia who explosively ripped other teams to shreds in the Africa Cup of Nations. Of course you should expect that being at a World Cup means that you are playing the best teams in the world but any serious examination of the results which led the teams to the tournament in Qatar should tell you that Australia is likely the weakest team of the group.
Building a squad which naturally plays 4-3-3 is unusual at a World Cup. The mentality of so many teams since about 1994 has been to not lose. Not losing means that you have to be able to shut down any attack and hopeful score. 0-0 is a result which pays a point in the group stage and is therefore still valuable. 4-3-3 though says that you're going to surrender the middle of the park to a squad playing 4-4-2, 4-5-1 or 5-4-1 because football is as much a game of covering the opposition as it is scoring. There is only one ball on the pitch and you can not score unless you have it.
Building a squad which naturally plays 4-2-4 is even more unusual at a World Cup. It means that you're more than likely to lose every single challenge in the centre of the park and that what you intend to do is ignore the centre third and hoof it to the forwards. Your 4F meet with their 4D in most cases but that assumes that you can get it there. Such a mentality might work at a council ground like Telopea Park which is just 68 yards long (and where the combined distance of the two boxes is more than half the field) and where even I have scored a goal from my own 18 yard box but at a World Cup field which is a regulation 100m long, that seems a bit silly. Your 2M meets with their 4M or 5M which means that you midfield must play against two players each at least.
It could be that Graham Arnold is expecting to play 4-4-2 but with a replaceable back four and high rotation on the forwards but that assumes that the middle four will be on the pitch for most of the tournament. That seems like a very big ask. It could also be that he expects to be playing forwards out of their natural position and further back down the pitch, such that they can explode forwards if need be. Whilst it is true that football players are not automata who can not be plugged into places that they do not naturally fit, there is a good reason why formations exist and if you have been playing in broadly the same position over many years, then specialisation tends to occur.
I can see the sense in playing combinations of players up front such as Mathew Leckie and Jamie Maclaren who play together at Melbourne City and Awer Mabil and Craig Goodwin who played together at Adelaide United because you would hope that some innate understanding of how players play, would occur. Knowing things like which foot a player tends to favour when they want to receive a ball, what the shape of their general arcs and sweep of passing looks like, where they tend to slide to in terms of positional play, are all things that can be acquiesced to in theory but far harder to know and execute.
I can say that a squad which generally maps to 4-4-3 or 4-2-4 will tend not to play particularly wide or in the instance of the latter, have a heat map which looks like an hourglass. Not that this is a terrible idea either, as the Magic Magyars of 1954 played a W-M or M-W which looks like 2-3-3-2 or 3-2-2-3 and compressed to 5-5-0 in defence. We know that Australia's group contains mostly 4-5-1 teams; which says to me that on paper it will be disasterous for our midfield. Our 2M and 3M against 5M is like posting a white flag above our door, which means we're in trouble and always will be. The only redeeming thing about this is that football is not played on paper but with 22 players, green grass, and a football.
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