On Boniek
Christ, looks like I'm the only one who bothers write on these threads. Gotta go. Delighted with the win, but posting this on Boniek I had prepared for you guys since I kept banging on about wingers and their roles and no one seemed fussed or aware boniek needed explaining (I guess few have seen him enough).
Not sure who's gettin more out of wide areas, NM would appear to have more genuine width, but Laudrup and Stoitchkov are class acts. Might have to read up a bit more on Blokhin and Boniek before voting.
This is what I can’t understand. You shouldn’t need to read about them. Profiles should give you a fairly accurate idea or else the manager should make it clear how the player’s attributes are being utilised.
Any hyperbole you read about Boniek will be true, I can tell you that now, the issue though is that different managers at different clubs kept deploying him differently and not quite working out how to best use an evidently very talented player.
The way he has been deployed here is one such case. Since no one has taken up the challenge of explaining the difference between Boniek’s European and domestic performances for Europe, I shall do it.
Boniek was nicknamed “Il bello di note” (Beauty at night) a somewhat backhanded compliment on his amazing midweek European nights being of a much higher standard than his daylight Serie A weekend games.
It wasn’t him being a big game player alone or inconsistent. In fact, I think he was every bit as effective in Serie A, just not the one who would get on the scoresheet, maybe not even the assist charts, but a crucial player for that Juve side nonetheless.
Let’s start with one thing, he was an AM/FW who could be effective across the frontline but you couldn’t quite assign him a specific place or role, there isn’t any similar player I can think of that he could be compared to either. He certainly was not an out and out winger in the traditional sense. He popped up everywhere, to the extent that in the 50s game I was close to posting a teamsheet with Boniek shirts in every place I expected him to show up. It was very crowded and people would have rightly asked why I had so many players on the pitch, it being a ruse, etc.
In your average Serie A game Juve was the far superior side, they took the initiative and kept their opponents constantly on the backfoot. They faced tight Italian defences defending for their lives, i.e. there wasn’t much space. A player like Boniek with no space to attack is unlikely to shine or score. What Boniek did do was to use his pace, stamina and insane workrate to patrol the entire frontline back and forth, all the time, tirelessly. I keep referring to him as “a Duracell bunny gone berserk” and to this day I haevn’t seen anyone offer a more apt description. Where this was hugely beneficial to Juve was not in him scoring or even assisting, but dragging defenders all over the place. He was nominally a left winger yet it made no sense to say the fullback was keeping tabs on him because he very rarely was in his area of influence. He thus required zonal marking, but the problem was he created such a constant state of confusion that sooner or later his zone’s marker would be dragged away just about enough to create the space for the likes of Rossi or Platini to steal in and score. It is pretty much the role assigned in my vs. Brwned 50s final teamsheet (notice how completely different that looks from the chap being on the halfway line so you have to assume that is NOT what he was doing here, surely).
In important European games though Juve weren’t as gung-ho, particularly when playing away. They would play in a much more conservative way, which makes sense in a knockout competition! It was defence first, and while Platini sometimes even seemed like a bonafide striker in Serie A, in Europe he pretty much sank into central midfield and acted as a deep-lying playmaker for large portions of the game. In that setup there were usually acres of space to exploit and no one better than Boniek to do so! It was indeed those Hollywood balls by Platini and irrepressible runs by Boniek which resulted in his most memorable goals and significant contributions to Juve’s European success. That’s the way he was deployed in the teamsheet for the game vs. Gio, with Schuster acting as Platini.
Which of these versions of Boniek would work in this game? The Serie A one, no doubt. And that’s precisely why I pointed out Vasovic-Ferdinand was a good pair: excellent game readers and positional players who won’t be fooled into committing themselves and leaving someone else utterly free. You don’t need a stopper to stop Boniek, much the opposite.
But no, he was called “a winger” and placed in midfield, specifically for the purpose of making that midfield look more solid/dominant. As a winger he wasn’t as special. He didn’t cross too much, preferring to dribble his way through and more often than not ended up running his way into dispossession. He did have incredible pace, stamina and workrate so you would see him track back and forth all day long, no question about it, never again seen a player be as all over the pitch as Boniek, ever.
The mention of Rooney earlier though is quite appropriate for comparison. He puts a shift and sometimes you see him end up covering at left back. Everyone would agree that is one of his huge contributions to the side, while lamenting those additional contributions sometimes mean he is not as available and effective upfront.
Same with Boniek where he was placed, there’s no question he would end up embroiled in a wing-back job going back and forth with Facchetti in one of the key duels of the game. It would help reduce the impact of Facchetti, surely, but would be a losing battle. Facchetti is obviously the better defender, however much application Boniek puts into the job, but was also the more effective wide threat since he offered better crosses and his goalscoring record was a match for Boniek’s (actually Facchetti’s peak record is marginally better)...
The one thing I was worried about in this game was not Pelé, I had that as reasonably covered as I could and there was feck all else I could do about it. It wasn’t Rummenigge, despite him certainly being an awesome centre-forward. It certainly wasn’t Blokhin vs. Zanetti. No, it was Boniek across the frontline unsettling my defence. Of course I demanded to be told how he was playing. It made all the difference as far as I'm concerned.
