Managers Draft - MJJ VS CRAPPY

Which team would win?

  • Total voters
    46
  • Poll closed .
Also, while we are on tactics crappy is having a three man backline while attacking? Which does not include krol(making runs from deep) or vasovic/haans depending on which one is attacking. How will that not be a disaster against my attackers?

The way I see it the system had great success against catenaccio which was a great defensive system and ajax never really succeeded against a team with a world class attack.
 
MJJ said:
Its not just one tournament, they failed in every major tournament. From WC 74 to Euro 80, four tournaments to make their mark and zero trophies.
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MJJ said:
Again, down to the style of football. Four attempts to win something despite having some of the best players in the history of football including cruyff and nothing but failure. At some point you have to wonder how much of that is down to tactical naivety and maybe having the whole team attacking including the defenders is not the best way to win the game.

You took care to point out that total football is not tiki taka but atleast tiki taka was successful at domestic and international level instead of failing at every major tournament(the WC was the litmus test back then) and calling it arrogance.
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Cruyff only played in '74 and '76 and the way they were treated and cheated out of a World Cup win in '78 (without Cruyff) really shouldn't be hold against them. They also faced an alltime great German side, which was on a completely different level to any team Spain faced during their successful run in international tournaments.

They fecked up in the semifinal of the Euro '76, I give you that. It was more or less a huge brawl from the start and both Neeskens and van Hanegem were sent off and they lost with 9 men in extra time. Sucks, but that was it, that's all the chances they got with Cruyff in the team. After that Cruyff retired from the nationalteam during the qualifying for the World Cup in '78. If I'm not mistaken because someone threatened his family and he believed it's not worth the risk.
 
MJJ said:
Thats the beauty of your playing a high line, that gaps wont open up as you will be compacting the midfield by pushing your defenders up.


That answers your question. They can run from the deep all they want, my midfielders will be waiting for them. I am curious though, if your midfilder is breaking forward, if you defenders are breaking forward how do you think you are going to stop my attackers when they have the ball? By my count it will be vieri, baggio and del piero against suurbier(who will be breaking forward/is wank defensively anyway), vasovic and migueli. The gap between your fullbacks and central defender is too big and will be a prime spot for del piero and baggio to exploit
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Actually I mentioned in my write up that it will be a minimum of 3 man back line in offensive phase comprising of either Migueli, Krol, Suurbier, Vasovic, Haan. You are hardly going to break with more than 2-3 men forward given how deep you will be in your box with your back 4 and the 3 CMs.

There is no beauty there. Essentially you are admitting to a back line of 7 with no one marking any one it seems.

I think you have made the mistake of equating Total football with pass to the goal football you see now days. Teams like Inter, Chelsea could hold fort against Barca because the latter did not have true hug the line wingers or did not employ them that way. They tried to score by passing through an already congested area.

This not what will happen here.

Total football involved, players drifting out wide and stretching the defense to create space in the middle. Are you contending that either of your full back won't close down a winger or close down a full back? Because that's what these sides with played with two defensive lines did at times to avoid getting stretched. Ajax infact scored plenty from headers and also by shooting from distance. A team without a plan B ala Arsenal or even Barca this is NOT.
 
Edgar Allan Pillow said:
I'm not familiar with Asensi. Did he ever play left wing as the arrows indicate, or was he a more central AM?
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He is not playing as a left winger. That's just to highlight the role of CMs in total football to stretch the pitch. It was even a flat 3 (or 4 when a defender joined in) across the whole park at times.
 
Pat_Mustard said:
Baggio and Del Piero are two of my favourite ever footballers but I'm not convinced by them playing together. They barely started together under Lippi in 1994/95.
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It does not work. He badly needs a player who can stretch the play out wide IMO.
 
Balu said:
Cruyff only played in '74 and '76 and the way they were treated and cheated out of a World Cup win in '78 (without Cruyff) really shouldn't be hold against them. They also faced an alltime great German side, which was on a completely different level to any team Spain faced during their successful run in international tournaments.

They fecked up in the semifinal of the Euro '76, I give you that. It was more or less a huge brawl from the start and both Neeskens and van Hanegem were sent off and they lost with 9 men in extra time. Sucks, but that was it, that's all the chances they got with Cruyff in the team. After that Cruyff retired from the nationalteam during the qualifying for the World Cup in '78. If I'm not mistaken because someone threatened his family and he believed it's not worth the risk.
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Ahh fair enough, didnt know the history of the 78 worldcup. Have read up now. Is it fair to say then that cruyff held the whole team together?
 
Pat_Mustard said:
Baggio and Del Piero are two of my favourite ever footballers but I'm not convinced by them playing together. They barely started together under Lippi in 1994/95.
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Thats more to do with del piero starting his career then anything to do with his class. If Del Piero and Zidane can work, I see no reason why this cant work. Keeping in mind that del piero will have plenty of space to his left and in front of him, similarly with baggio.

crappycraperson said:
Actually I mentioned in my write up that it will be a minimum of 3 man back line in offensive phase comprising of either Migueli, Krol, Suurbier, Vasovic, Haan. You are hardly going to break with more than 2-3 men forward given how deep you will be in your box with your back 4 and the 3 CMs.

There is no beauty there. Essentially you are admitting to a back line of 7 with no one marking any one it seems.

I think you have made the mistake of equating Total football with pass to the goal football you see now days. Teams like Inter, Chelsea could hold fort against Barca because the latter did not have true hug the line wingers or did not employ them that way. They tried to score by passing through an already congested area.

This not what will happen here.

Total football involved, players drifting out wide and stretching the defense to create space in the middle. Are you contending that either of your full back won't close down a winger or close down a full back? Because that's what these sides with played with two defensive lines did at times to avoid getting stretched. Ajax infact scored plenty from headers and also by shooting from distance. A team without a plan B ala Arsenal or even Barca this is NOT.
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Pass to goal I understand, as Barca defended by retaining possession which you arent doing. Maybe am showing my age here but I really dont see how you are going to defend if everyone is attacking and you arent even holding the ball. Its a recipe for disaster.


If I have everyone back that means you have 7 players attacking? Otherwise I will always have an outlet(from my three man midfield).
 
MJJ said:
Ahh fair enough, didnt know the history of the 78 worldcup. Have read up now. Is it fair to say then that cruyff held the whole team together?
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I'd say it was true for the Ajax side in '73. They more or less fell apart and didn't win anything for a few years after Cruyff moved to Barca (and Neeskens followed him a year later). I don't think it's true for the nationalteam, they had many more leaders on the pitch who rose out of Cruyff's shadow over the years and were even without him in my opinion the strongest team in the tournament in '78 and probably the better team in the final as well.
 
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I don't mind Del Piero and Baggio at all actually, considering they're both comfortable out wide. Del Piero in particular was excellent at finding pockets of space out on the left in a narrow set up.

The bigger issue would have been if there was no Vieri to play off, as that front two wouldn't work great on it's own. With Vieri providing a physical #9 presence up front I think Baggio/Del Piero will play some lovely football in behind.

There are issues in MJJ's team but I don't particularly think that is one of them.
 
Balu said:
I'd say it was true for the Ajax side in '73. They more or less fell apart and didn't win anything for a few years after Cruyff moved to Barca (and Neeskens followed him a year later). I don't think it's true for the nationalteam, they had many more leaders on the pitch who rose out of Cruyff's shadow over the years and were in my opinion the strongest team in the tournament and probably the better team in the final as well.
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Interesting, I did read about michels jealousy(?) of cruyff and determination to succeed without him so was the dutch success/and ajax failure down to tactical changes or simply better personnel available to the national team after everyone abandoned ajax?
 
Theon said:
I don't mind Del Piero and Baggio at all actually, considering they're both comfortable out wide. Del Piero in particular was excellent at finding pockets of space out on the left in a narrow set up.

The bigger issue would have been if there was no Vieri to play off, as that front two wouldn't work great on it's own. With Vieri providing a physical #9 presence up front I think Baggio/Del Piero will play some lovely football in behind.

There are issues in MJJ's team but I don't particularly think that is one of them.
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Thankyou! Add the fact both of them will have plenty of space with no wingers there to get in the way, really cant see why this is being made to be a weakness against a side which is defensively weak and is very gung-ho.
 


A reminder of baggio's quality. Literally runs from the half way line to score here and crappy has no special plan to deal with him and is leaving him alone with three/four defenders at the back. He is going to run riot here.

Note the position where he picks up the ball. He starts from the left and then drift insides with his exceptional dribbling ability. Exactly the same is going to happen here with him having plenty of space to exploit and renders crappy's complain of no width redundant as well.
 
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MJJ said:
Thats more to do with del piero starting his career then anything to do with his class. If Del Piero and Zidane can work, I see no reason why this cant work. Keeping in mind that del piero will have plenty of space to his left and in front of him, similarly with baggio.



Pass to goal I understand, as Barca defended by retaining possession which you arent doing. Maybe am showing my age here but I really dont see how you are going to defend if everyone is attacking and you arent even holding the ball. Its a recipe for disaster.


If I have everyone back that means you have 7 players attacking? Otherwise I will always have an outlet(from my three man midfield).
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As written, as much it is about expanding the pitch by playing out wide and creating spaces in defense to exploit. While defending, everyone would be working to close out the opposition. It is not high pressing persay ala Barca, only Cruyff and Nesskens would be truly pressing the opponent. Having players able to play multiple role means, Kiezer covers for Krol from time to time, Haan covers for Vasovic etc. It is not as if all 6-7 players would be in your box that the system would be suicidal
 
MJJ said:


A reminder of baggio's quality. Literally runs from the half way line to score here and crappy has no special plan to deal with him and is leaving him alone with three/four defenders at the back. He is going to run riot here.
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How much ball would he have to run riot? You are playing long ball tactic .. aren't you?

And like I said, it is you who needs a defensive plan here.

You still have not even answered as to how exactly will you defend on your right flank.
 
crappycraperson said:
As written, as much it is about expanding the pitch by playing out wide and creating spaces in defense to exploit. While defending, everyone would be working to close out the opposition. It is not high pressing persay ala Barca, only Cruyff and Nesskens would be truly pressing the opponent. Having players able to play multiple role means, Kiezer covers for Krol from time to time, Haan covers for Vasovic etc. It is not as if all 6-7 players would be in your box that the system would be suicidal
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See thats the issue, I dont need to expand the pitch as when those players are covering each other space is going to open up. Unless those players can teleport, gaps will appear.

Surely thats a contradiction?

Your OP mentions eight people attacking at times and now you are saying players are going to stay back as well? This is why having tactics would have help other than this is total football and we are attacking.

crappycraperson said:
How much ball would he have to run riot? You are playing long ball tactic .. aren't you?

And like I said, it is you who needs a defensive plan here.

You still have not even answered as to how exactly will you defend on your right flank.
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And am using long ball as a mean of attack when you have 6/7 players in attack thus bypassing the midfeild, not using it as a sole mean of attack. As to the answer of your question? Plenty. VIeiri knocks a ball down for either him or del piero and both run riot or one of my midfielders pass the ball to them in dangerous situations, jugovic in particular was a very good passer of the ball.

Considering you dont have a plan at all, I think I have gone into a lot more details. I already told you how I am going to do it. Beat zanetti wide and cross it in, I have defenders in the middle to deal with it. Cut inside and you have thuram/conte waiting for you.
 
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MJJ said:
Thats more to do with del piero starting his career then anything to do with his class. If Del Piero and Zidane can work, I see no reason why this cant work. Keeping in mind that del piero will have plenty of space to his left and in front of him, similarly with baggio.
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Theon said:
I don't mind Del Piero and Baggio at all actually, considering they're both comfortable out wide. Del Piero in particular was excellent at finding pockets of space out on the left in a narrow set up.

The bigger issue would have been if there was no Vieri to play off, as that front two wouldn't work great on it's own. With Vieri providing a physical #9 presence up front I think Baggio/Del Piero will play some lovely football in behind.

There are issues in MJJ's team but I don't particularly think that is one of them.
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I have no problem in general with two No. 10s in the same team, its more that Del Piero and Baggio are so similar, and both favoured working the left-sided channels. They were rarely selected together for club or country, and I don't ever remember them gelling together when they did. They did start the odd game together in 1994/95, but one of them was invariably benched (or injured in Baggio's case) and replaced with Vialli and Ravanelli.
 
Changed my vote here to Crappy, I agree with the concept against DP & Baggio with no real stretch of play. On the other hand I'm not sure how MJJ's defense will handle that flowing attack.
 
MJJ said:
Interesting, I did read about michels jealousy(?) of cruyff and determination to succeed without him so was the dutch success/and ajax failure down to tactical changes or simply better personnel available to the national team after everyone abandoned ajax?
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I wouldn't read too much into failure after such a long time of incredible success. It all goes in cycles after all, the same happened with the great Bayern side 3 years later. It took Rummenigge 6 years to finally win a league title, even though he had already won the European Cup twice in his first 2 seasons :lol:.

The Dutch nationalteam had a huge variety of great players available, which certainly helped. For example, the Feyenoord team that won the European Cup in 1970 is a bit underrated, but there's some serious quality in there as well and I'm sure crappy would love to upgrade the team with some of those players in the upcoming rounds. Then there's always the question of motivation and a player who won everything there is at club level might struggle to motivate himself for another club season but shows full determination at a World Cup. I don't know anything about Michels being jealous of Cruyff, but both had huge egos so I wouldn't be surprised if there was tension between them at one point. Also Cruyff became an even bigger cnut during his spell at Barca as far as I know, but crappy probably looked deeper into that than I ever did, so maybe he knows more about that stuff.
 
Pat_Mustard said:
I have no problem in general with two No. 10s in the same team, its more that Del Piero and Baggio are so similar, and both favoured working the left-sided channels. They were rarely selected together for club or country, and I don't ever remember them gelling together when they did. They did start the odd game together in 1994/95, but one of them was invariably benched (or injured in Baggio's case) and replaced with Vialli and Ravanelli.
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The advantage there might be that they are facing Suurbier there. Maybe they overlap a little, but between these 2 Wim would not have any chance at all, which in turn puts far more defensive duties on Neeskens. Kind of more like...

............Asensi............
... Haan .... Neeskens ....

It still is a good team, but that might impact the 'free flowing total football' concept a bit, imo.
 
@crappycraperson Slightly offtopic, but how do you add a 2nd arrow to a player in those sharemytactics formations? I can only add one arrow and move it around by clicking on the player icon :( . I'm completely lost ffs.
 
Balu said:
@crappycraperson Slightly offtopic, but how do you add a 2nd arrow to a player in those sharemytactics formations? I can only add one arrow and move it around by clicking on the player icon :( . I'm completely lost ffs.
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:lol: I remember having the same problem when I accidentally right clicked and had no clue where this extra arrow had appeared from.
 
Balu said:
Either I'm totally stupid or my notebook is fecked. I'll try it again later :lol:. But thanks.
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I'll put it in very simple terms: your mouse/trackpad has two buttons, one for each arrow ;)
 
images

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:lol:
 
Could we get back to the angry battle between MJJ and crappy now. This match was destined to be great drama and it all cooled down because you guys make silly jokes about my incompetence.
 
MJJ said:
you are more concerned with my defense than his? that says it all.
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not concerned about your defensive lineup as it's superb, nor I'm saying that it's not better than crappy's, I just think his attack will attack your defense better and more usefully, I don't remember or have the time to find the post but someone explained what happens if Krol joins and Cruyff drifts to the left followed by Thuram.. And I thought about it more and the way I see it crappy's attack have many options of flowing moves from the great Cruyff at the free role here.
 
MJJ said:
See thats the issue, I dont need to expand the pitch as when those players are covering each other space is going to open up. Unless those players can teleport, gaps will appear.

Surely thats a contradiction?

Your OP mentions eight people attacking at times and now you are saying players are going to stay back as well? This is why having tactics would have help other than this is total football and we are attacking.



And am using long ball as a mean of attack when you have 6/7 players in attack thus bypassing the midfeild, not using it as a sole mean of attack. As to the answer of your question? Plenty. VIeiri knocks a ball down for either him or del piero and both run riot or one of my midfielders pass the ball to them in dangerous situations, jugovic in particular was a very good passer of the ball.

Considering you dont have a plan at all, I think I have gone into a lot more details. I already told you how I am going to do it. Beat zanetti wide and cross it in, I have defenders in the middle to deal with it. Cut inside and you have thuram/conte waiting for you.
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8 man attacking at one point was to highlight the ultra attacking nature of the play against a team that camps up like yours plans to.

It also does not mean that all 8 are in and around the opposition's petulantly box. It means all 8 are/were actively involved in attacking phase in one way or another.

I love the run riot insinuations. Del Piero can turn a defender alright but he was no Messi as make him out to be. I also still do not understand who exactly will be crossing the ball to Vieri since none of your players is going to make a run out wide. For example, you still have not commented if one of your full backs would even make a single forward run.

If anyone will be running riot, it will be this guy.. easily the best player on the park.



What is absurd is that I am the one accused of having no plan at all when I have listed it out in quite a bit of detail at the expense of actually losing some votes by putting out some facts. I could have easily refrained from mentioning that it will be a 3 man defense at times for example, but that's just how total football evolves into at times. Transition from 433 to 343 happened at times and I don't want to deviate from the theme just for the sake of votes.

So for your sake. I will repeat a offensive play that I am trying to highlight...

- Cruyff moves to left and supposedly Zanetti is on him.
- Kiezer moves to the near post to occupy Thuram
- Krol joins Cruyff who is on the ball on the left to provide him an outlet to pass on wide left.

At this point is Baggio tracking Krol? By your comments, it does not seem so. So who follows him?

- If it is Zanetti then you leave Cruyff alone which is not going to happen. So it will be one of your CMs.. Conte or Deschamps perhaps.

- Cruyff beats Zanetti, as he is going to at times in the match (most times if you ask me). Then does Thuram leave Kiezer alone to take on Cruyff?

If not and you commit another CM on Cruyff then that would leave someone like Neeskens charging into the box free to latch on to a pass and shoot.

This was overly simplistic passage of play. In a complex one, you will have Littbarski also moving to the far post occupying Ferrera since Zambs is not marking him as per you, he won't follow him.
 
In light of fairness.. this is the sort of high line Ajax played

ajax-high-line-12.png


If people think, it is 'suicidal' tactics then so be it.
 
The amount of men they poured over at times can also be found from their first goal against Bayern in 73 here.



It is their center back who is taking the shot here and Haan scoring from rebound.
 
This is what the Ajax team could do to a opposition team that had likes of Beckenbauer, Brietner, Schwarzenbeck, Hoenesh, Roth etc

bayern-second-half-penned-in-1.png


Park the bus they did, with a final score of 4-0. They also had Muller himself against the high line to no avail.

A good quote to describe the Ajax team from that time -

"To them, winning was effortless. To write about it, let alone describing and analysing their style, as proven by myself, is impossible. I guess that is what made them so hard to play against; you could not plan or fathom instructions that could purposely stop this Ajax team. The combination of eleven superbly cultivated footballers on one field, capable of being comfortable in every position throws opposition managers a complete curve-ball. The significance and purpose of planning for the match is now dead.

Such natural synergy between players and system is unlikely to be matched in our lifetime."
 
As far as Cruyff not being a good header of the ball .. errm.. No.

Here is he.. out jumping two markers to score from a Krol cross.. one of the defenders? Beckenbauer



Edit- Go to 1 min 55 seconds for his goal
 
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