The ugly side of possession
There were, however, plenty who argued that they weren’t the best team to watch. Many spectators preferred Germany, who blasted their way to the semis with four goals against each of Australia, England and Argentina, only to be smothered under Spain’s blanket of possession.
Spain dominated that semi-final but had few opportunities to score. They needed a Carles Puyol header from a set-piece to break the deadlock, and they only began to create chances from play once Germany had to chase the game. Germany created nothing at all.
Spain’s cold, methodical precision was not spectacular, but the empty exhaustion of the German players in that final few minutes spoke for its effectiveness.
Possession teams are trying to control the game by minimising the element that is left to chance. Keep on keeping the ball and trust that something will turn up. The problem is that when possession becomes the priority the team as a whole can become risk-averse. They don’t want to try speculative passes, they don’t want to commit runners forward that might unbalance the team’s shape in case of a sudden transition. The result is a lot of shuffling passes in midfield while sections of the crowd feel guilty about secretly wanting to see someone launch it.
If the drawbacks of the possession game are apparent even when the stage is the World Cup and the exponents are Spain, you can imagine they are that much more obvious when you are at the Liberty Stadium watching Swansea play out a goalless draw against Aston Villa.
Swansea coach Brendan Rodgers has done very well to assemble a squad that is capable of fluent passing on a relatively tight budget: the club’s record signing, centre-forward Danny Graham, cost £3.5 million from Watford. Six months after promotion, Swansea have the fourth-highest pass completion rate in the Premier League and are also fourth in terms of average total possession per game. Rodgers has shown that British players are willing and able to play a short-passing game as long as they know that’s what their manager wants to see.
The most successful team to have been promoted to the Premier League in the last five seasons is probably Stoke City, who not only established themselves as a formidable mid-table side but also made the FA Cup final and qualified for the Europa League. Stoke embody the old-school English orthodoxy — a big, strong bunch of lads hitting long balls and winning headers, tight in defence and well-organised at set-pieces. In English football this is known as pragmatism.
Swansea have rejected Stoke’s “real man” approach and built a modern continental team around players like Leon Britton (5ft 5ins), Joe Allen (5ft 6ins) and Nathan Dyer (5ft 5ins).
Tony Pulis would not look twice at any of these players.
Yet at this point of the season the most striking difference between Swansea and Stoke is how much better Swansea are in defence. Stoke’s team consists largely of strapping centre-halves while Swansea should barely be able to clear a high ball into their box, yet Stoke concede half a goal a game more on average.
The reason for this is that unlike Stoke, Swansea do not give the ball to their opponents as a matter of principle.
Their goalkeeper, Michel Vorm, is under instruction never to boot the ball long unless he has to. The defenders concentrate on opening up the game by exchanging short passes with deep-lying midfielders, with the eventual aim of getting the ball to someone in a wide position who can deliver a telling cross.
At least, that’s the theory. In practice Swansea don’t create enough chances. The reluctance of their three central midfielders to run forward in support of the striker means that when the ball does come into the area, they usually don’t have enough attackers in there to take advantage. That is why they have failed to score in seven of their 13 matches.
But the crucial point to remember is that possession football is not necessarily attacking football. The benefits of possession are most obvious in defence. Swansea have recognised that the best way to keep clean sheets is not to pack your team with six-foot-plus footballers who will battle for every loose ball, but rather to keep the ball in the first place.
Right now Rodgers is perceived as something of a guru — a daring coach who is trying something a little bit unusual and a little bit risky — while Pulis is a hard-headed, no-nonsense pragmatist. The truth may be that Rodgers is the pragmatist while Pulis is the hopeless romantic.
