Being drunk at work and posting in a fantasy draft final is nothing but your god given right as a citizen.
Fantasy Tournament: World Cup All-Time All-Stars
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Bloody right. It's all I have left and I'll be damned if those bluenoses who run this so-called society are going to take it away from me!
In addition to all that triangle stuff, I saw this picture in a German football board. I thought it's a worthy addition here after we had the 'who dominates possession' discussion again in the final and also again a discussion about who's contributing in defense and attack and if it's 5vs3 because of the wingers or something like that.
It shows perfectly what I meant with there's no 4vs3 advantage in the midfield battle (let alone a 5vs3), because the 4th player is always a 2nd pass away and it doesn't matter if he's a winger, fullback, striker or midfielder. In possession, all you need is triangles and movement to play through the midfield and you need 2 defenders in the triangle to cover the passing lanes and a 3rd to put pressure on the player with the ball (if he's good on the ball, you need a 4th to win the ball back).
It shows perfectly what I meant with there's no 4vs3 advantage in the midfield battle (let alone a 5vs3), because the 4th player is always a 2nd pass away and it doesn't matter if he's a winger, fullback, striker or midfielder. In possession, all you need is triangles and movement to play through the midfield and you need 2 defenders in the triangle to cover the passing lanes and a 3rd to put pressure on the player with the ball (if he's good on the ball, you need a 4th to win the ball back).
@Balu brilliant picture
It's floating around on a few boards, so I don't deserve any credit for the pic 
.
If you think Theon's 532 through, you can see why he can't dominate possession in Annah's half. He can easily have the back 3 with both wingsbacks pushing forward as passing options, but in the final third, he doesn't have the players to stretch the play, he just crowds the central area with 3 or 4 players and doesn't have the 2nd player out wide he needs. So the 532 in possession only really works, if you play quickly towards goal. You can keep possession in your own half, but that's more about denying it the other team and less about creating something dangerous.
.If you think Theon's 532 through, you can see why he can't dominate possession in Annah's half. He can easily have the back 3 with both wingsbacks pushing forward as passing options, but in the final third, he doesn't have the players to stretch the play, he just crowds the central area with 3 or 4 players and doesn't have the 2nd player out wide he needs. So the 532 in possession only really works, if you play quickly towards goal. You can keep possession in your own half, but that's more about denying it the other team and less about creating something dangerous.
While the point is a good one, I can't fail to notice there are 10 players playing against six hereIn addition to all that triangle stuff, I saw this picture in a German football board. I thought it's a worthy addition here after we had the 'who dominates possession' discussion again in the final and also again a discussion about who's contributing in defense and attack and if it's 5vs3 because of the wingers or something like that.
It shows perfectly what I meant with there's no 4vs3 advantage in the midfield battle (let alone a 5vs3), because the 4th player is always a 2nd pass away and it doesn't matter if he's a winger, fullback, striker or midfielder. In possession, all you need is triangles and movement to play through the midfield and you need 2 defenders in the triangle to cover the passing lanes and a 3rd to put pressure on the player with the ball (if he's good on the ball, you need a 4th to win the ball back).
Pretty normal though when even the most advanced attacker drops deep, the team without possession has rhe back 4 still behind the midfield battle? Of course it's going to change when the ball is moving forward, it's just the start when the centerback still has the ball, but you know thatWhile the point is a good one, I can't fail to notice there are 10 players playing against six here
.I wonder why no one just goes and takes out the Lord of the Triangles?
It will change nothing. Same thing was with Pep and Barca, the players kept moving and no matter who you closed down the triangles were never disrupted.
Is there only one? Just look at Thiago moving inside in the picture, send 2 players on Lahm, and you open up the Alaba - Thiago - Müller triangle on the bottom of the pitch.
Close 9 and have one left? Good deal! Yeah, you start regrouping differently or just feck off triangles and go another route, but surely you want to take Lahm out of the equation there?
Looking at Pep's Barca in their pomp (2009-2011) my theory is that you need to a) to a large extent simply defend yourself, soak up the pressure, park the bus, call it what you will - and you need to have first class defenders in place to do this, obviously. Then you need to b) take your chances extremely well. Hit 'em on the counter when you can, or take advantage of any slight imbalance as you build up from deep, mount traditional attacks down the wings: The ideal team for such a game plan is actually Fergie's Manchester United - or a combination of some of his finest sides. Take our back four from '08, add the midfield four from '99 - and you're looking at something.
I still believe Busquets was the key to limit Pep's Barca. Xavi played 1-2s with him until he was in a position where he could open up the other team. Both Iniesta and Xavi played so many passes to Busquets just to have the time to move into open space, yet everyone focused on those two. Take Busquets out and all of a sudden, Xavi needs to move with the ball, turn with the ball instead of playing tiki-taka. Bayern did that last year and the whole midfield crumbled. Of course there were more reasons and it wasn't peak Barca anymore, but Heynckes didn't get enough credit for his tactics last season and they were different to Chelsea's and Inter's approach when they beat Barca.
It was impossible to "take Busquets out" during Barca's peak under Pep. That movement and understanding between them was absolutely impossible to counter and whoever tried ended up getting knackered within 30 odd minutes.
A cracking fantasy side?
Balu has a point though. I had never paid too much attention to it, but looking at that picture it just drives it home immediately. You need to take that chap out or you will indeed be knackered and frustrated within 30 odd minutes.
Has any of the topteams ever tried it? I don't think I remember any topteam clearly targeting him throughout the game? Play a striker like Mandzukic for Bayern last season and let him work really hard for 70 minutes, harassing Busquets throughout the game. Then sub him off, how's that more exhausting than chasing shadows behind Xavi and Iniesta for 90 minutes?
Madrid have, I think.
The issue with Busquets is that he was and still is deceptively mobile. He might not look it but he will drag you all over the place. Last season they had plenty of other issues and Busi himself wasn't in the best of form during the later stage of the season, but in their peak that mobility, understanding and intelligence was really a pain in the ass to play against. It was never "One guy" holding it all together, that was the beauty of that tactic. You can never counter tiki taka by taking one guy out, that is the basis of it for me.
Normally teams targetted Xavi because obviously he was the best midfielder in the team and thought way way quicker than others so without his imagination the possession wouldn't have ended as effectively as it did, but if you look at it was Xavi that key while holding possession, significntly more than someone else in the team? Not really. Everyone had more or less an equally significant role to play to keep the ball no matter what. The thing where Xavi actually showed his class was disguising his passes enormously well. He'd make you think he's gonna slip one through to Alves or Messi and make you panic but do nothing and pass it back to the defense or midfield, that continuous guessing of what he will do completely derailed the opposition mentally.
But in terms of the triangles and possession I wouldn't say you could counter it by taking one guy out, they just form new triangles absolutely instantly and nothing changes, instead the ones in the triangles now are in much more space.
Aye. It often enough panned out that way. Look at United in '09 (forget '11, we weren't anywhere near good enough then): it was a case of chasing the ball fruitlessly around. What you need to do against a side like that is to be a little more passive than most would be comfortable with: let them pass that ball around endlessly. They will create chances, as they always do, but they won't convert most of them. Don't worry about possession at all. Let 'em have 90% of the damn possession - doesn't matter one jolt if you make your own chances count.
Oh yes. I've been thinking about using some sort of Fergie model as the basis of a variation - I think that would be very interesting.A cracking fantasy side?
Indeed. That's the way that worked the most but even then you needed plenty of luck on your side, like we saw with Chelsea.
Chasing them around is the absolute worst strategy though. That's falling right into the trap.
I think it's very difficult to go man-to-man on either Xavi or Busquets. It's their whole raison d'etre - take the ball in tight spaces and release it into space. They're both so quick and nimble with the ball at their feet that if you over-commit man-to-man, you're a man down and the shape's gone to feck. The best approach I've seen is cutting off Xavi and Iniesta's forward out-balls, that's one of the things Inter did very well in the San Siro.
I agree, but they are bound to be isolated triangles, which are still a bitch, but nowhere near as tiring as having so many flowing through that apex. I'm not saying they would fall apart, just that you have a better chance reducing the options and not letting it be so free-flowing.
Depends on particular situations really but from what I've seen they regain the flow pretty quickly as well. The issue is simple that the person you threw a couple of men to close down few seconds ago has no involvement whatsoever few seconds later in the flow, the ball is still with Barca, so you have no option to leave him and chase the ones involved now, and he's free again and gets it back.
And like I said, no one is bigger or smaller when it comes to keeping the ball, the problem is always for the opposition because they didn't get the ball and spent a few kilojoules of energy on chasing it, and still don't have it. I'm talking about the absolute peak Barca - circa 10-11 season when Pep just went full mental with retaining possession and grinding the opposition down.
I've seen this "let's take one man out of the equation from their tiki taka bollocks" tactic fail too often.
And the beauty is, you can use an attacking player for it. That's imo key here, in comparison to every other strategy against those crazy triangle - possession teams. Look at that picture above and imagine one of those attacking players on Lahm, not somewhere inbetween the lines. Don't press them, that's of course crazy and leads to chasing shadows. But take Lahm out and the team has to play 'normal' attacks, down the wings, long balls, straight forward through the middle, whatever. It's still dangerous of course, but it looses that free movement idea, like Anto said, there are still triangles, but they are more isolated with less directions to move into and therefore 'easier' to defend. And by using your AM or striker for the job, you don't loose your shape in defense.
I still can't remember a team that focused on Busquets like Bayern did last season? I thought that was brilliant and something new as a counter to that approach. I remember Real trying to press them from the start, which was bound to fail, or attempts to man-mark Xavi or Iniesta, but Busquets?
Disarticulate is the key word here. And yeah, I'd much rather have Rooney pestering Busquets than running around like a headless chicken chasing the ball.
It's appealing indeed, sort of a Hidegkuti hidden in plain sight thing
I agree with Aldo though, Busquets didn't look as sharp and mobile last season as he did the years before. That of course helped to make it work so easily, especially because Mandzukic was suspended and we had Gomez and Müller doing that job instead. But the idea and execution was brilliant, imo.
So, what's next?
There was a few suggestions floating around earlier in the thread and by PM. The newbies are currently doing a 90s La Liga draft which sounds quite interesting.
@AldoPaine18 needs to save us with his sheep draft. After those incredibly tough restrictions and a few (idiotic and way too serious) discussions, we need that fun draft
. I still hope he changes his mind about it and starts it.
Yeah I will.@AldoPaine18 needs to save us with his sheep draft. After those incredibly tough restrictions and a few (idiotic and way too serious) discussions, we need that fun draft
No one really man marked Busi when it meant giving more space to Xavi or Iniesta. And anyway how many times have teams actually attempted to "man mark" Xavi or Iniesta anyway? I've seen closing down like a pack of dogs only to fall flat on it's face in a few minutes.
I wouldn't go much by what was done last season as I said, because my remarks are purely in relation to Barca's peak under Pep and there was no way in hell you could stop them by man marking Busi then.
Good lad Aldo. Sounds like good craic, there'll be serious mind games goin on
SHEEP DRAFT
Been discussing this with Aldo and he seems open to running it if enough people are interested.
One thing needs clarifying and agreement though as there are two types of sheep draft so I suggest you pay attention to the following and state which you prefer:
Both have this in common:
- A question is asked which may be broader or narrower in scope but applies to dozens if not hundreds of players of all sorts
- Within 24 hours every manager must submit their chosen player that answers the question, along with proof if required (particularly with obscure choices, you can't expect Aldo to go do the research on every single answer)
- If two or more players choose the same player the pick gets blocked
- Players who have been blocked this way go on to enter a "banned list", i.e. cannot be picked again (helps make teams less star-studded)
- On the last round all banned players are available on a free for all where each manager picks one and blocks one, if a player is blocked or more than one manager chooses him the pick fails, so choose wisely.
- For every failed round, the manager who has failed to make a pick will have a sheep assigned to him by another randomly-generated manager. The sheep is meant to be the worst possible player you can find who answers the given question for that round.
Where they differ:
OPTION 1
Have a question per turn and only one shot at answering it. If you fail you get a sheep.
Pros: Quicker, play 15 rounds and it's all done and dusted in 15 days
Cons: Managers accumulating too many sheep start dropping off and the entire thing turns into a farse. By the end some teams have full squads AND subs with decent/good players, while others have absolutely shite teams for having been too ambitious. The game becomes imbalanced and boring very quickly.
OPTION 2
Have a question per turn but three pops at answering it. The first stage players get pass or fail. The players that have been picked aren't disclosed, only the ones people doubled up on and which are now banned. Second stage, same for those who failed, third stage the same. By the end each player has the first player they picked which "passed". Sometimes at the third stage some real gems are picked which everyone has avoided all along, quite fun. If you fail all three times you get a sheep.
e.g. Question: Pick a player born before 1930.
-Player A: Varela
-Player B: Puskas
-Player C: Puskas
-Player D: Leonidas
Mod reports: A pass, B fail (Puskas), C fail (Puskas), D pass. Banned: Puskas
2nd round:
-Player B: Varela
-Player C: Charro Moreno
Mod reports: B fail (already picked), C pass. Banned: Puskas
3rd round: Player B now tries Leonidas, fails again and thus one of A or D (another bonus from being successful first turn) get to pick him a sheep. Say, Vicente Arraya
Pros: There's more guessing and double guessing involved, more nuance in decision-making and it allows for various risk-reward profiles and scenarios. The teams end up way more balanced and there are less sheep fecking about. If you end up with too many sheep you are basically a giant spastic really.
Cons: Each round effectively takes three days to complete. You need less rounds though (in some the questions may lead to two picks, e.g. WC final rivals) so in ten rounds of three days it takes thirty days.
Note: If you got it fine first time around you know you need not bother with the next two days, while in the other one it is 15 days making decisions every day or getting a sheep, so spreading it over 30 is actually more work/socially-friendly. After the first stage the next round question is published for all to see so you can get a headstart on research if you so wish. You won't yet know which players have already been picked, but you can start your shortlist.
OPTION 1 OR 2?
Both Aldo and I agree the second one is better and results in a better game, but he is concerned it could confuse people too much. What says you?
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2nd option for me.
2nd for me too i'd say. No way of speeding the thing up a bit? 24hrs a pick seems a bit much
It would be 24 hours but if everyone sends their picks the round will be over.
For that, the issue will be once you send your pick you can't change it so just be a little more careful but I think we can do that if that means saving loads of time.
For example if all are online we can finish a round in a few hours as well.