The Football Thread - 17/18 Season

[colafitte]

RolStoppable said:

Lafiel said:

Mr_No said:

I was wondering the same. The hate on Spain seems very strong not only here, but in the social media too.

they won the last 3 major international tournaments in a row (2 euros, 1 world cup) and very often with 1-0 - people are sick and tired of that

The low scores were hardly Spain's fault though. Tiki-taka is about winning through ball control and the intent to score which most teams tried to counter by coming up with catenaccio-like tactics which are hard to score against regardless of what a team does.

It's wrong to blame Spain for how the low scores. Their opponents must be blamed for not adopting a tactic similar to what the Netherlands did today, a more aggressive style that puts pressure on tiki-taka's core. The common mistake during the last years was that opponents allowed Spain to dictate the pace of the game completely. Recall all those matches where Spain could basically pass around the ball in an area 20-30m in front of their opponent's goal, that was complete surrender.

This.

It's very unfair to consider Spain boring when every rival against Spain played with 11 players in their area for years. At this level of competition, if a rival plays like this, it's very difficult to score.