Al-Catenaccio : Counter Terrorism

The Equity Brothers : Debt Equity Marai and Brand Equity Mandal try to crack Strat Consulting into the Football Industry

I've recently been informed there's an entire career involving churning out football statistics and data for savvy coaches. While I wasn't heartless enough to crush the dreams of the wide eyed boy who told me this (read : CorpoSpawn-King Dhruv), I feel less guilty talking about how depressing an idea that is, on a blog with complete anonymity (Do you realize how many football loving "Narzi" bloggers there are in this world, complete with inappropriate political incorrectness, toilet humor and sadistic tendencies....at least 2 I'm hoping). How depressing to analytically prove tactical fallacies and glaring red flags in critical fundamentals, only to then see the biggest fastest gorillas with 4 lungs stomp on said analysis like it was a particularly resistive unpeeled banana.

Take Catenaccio for example. It's not just sitting back and defending to then break on the counter. It's pulling the two lines of MF and FW of the opposition much closer together, and the line between DF and MF further apart. It involves a close MF and DF on their own side, and a FW and MF line pulling apart. I don't see why this strategy was so effective when teams with fast DF can just play an exceedingly high line (like Roma used to with Mexes, and Valencia back when Ayala was around, while Barca failed miserably against Inter with their genetically spliced horror mutant Snailtoise hybrid defenders). and teams with slow DF can widen the gap between their MF and FW lines by increasing the avg length of each pass. Seems simple enough to me, especially given the strength of FW pressing in teams like Barca and Valencia. Right? WRONG.

I frequently respond to a Valencia loss with the match stats on their overwhelming possession % and Passes Completed, only to hear that proves a team's naivete rather than degree of deserving-ness. In general, I scoff at this ridiculous concession of football's prettier aspects, but against counter attacking teams like Madrid, Chelsea, I agree. Not changing tactics to reflect a team with blistering counter pace is naive. It doesn't take an analyst to marvel at the number of comeback victories Madrid routinely have in the last 2-3 seasons, frequently going behind early in the game. The naivete comes in not reverting to a stable formation after going in front against them. On the other hand, Barca and Valencia get whacked on the counter every now and then, and just look jaded. Despite their valiant defiance and constant belligerence on opposing goal, not even fans like me get the feeling there's any hope against the phalanx in front of them. Valencia Sociedad game on Saturday saw Los Che retain 65% of the ball and lose 0-1. Madrid went behind to Mallorca and won 2-1. Barca gave up a 2-0 lead and looked dead at 2-2 before an Alexis fluke and Messi penalty gave them a flattering 4-2 scoreline and increased their pathetic Victories-after-conceding ratio to 29%. Tonight's Cup-Clasico is going to boil down to their 29% against Madrid's 82%, and it doesn't take Strategy Consultants to tell you which is higher (though they'll go ahead and do that anyway... nothing says 82 > 29 better than a pie chart inside a bar graph that extrapolates global housing prices).

But given its a significantly weakened Madrid defence, I'm going for 1-1 if Madrid score first, and 2-1 if Barca score first.