For anyone who cares, the answer was that Teachers cant marry their pupils, and by learning from her, he had become her pupil (which only proves my school English teacher either didn't read the Vikram Vethaal morality tales, or didn't care. I'll never forgive her. I'm just kidding don't worry....coz I forgive her). For the even less anyone who cares, this post is about the strange anomalies in Man-man defending lately, the anomaly being that they still exist somehow. School basketball usually teaches us quite early that Zone D is really cool to announce, and either useless or impossible to pull off, resultantly also teaching us quite early how to announce cool stuff and then actually do useless crappy versions of said stuff (kinda like this blog...), which is why we like Italian football - to watch nice technical Zone D. Which makes it a little hard to understand the number of 3 man D's this season in Serie A, quite a few articles towards the end of last year about all the Back-3 teams and how this makes tactical sense against a 2-man opposition attack leaving 1 extra defender to sweep, just add to the dissonance about why this even matters in a Zone D. Even Cannavaro, arguably the best Man-marker I've ever seen played more of zone D with Nesta/Cordoba/Thuram/Helguera for Italy/Inter/Juve/RMA and only seemed to play man-man with Materazzi (both Inter and Italy).
I'm bringing this up because of the Madrid-Valencia game last Sunday (a.k.a 2nd best game of this season behind Valencia-Barca at Mestalla, and I honestly believe this is probably public opinion too, not just a Valencia fan's) - where Topal man marking Cronaldo was the ostensible man-marking debut for Valencia in recent history. The most defensive of a Central MF trio usually remains laterally mobile, while the other two are laterally immobile but shuttle up and down, this makes sense universally, for eg: at Barca with Busquets, Roma with DeRossi, Juve with Pirlo, and until recently Valencia with Albelda. This game saw Tino and Parejo shuttling up the pitch, but not sideways (their actual strength), and on the other hand Topal man marking Cronaldo and hence stuck on the right of field, leaving a nice big hollow in the center for Ozil to pull strings from. Topal finally peeled away (or Cron got tired and gave him a break) midway through the first half, and Valencia dominated the game till the end of H1. 20 minutes of dropping Man-man yielded the only period of dominance for them in the game, the rest was one way traffic by Madrid in a brilliant game nonetheless, that should have ended 3-3 types.
Man-marking Cron is always going to be tempting, compared to Messi who floats around all over the pitch and who in any case needs men-marking in task forces of 4 to 5 (who saw his pass to Pedro through 4 defenders??? no goal, after Pedro instead tried setting up Cesc who had another one of those "even Tazim-cesc-loving-bigot had to agree he suckkss" games), but putting an MF on the job instead of RB Ricardo Costa was really strange, and neglected the fact that Ozil is really the danger man in this team (especially since Benzema got pwned all night by Jordi Alba). Unfortunately, it's eureka moments like these that make you realize this crap has been happening all season everywhere beneath notice. Roma play an attractive sounding 3-man D, but end up with DeRossi man-marking the attacking MF like in the disastrous loss to Lecce last week (where Lamela, Osvaldo, AND Krkic playing together made a mockery of the general perception that team compatibility is important. Sarcasm...before you head-scratch too much), and Milan's Defense plays tight zonal, but mutate to man-man when Ambrosini plays instead of Van Bommel (not that I'm complaining. Die Milan Die). Through that lens maybe Pirlo's had a much larger effect on Juve tactics than I've given him credit for, usually saving praise for Marchisio and Vidal instead - watching Chiellini Barzagli and Pirlo deal with Palermo last week was beautiful, and they're on their way to Les Invincibles Scudetto!
Barca Getafe tonight, Madrid derby tomorrow - in what should be the title decider round, since after this tricky fixture the rest of the season is quite straightforwardedly predictable in that Barca win all their matches, and Madrid win all except at Camp Nou hence ending 1 point ahead of Barca. Valencia meanwhile drop to 4th behind Malaga, and are in danger of dropping out the UCL places to ..gasp... friggin Levante!!! humiliating...
I'm bringing this up because of the Madrid-Valencia game last Sunday (a.k.a 2nd best game of this season behind Valencia-Barca at Mestalla, and I honestly believe this is probably public opinion too, not just a Valencia fan's) - where Topal man marking Cronaldo was the ostensible man-marking debut for Valencia in recent history. The most defensive of a Central MF trio usually remains laterally mobile, while the other two are laterally immobile but shuttle up and down, this makes sense universally, for eg: at Barca with Busquets, Roma with DeRossi, Juve with Pirlo, and until recently Valencia with Albelda. This game saw Tino and Parejo shuttling up the pitch, but not sideways (their actual strength), and on the other hand Topal man marking Cronaldo and hence stuck on the right of field, leaving a nice big hollow in the center for Ozil to pull strings from. Topal finally peeled away (or Cron got tired and gave him a break) midway through the first half, and Valencia dominated the game till the end of H1. 20 minutes of dropping Man-man yielded the only period of dominance for them in the game, the rest was one way traffic by Madrid in a brilliant game nonetheless, that should have ended 3-3 types.
Man-marking Cron is always going to be tempting, compared to Messi who floats around all over the pitch and who in any case needs men-marking in task forces of 4 to 5 (who saw his pass to Pedro through 4 defenders??? no goal, after Pedro instead tried setting up Cesc who had another one of those "even Tazim-cesc-loving-bigot had to agree he suckkss" games), but putting an MF on the job instead of RB Ricardo Costa was really strange, and neglected the fact that Ozil is really the danger man in this team (especially since Benzema got pwned all night by Jordi Alba). Unfortunately, it's eureka moments like these that make you realize this crap has been happening all season everywhere beneath notice. Roma play an attractive sounding 3-man D, but end up with DeRossi man-marking the attacking MF like in the disastrous loss to Lecce last week (where Lamela, Osvaldo, AND Krkic playing together made a mockery of the general perception that team compatibility is important. Sarcasm...before you head-scratch too much), and Milan's Defense plays tight zonal, but mutate to man-man when Ambrosini plays instead of Van Bommel (not that I'm complaining. Die Milan Die). Through that lens maybe Pirlo's had a much larger effect on Juve tactics than I've given him credit for, usually saving praise for Marchisio and Vidal instead - watching Chiellini Barzagli and Pirlo deal with Palermo last week was beautiful, and they're on their way to Les Invincibles Scudetto!
Barca Getafe tonight, Madrid derby tomorrow - in what should be the title decider round, since after this tricky fixture the rest of the season is quite straightforwardedly predictable in that Barca win all their matches, and Madrid win all except at Camp Nou hence ending 1 point ahead of Barca. Valencia meanwhile drop to 4th behind Malaga, and are in danger of dropping out the UCL places to ..gasp... friggin Levante!!! humiliating...
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