Everyone loves teams who love to attack with unbridled freedom and like to play free-flowing football. The Canadian women's football team took the learning a little too seriously when they played Trinidad and Tobago in their Olympic qualifier last Sunday.
The Canadian women played a 2-4-4 formation, with only two centre-backs in defence, while the rest of the team focused on pressing high up the pitch with their sole intention being to only attack. Their tactic payed off as well as they turned out 6-0 winners in what was an emphatic display of attacking football and tactical understanding.
The central defenders Shelina Zadorsky and Kadeisha Buchanan played in their role without any worries, exuding great calm as they mopped up any danger whenever Trinidad and Tobago threatened to attack. The match also saw Christine Sinclair score her 159th career goal, goign past Mia Hamm to stand 2nd on the all-time career list of women's goals.
This is how the formation looked like:
This formation is something new in an era when many times resort to playing with as many as 5 defenders, and sometimes teams of managers as big as Jose Mourinho are accused of playing a defensive team with an extra defensive mindset, called parking the bus by many, in an attempt to minimise the threat of conceding a goal.
The tactic of playing without any full-backs might be one rarely used, but it looks like the Canadian team follows Bayern Munich manager Pep Guardiola very closely, as the maverick Spaniard is the only one currently who experiments with formations and playing players in multiple positions, sometimes going defender-less in matches, playing midfielders and full-backs in roles they are alien to, and gives them such confidence that they excel in it.
Though it doesn't look like teams will be following suit and playing this formation much in the future, it sure is exciting when you see a team playing with freedom and great confidence in their own abilities enough to pull this off.
