Possession vs counter-attack: Who wins?

Arsene Wenger is one manager who has employed both counter-attacking football and possession based football to good effect over the years.

Possession or the counter? Who wins?

The two styles share a strain of similarity in that both styles are heavily reliant on an effective midfield – the great Romanian side mentioned earlier was one of the pioneers of the much talked about 4-6-0 formation, packing the side with midfielders. It was a tactic that made for the most exhilaratingly fast uncoiling of a team on a counter (yes, Pep’s great false striker role has its genesis in counter-attacking football – oh, the sweet irony!).

And the influence of the Catalan midfield on tiki-taka is too obvious to be discussed any more, both styles are also extremely reliant on good distribution from the back and the pressing and ball winning midfielders who rob the ball off the opposition. It’s what they do afterwards that sets them apart so dramatically.

Talking in a pure footballing sense, both styles are not without their faults – the counter-attacking strategy fails abysmally against any team content to sit back and hold on for a draw or counter themselves. On the other hand, the possession style is entertaining when playing against a team that attacks, but when faced with the two banks of four that most smaller, less ambitious teams (or a parked bus, as the Special One immortalized the strategy as) revert to, it quickly descends into a mockery of itself – the ball being passed in the defence and midfield without ever entering the final third, as the team searches for an opening to play that killer ball in behind or through the opposition.

This is a problem that Spain and Barca have faced over the past couple of years; their fanatic adherence to possession has given them a lack of flexibility.

Success is the willingness to adapt

The great counter-attacking sides that had been nullified by the possession-obsessed sides (after all, you can’t counter-attack when you don’t have the ball!) are now back in full force. Their counter-attacking is backed up by an almost maniacal pressing (within the opposition half like Dortmund and any Marcelo Biesla managed side, or slightly deeper like Real and Netherlands), taking the game to the stubbornly possession obsessed teams. This allows them to play as much as they want within the non-risky two thirds of the pitch, and then press hard to win back the ball and hit fast and hard on the counter.

This titanic clash of styles was most recently and evocatively on show during the World Cup in Brazil when Spain faced off against Netherlands. The Dutch, under the aegis of the wily Louis van Gaal, dropped their own possession based 4-3-3 and moved to a more defensive and counter-attacking 3-5-2. While the game will go down as an abject humiliation of the possession style and a great victory for the counter-attacking style, it may have been very different if David Silva had converted that gilt-edged chance deep into the first half after a near complete period of patient Spanish domination.

After all, within seconds of that miss came the extraordinary sight of Robin van Persie flying though the air as he scored with one of the greatest World Cup finishes of all time.

The second half would see counter-attacking at its best, and with Netherlands breaking fast as Spain took greater risks in pushing forward, the inherent genius of the strategy came to the fore – the human F-22 Raptor that is Arjen Robben ripping the Spaniards apart in a display of the greatest counter-attacking skill.

Arjen Robben counter attacking with extreme prejudice agaisnt the Spanish pass-masters

The same World Cup, however, would see the worst of the strategy as Netherlands and Argentina sat back, both sides looking for the counter, effectively ‘parking the bus’ to play out arguably the dullest semi-final in World Cup history. It is telling therefore that the eventual winners Germany played a brilliant blend of possession and counter-attacking football where they displayed patience when they got the ball, but did not hesitate to break fast when they saw the opportunity – the ideal blend of direct (think Brazil 0 – Germany 7) and patient football (the final itself and most of the tournament), adapting strategies as and when the situation demanded it.

However, after seeing Spain and Barca end trophyless and humiliated (kind of in Barca’s case), if you think possession football is out of fashion, wait till Guardiola gets the Bayern super-machine purring again, Luis Enrique re-creates the poetry of tiki-taka at its Catalan home and the young guns like Thiago Alacantra come into their own for the Spanish national side. Rest assured, they will adapt as great coaches and great footballing sides are wont to, and come up with a higher form of possession football. At the same time, we can also safely assume that the great counter-attacking masters will come back to try and trump the possession kings in this never-ending war of great footballing philosphies.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder

The possession style is to football what foreplay is to lovemaking – a patient, drawn out, romantic affair that soothes, calms and inevitably seduces the mind with the assurance of a consummate lover. Counter-attacking football is a far more primal affair – wild and urgent, bringing with it the surge of adrenaline and the heady rush of exhilaration that only the act itself can bring.

That is not say the two extreme styles are in any way mutually incompatible. In a weird twist of rational logic, the greatest sides have always been willing to adapt to changing situations on the pitch – the possesion-obssesed 70s Ajax and Dutch sides and more recently Arsene Wenger’s Invincibles often counter-attacked with a directness and thrust few could comprehend. Similarly, the great Milan sides of Sacchi and Capello and the United sides of Fergie – teams that were essentially based on a counter-attacking philosophy – had the mastery to play the ball around the park as they damn well wished when they figured that the counter wasn’t on.

Germany mixed direct and patient football well at the World Cup in Brazil.

As to the question of which is a better style of football, that’s like asking what’s more beautiful – a Picasso masterpiece or a Michelangelo sculpture. Beauty, as always, lies in the eye of the beholder. With the incessant human need for comparison, the modern trend of analysing every single step and shadow, and the almost unhealthy obsession with statistics, we often forget to enjoy the beauty that is being created, taking shape and being played out right in front of us.

Having said that, and while acknowledging that the sight of tiki-taka at high speed (like Spain vs Italy in the Euro 2012 final) has very few parallels in sport, for me personally, nothing compares to the thrill of a beautifully executed counter. Nothing quite sets the nerves afire as much as the sight of a Ryan Giggs running at a furiously backpedalling defender or an enigmatic duo of Cristiano Ronaldo and Wayne Rooney ripping apart defences with the ease and speed of a hot knife going through melting butter.