Xavi, Pirlo and Scholes: Strangers by birth, brothers by nature

Playing position

Xavi signed off his decorated career at Barcelona with a Champions League title

The arrival of Dutch manager Frank Rijkaard meant that Xavi now played in a more advanced central midfield role to control the attacking tempo of Barcelona and deliver final-goal passes. Competition in midfield was stiff- Deco, Edgar Davids and Mark van Bommel were also on the team roster and usually all three started ahead of Xavi. Nevertheless, Xavi now enjoyed a bigger role in the team and was named vice-captain for the 2004/05 season.

It was the arrival of Pep Guardiola as first-team manager, though, that did justice to Xavi’s abilities. Playing on the right of a 3-man central midfield, Xavi epitomised the tiki-taka style of play adopted by Barcelona. His metronomic style of playmaking through constant short passing and movement led to him being nicknamed maqui (short for maquina or “machine”) by Guardiola and “reverse sheepdog” by football correspondent Graham Hunter.

While Xavi flourished in an advanced role, Pirlo revelled in a withdrawn one at AC Milan, under Carlo Ancelotti. Sitting at the base of a diamond midfield also comprising Gattuso, Seedorf and Rui Costa, Pirlo found the ideal position to display his playmaking abilities, away from the tough-tackling defensive midfielders and central defenders of Serie A. He was also simultaneously changing the perception of the deep-lying midfielder, who was earlier considered to have a primarily defensive role.

Now, nearly 20 years after his Serie A debut, managers in Italy are still working out ways to incorporate Pirlo in their team. Notable among these is the 3-1-4-2 formation of Antonio Conte, with Pirlo in a role akin to a quarter-back and three central defenders to provide him additional cover. Such tactical innovations, more than anything, show how much respect the Italian magician still commands in Italy despite his ageing legs.

How unfortunate is it, then, that Scholes never enjoyed such a status in England at the international level!

The “Ginger Ninja”, after his initial years as a centre forward, eventually settled a little deeper as a central midfielder in a classic English 4-4-2 formation of Manchester United, controlling the pace of attacks. He had an astute appreciation of the positioning of his teammates with a knack of being deadly in-front of goal. It is here that the influence of a footballing culture on a player becomes visible.

In Spain, the pre-dominant style of play of the national team is tiki-taka. In La Liga too, emphasis is more on what teams do with the ball. Defending more often involves intelligent pressing and forcing the opposition to give up possession rather than incessant running and sliding tackles.

In such a scenario, the ideal playmaker would be a player who could be an embodiment of tiki-taka, who could escape the pressing of the opposition and at the same time, exploit free spaces to move into as well as find teammates present in these spaces. In other words, the ideal playmaker would be Xavi.

Italy, on the other hand, is a footballing nation known for its tactics and defending. Scoring a goal in Serie A usually involves carrying out the manager’s plan to perfection, scoring from outside the box or scoring from a set-piece.

It is therefore, imperative that a playmaker in Italy is either a skillful, fleet-footed Trequartista who can escape tackles (a la Baggio) or a Regista who can find teammates from a withdrawn position far away from defenders. Pirlo possessed the skill-set for the latter and so, after an initial unsuccessful stint in advanced midfield, settled as a relegated playmaker.

Evolution of Scholes

It is the evolution of Scholes as a playmaker in England, however, which is particularly fascinating. The English version of football is fast and physical. Most of the attacking plays move out to the wings, where the no.7s and no.11s are expected to create chances, either for themselves or for strikers like Andy Carroll and Peter Crouch waiting in the box, while the central midfielders are supposed to be box-to-box players who aid both attack and defence. In Martin Demichelis’ words, English football is probably “inspired by rugby”.

Scholes had in spite of his physical drawbacks, carved out a niche for himself in the frenetic pace of the Premier League. He not only fulfilled the playmaking abilities required of him as a creative midfielder, but also certain characteristics essential to playing in central midfield in the Premier League, such as:

• - Turning up in the box at the right time to score from a cross
• - Scoring goals from long-range shots after an unsuccessful cross led to the ball falling outside the box in no man’s land
• - Playing box-to-box, screening the defence and aggressive tackling (even if the tackles were poor at times)
• In hindsight, it is a tragedy that a player of Scholes’ class was shunted out to the left wing in the England national team and subsequently called time on his international career at the age of 29 with just 66 appearances.
• If he’d been Italian, the whole team would have been built around him and, as Xavi himself said, “If he'd been Spanish he might have been rated more highly.”