Jordan Pickford leaves his penalty area and controls the ball. He is confident, riding a wave of Lee Carsley’s free-spirited football and the euphoria of freedom. The players can do anything, can be anywhere.
He tries to beat a Greece player. He loses it. He is not so confident. In fact, as the player shoots towards the vacated goal, he is panicking.
Were it not for Levi Colwill’s phenomenal sprint back and clearance from right on the goal-line, it would have been an embarrassing opening goal conceded 10 minutes into the night Carsley had played the most attacking, bamboozling England starting XI in years.
It was like when you were a kid playing Football Manager or Fifa and simply stuck as many attacking players in the starting line-up as possible, unable to leave one of your favourites out.
Maybe Carsley had taken exception to all the comparisons to Gareth Southgate, much criticised for his “dull” approach to reaching finals and going deep into tournaments, after his first two games in charge – two beige victories against the Republic of Ireland and Finland.
Looking at the list of names, you scratched your head wondering how they all fit into any kind of traditional formation.
The BBC Sport app initially went with a 4-2-2-2, Jude Bellingham playing in the base midfield pairing with Declan Rice. Which was definitely wrong, because Bellingham was earmarked as a false nine. Anthony Gordon and Bukayo Saka were behind Cole Palmer and Phil Foden up front.
Later, it went with 4-4-2: Bellingham and Foden as strikers, Gordon left, Saka right, Rice and Palmer in the middle. But that still didn’t feel in the spirit of Carsley’s adventurous intentions.
And it was wrong, too. Although perhaps trying to make sense of the players on the pitch was to miss the point of what Carsley was intending.
Carsley sees attributes, not positions. He wants players to play in spaces, not where the opposition expects. He seems to look at the game in shades and tones, rather than rigid lines and blocks of colour.
Palmer was definitely deeper, constantly demanding the ball. Foden and Bellingham were vaguely up front. Gordon was left, Saka right.
At times, Rice seemed isolated, desperately looking around his near vicinity wondering where all the midfielders had gone. Who needs midfielders when you have vibes and ideas?
"We tried to overload the midfield… It was something that we tried for 20 minutes yesterday, it's something we experimented with."
Lee Carsley on England's new system#ITVFootball | #NationsLeague |
@gabrielclarke05 pic.twitter.com/7C39UZ3dWc
— ITV Football (@itvfootball) October 10, 2024
This was what everyone wanted, wasn’t it? And more. Not only fitting Foden, Bellingham and Palmer into the XI, but, somehow, Saka and Gordon too.
And yet still the paper aeroplanes rained down on the Wembley pitch less than a quarter of the way through the game. They are fast becoming an emblem of the modern England team – an expression of the idea that it is more entertaining seeing if you can launch a paper aeroplane onto the Wembley pitch from your seat than it is watching the match.
Which was unfair, because the game was hugely entertaining, only not for the reasons Carsley would have wanted.
Greece broke and were two v two, Vangelis Pavlidis shooting just wide. Pickford flapped at a corner and Dimitrios Kourbelis scored, but it was ruled offside.
Trent Alexander-Arnold gave the ball away in a dangerous position, missed a tackle as he raced back and was bailed out by a Pickford save, showing Carsley why Southgate rarely trusted Alexander-Arnold defensively.
Was it not obvious that simply throwing all your best attacking players into a team wouldn’t work? Wouldn’t we all be football managers if that were the case?
Carsley crouched low at the edge of his technical area, resting his arms on his knees, wondering why an assembly of players that made no sense wasn’t making any sense; as though looking at the game from that level would reveal, yet again, something that nobody else could see.
At half-time, the game goalless but Greece looking the more likely to score, maybe he should have gone more English. A 4-4-2, the country’s third-best central midfielder on the left of midfield, Beckham on the right, up top a big man who can hold up the ball next to a rapid little striker.
Ideally, two central midfielders who are brilliant for their clubs yet unable to play together. Which is, incidentally, emerging as the case with Bellingham and Foden.
Instead, Carsley made no changes, still confident the pre-match plan would eventually take shape.
Bellingham and Palmer walked from the tunnel and onto the pitch after the break, the Real Madrid player speaking animatedly at his teammate. They were soon joined by Foden, the trio deep in conversation about what they needed to do to make this work.
And Greece took the lead four minutes later. Alexander-Arnold, John Stones and Palmer were all around Pavlidis, but none close enough to stop him shooting low past Pickford. Another glimpse at why Southgate rarely played Alexander-Arnold at right-back.
Carsley, meanwhile, doubled down with the first substitution – replacing Saka with Noni Madueke, if anything going more attacking. He replaced attacking players with more attacking players.
Greece almost scored again, and again. And again.
It felt almost cruel that moments after Greece had what they thought was the decisive goal ruled out by VAR, Bellingham stuck a brilliant shot to equalise, with three minutes remaining.
But fear not: in stoppage time England crumbled in their own penalty area and Pavlidis scored the winner.
In his third game as interim manager, Carsley had practically reinvented football, lost to Greece for the first time in England’s history, lost a competitive game at Wembley for the first time in four years, produced two shots on target.
Before the game, he had been compared to Pep Guardiola. But maybe it was specifically the time Guardiola played no defensive midfielder and lost a Champions League final.
The wildest England experiment on a football pitch had failed spectacularly.
from Football - inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/zpOFPyo
Post a Comment