Traditional Styles of Major Footballing Nations

 Watching football is my hobby and I love analyzing the style of play, formations, and strategies of teams. I noticed that each team has its own way to play football. Since, the first world cup in Uruguay, football has evolved but somehow the core idea of a particular team has been nearly similar.

So let’s take a look of footballing styles of some famous footballing nations.

1.    Germany, Spain , Netherlands , France , Belgium- This are the core European playing teams who have somewhat similar style of playing football. These teams rely on their strong creative midfield. Generally passing is short but defenders tend to supply long balls skipping the midfield to the strikers. Strikers are particularly great headers of the ball since the fullbacks are offensive minded and to provide crosses into the box. France is more of a defensive minded team and the defensive midfielder has a huge role to play. But, the rest of these teams love to keep possession of ball. They improvise but never brake the formation.

  

Suitable formation – 4:1:2:3

 2.    Italy, Uruguay – very different to the core European style, usually rock solid in defence and hard to break, physically strong but less creative midfielders and strong and agile strikers. These teams rely on counter attacks and set pieces for scoring.  No improvising but solid formation and keep there forms.

Suitable formation- 4:5:1 / 4:4:2

3.   Argentina, Colombia, Chile – 

Almost try to Copy the core European style but with a slight change. These Latin 
American teams play with an extra Attacking minded midfielder who is allowed to roam around the pitch without restriction. ( For Ex. Maradona for Argentina, James Rodriguez for Colombia). This player plays an important role in connecting the midfield with attackers. 

There style helps them against South American  teams /asian teams but they struggle against European teams due to lack of depth and quality.

Suitable formation – 4:2:1:3

4.     Brazil – They have a complete different view of playing football. It’s about individual brilliances and showcasing there flair enjoying the game. They see football not as a profession but an emotion. They struggle against counter attacking team and are prone against set pieces.  There style is attractive for fans but no major world title since 2002 tells us that they have to bring some kind of discipline to their game.

Suitable formation – 4:3:2:1

Conclusion –

 After brazil winning 2002 world cup,  European teams have won every edition since then this evidently suggest that the professionalism and discipline shown by those European team are clearly giving an advantage to them over South American teams. But teams like brazil, cannot lose their flair completely and need to find a perfect balance to dominate the world football again.

                                                 

                             Rugved Joshi