Sunday 4 July 2010
Germany's counter attacking approach wins the day
Unsurprisingly, the stats don't paint a different picture of England's humiliating 4-1 loss to Germany. But Germany's tactic of hitting on the counter does come through quite strongly - and supported by their display in the quarters against Argentina. Against England, the Germans gave up possession to the tune of 44.8% to England's 55.2%, which is quite considerable in the modern game. However, they took the honours in the territorial advantage at 52.6% to England's 47.4%. And the individual stats back Germany's stronger attacking performance with Ozil and Schweinsteiger way ahead of England's triumvirate of Gerrard, Barry and Lampard on key passes and forward half passes. It highlights that focussing on possession football only gets you so far: it's what you do with it that counts.
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Across the tournament, I had the impression that counter-attacking proved so successful for a number of teams because it provided one way of overcoming crowded midfields. I'd be interested to know, across the tournament, how many passes were made within the midfield, and how many of those actually led to useful forward progress out of it - relatively few, I would venture.
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