Chasing Footballing Perfection - Spain's (Potentially) Fatal Flaw

Can Spain go all the way or will they fall foul looking for perfection?

Though the general idea was first suggested by Plato, the term ‘Utopia’ was coined by Sir Thomas More in 1516 to describe a perfect society where everyone lived in harmony; happy and content with their uniform lives.

The book described this using a fictional island as an example and while some could have taken the writing to be a manifesto for what society should build towards, by reading just the name, More betrayed the true meaning of his words.

The word ‘Utopia’ was derived from ancient Greek, combining the words ‘ou’ (meaning no) and ‘topos’ (meaning place).

‘No place’ - What More was suggesting was an impossibility.

Not only does the individuality of humanity clash with the idea of becoming united in a common point of view on every single matter, but it also requires humanity to somehow control the one thing no one has ever managed to get a handle on - pure chaos.

A Utopia requires its people to be able to predict what is going to happen and be able to react to it flawlessly and as we know in life that is impossible; we can improve our understanding and prepare for the worst but if a 10-ton truck comes crashing through my window as I write this there’s not really much I can do about it.

So the perfect society can’t exist and for many of the same reasons, I believe that the perfect brand of football can’t exist either.

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Was that opening a little too high-brow for a football essay? Ok, let’s get back to some sort of middle ground.

Spain are an incredibly weird team to watch. In the first half against Japan, they completed 566 passes but only took five shots scoring one goal.

In football there are no ‘nuclear deterrents’, if you have the means to completely overwhelm and destroy your opponent you do it, you don’t play with your food because sometimes it might bite back.

And that’s exactly what happened as in the second half Japan scored twice and won; 17% possession but three points.

And watching it back reminded me of another game, Celtic vs Barcelona in the 2012/13 season.

Barcelona were heavy favourites and on the night they were the better team by nearly every metric but lost by the one that mattered. Pure chaos prevailed.

This is why I often take issue when Barca-Esque tactics are described as how ‘football should be played’; a utopian ideal that every club should strive towards because the truth is no tactic is truly the way that you should play the game.

Now many of you are probably thinking “But Casey, the truly ‘great’ version of this Barcelona side was a few years prior, and seeing how it won six trophies in a single year couldn’t that be considered the pinnacle of the sport?”

I will get into one of the reasons (and for me the main reason) why that team was good in due course, but it is important to note that Barcelona under Tito Villanova and Spain under Luis Enrique are just an afterimage of that Pep Guardiola side, but in many ways, they are also the genesis point of some of the ideas that made up Juego de Posicion.

I’ve stated on many occasions that keeping hold of possession for Pep is a defensive tactic, but just in case here’s the man himself talking about why having more of the ball is so important to him in a Manchester City press conference:

"The reason why [our defensive record is so good] is because 67 per cent of the time we have the ball. This is the main reason. The main reason is that we have the ball. If you have the ball as much as possible then the opponent does not have the ball.

"Of course, the opponent can score from set pieces or a counter-attack but the more that you have the ball the more chances you will have to score a goal. This is the reason why.”

Pep is trying to take the nature of football into his own hands; he’s trying to minimise the opportunity for chaotic instances that go against the status quo. Johan Cruyff’s master plan is the same goal of this Spain side.

What we saw in that match against Celtic however and also in Spain’s match against Japan was Pep’s ideals in their truest form but also to a point of near caricature.

Passing for passing's sake; domination that wasn’t truly dominating.

So we return to the problems with Utopia; to achieve it you have a perfect eternal society around a certain set of ideas. But life, and by extension football isn’t just about improving, the aim is to evolve.

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Pep Guardiola delivered me two of my worst moments as a United fan. One is currently ongoing as his Manchester City side constantly mocks me with how good it is weekly and the other one is the 2009 Champions League final.

Yes. I am still annoyed about that.

I must begrudgingly admit however that he is one of the greatest managers to ever grace the game; in the pantheon alongside Sir Alex Ferguson and Johan Cruyff (there are others but I’m not going to list them all).

And his style influenced the Spain team that we can still see today, even if they are managed by a great manager in his own right, Luis Enrique.

The reason for some of his greatness is his willingness to evolve his game to stay ahead of the curve, which is an issue for Spain if you still are holding on to some of the values that he held over a decade ago.

Football is like a Surfer’s Cove.

Managers grab their boards and paddle out to find the wave they want to ride. There are small waves and bigger waves, but there is always one that stands out as the perfect swell.

While most are carried along in the centre of the wave, a lucky few can catch the crest perfectly and surf along at the very top.

But every wave begins to dissipate or crashes to the shore at some point and when it does, many find it very hard to swim back out again and find another.

However, a chosen few, instead of being caught up in the moment, are aware of the shoreline coming up and instead of allowing themselves to land at the shore, they find a way to leave their wave and catch the next one.

And so the cycle continues.

Pep Guardiola is a manager who is talented enough to ride the crest and aware enough to know when to hop to the next wave.

However, sometimes, a manager who was never talented enough to surf the wave comes crashing over it on a jet ski and ruins your day.

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Idealogues like Pep chase Utopia.

All these changes he makes and tactics he adds along the way are in service of developing the perfect style of play. He understands that he needs to make changes to stay ahead of the curve.

So when he moved to Bayern Munich from Barcelona he adapted his style and the same can be said when he first moved to Manchester City and he has changed again this season.

This time around he is trying to add a little more individualism with the likes of Erling Haaland up top.

But as we have stated already, it is very unlikely he will achieve true sustained perfection and part of this is because the perfect style of football he is looking for is more suited to the league format rather than the knockout.

League football is very different to knockout football. Over 38 games it is very easy to say that the best team will win because if you lose one, it is not the end of the world.

In knockout football, one bad or ‘unlucky’ game can end your run. That is the issue that Pep has found in the Champions League and Spain could find in the World Cup.

Even if it was only for 75 seconds, the fact that for any moment a group that contained Germany, Spain, Japan and Costa Rica could have seen the two favourites go out, exemplifies the mayhem that can reign.

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Coming back to Spain, I like the style of football they play, but I think we hold it in too high esteem, mounted on a pedestal.

Their football has its flaws that have seen it come undone already and I believe they’ll hit a wall again (my prediction was the semi-finals though that was before I knew the knockout stage draw).

For me, Spain needs to add some risk to proceedings. If they are dominating possession, they can afford to sacrifice some control in favour of trying to kill a game off earlier.

It should be noted that I think Enrique is a fantastic manager and in some ways, I do understand his struggle as an international manager to implement a clear and coherent style, but I just think at times, Spain misses that killer edge.

They are so blinded in trying to play football their way that they sacrifice the result by accident.

Their style of football is still exceptional (as we saw with the 7-0), but it is not so dominant against every team that it is worth abandoning everything else to sustain it. Especially in a knockout tournament where a single moment matters even more.

Maybe I’m being too harsh, maybe I’m just annoyed that so many people keep saying that there’s only one way to play the game.

You can decide on that one, but what I can tell you is we spend too long chasing idealised versions of football when what is put in front of us is pretty damn good anyway.

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