Spain and Germany - One Moment in Team
"The strength of the team is each individual member. The strength of each member is the team." – Phil Jackson
"Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence win championships." - That is a quote from 6-time NBA Champion Michael Jordan. Now it may seem ironic coming from a man to who promoting squad harmony was more a suggestion rather than something to work towards, but he’s right; if you want to win a team sport you have to play as a team.
So with that in mind, this instalment is a double bill focusing on Spain and Germany - two World Cup winners in the 21st Century.
It would have been great to include Italy in 2006 here as well, but unfortunately, they decided to boycott Qatar 2022 and by boycott I mean, they failed to qualify. But I think I can make my point effectively by just focusing on these two giants of the modern international game.
But why include Spain and Germany in the same article (I swear it has nothing to do with the World Cup being this month)?
This series so far has been talking about the favourite’s history post-2000, but for Spain and Germany, you can explain that by focusing on just their wins (and then a slight explanation of the car crash of a tournament they had immediately after).
They were both good teams who just couldn’t quite make it, they then went all the way and then the tournament after they completely collapsed. The reason for that lifecycle is intrinsically linked with the two things they have in common:
They both embody the tactics and styles of team football that were dominant at the time they won
They both are remembered more as great teams rather than for individual performances
(In regards to the first point, Real Madrid are a complete anomaly when I’m discussing all this, their form in the Champions League falls into a grey area but most that occurs post-2014 so it shouldn’t affect the bearing of this article)
So with that in mind let’s dive right in and start with the team that drew first blood and lifted the most prestigious trophy in World Football for the first time in 2010, Spain.
In 2002 and 2006, Spain did fine. In both instances, they had a strong selection that included the likes of Raul, Xabi Alonso, Xavi, and Sergio Ramos etc etc. but in both cases, their squads weren’t quite there.
They would lose to South Korea in the Quarter Finals in 2002 (on penalties) and to eventual finalists France in the Round of 16 in 2006.
But what Spain were missing most was an identity. They did not truly grasp how to approach tournament football; squeezing out the results when necessary and prioritising their defensive structure (across the two tournaments they played nine games and only kept three clean sheets).
Enter Pep Guardiola.
Now, of course, Guardiola would not be the manager of the Spanish national team, but the actual coach Vincente Del Bosque would take the stance that the players should play the football they felt the most comfortable with and with seven Barcelona players in the Starting XI for the final by default this lends itself to the tactics Pep instilled in his cohort.
What Del Bosque should be commended for however was his ability to navigate the potential minefield that arises from having fierce rivals and personalities from Barcelona and Real Madrid in the same dressing room.
Del Bosque commented on this delicate situation, especially surrounding the partnership of Sergio Ramos and Gerard Pique, in an interview with FourFourTwo in 2022:
"That they were important men for the national team, and that it was essential that any personal problems that may have arisen as a result of the rivalry between Real Madrid and Barcelona, which at the time was unnecessarily taken to extremes, were soon sorted out.
"I spoke to more people, but it’s true that with Sergio Ramos and Gerard Pique, we met on occasion to unite the dressing room. I also did it with Iker Casillas and Xavi, or Xabi Alonso and Sergio Busquets, who also shared the same position on the pitch.”
But back to Pep. Tutored by Johan Cruyff, the Spanish manager looked to implement these values into his Barcelona side.
Firstly there was the six-second rule (and not the one that regards food that you’ve dropped on the floor). After Barcelona lost the ball they aimed to press the opponent and win it back within six seconds.
The theory that underpinned this was that if Barcelona had possession of the ball, they were less likely to be put in scenarios where luck and probability became a factor in whether they won or lost.
Guardiola has spoken about the theory behind this on many occasions. Last season ahead of a match against Brentford, he spoke about how having possession was a defensive strength:
“When the opponent has the ball far away from the goal and when you have the ball, that’s the best way to defend. To concede a goal, the opponent has to have the ball and the less they have it, the more chances we have to have a clean sheet and be solid.”
These fundamental mechanisms in combination with quick passing and use of space were given many names - Tika Taka is probably the most famous nickname, which Guardiola himself hates but it was also dubbed Juego de Posicion.
And this would culminate in Barcelona winning the sextuple in 2009 ahead of the World Cup. This includes - La Liga, the Copa Del Rey, the Supercopa de Espana, the Champions League, the European Super Cup and the Club World Cup (this was the first time that the feat had been achieved and it would only be achieved again once - by Bayern Munich in 2020).
That covers point one - Pep’s style was the dominant style of football in the world at the time of the 2010 World Cup (and this was also shown by the fact that Spain won the Euros in 2008 as well).
And if you don’t believe me in saying this is the style of football Spain adopted, maybe you will believe Johan Cruyff, who wrote in his column after Spain defeated Germany in 2010:
“Spain's style is the style of Barcelona. [They] are now the great favourites. Vicente del Bosque's team has grown in strength and finds itself in the final at the top of its game. Yesterday evening Germany, which put on a display against Argentina, played football which would have been enough to beat any team but not Spain.
“Spain, a replica of Barca, is the best publicity for football. Who am I supporting? I am Dutch but I support the football that Spain is playing.”
But what about the second point? That Spain are remembered as a great team rather than for individual players.
Now, some of you may argue that both Xavi and Andres Iniesta were standouts at the tournament, and to be fair that if you want to argue that, I don’t particularly have a problem with it.
But I would argue in rebuke, that Xavi and Iniesta stood out because they were the key lynchpins of the style of football both Barcelona and Spain wanted to play; they were engine but for a very well-made BMW.
As I mentioned in ‘Argentina: A Messi Affair’ (another article from this series which you can read here), Spain were incredible at keeping hold of the ball and passing through teams, but they weren’t high scorers.
They hold the record for the least amount of goals scored by a World Cup winner in a single tournament with eight goals, despite having players like Fernando Torres and David Villa at their disposal.
But keeping in theme with using tactics that were similar to the ones Pep Guardiola would use, Cesc Fabregas would also be deployed at times as a False 9, especially in the final.
So they didn’t have a goalscorer who stood out and even though they kept a lot of clean sheets, their defence was hailed as a single unit and again, attributed to the fact they kept hold of the ball.
So I think that in that way it adheres to point two.
In the final, they beat the Netherlands 1-0 after extra time thanks to a goal from Iniesta and were crowned champions of the world; Kevin McCarra would point out in his Guardian article after the final whistle had blown:
Vicente del Bosque's side, for that matter, have developed a highly individual style founded on exceptional technique that exhausts and demoralises opponents as a midfield of supreme artistry confiscates the ball.
But all great dynasties (I think we can call consecutive trophies in early 2000s international football a dynasty) must come to an end.
Over the next four years, there would be a shift in power in Europe, as the German gegenpress came to the fore and ‘Tika-Taka’ would fall by the wayside.
Its last hurrah came in 2011 as Barcelona beat Manchester United to win the Champions League, but the following season Guardiola’s side would be knocked out of the Champions League and come second in the league behind Jose Mourinho’s Real Madrid.
Guardiola left Barcelona at the end of the 2011/12 season and then joined Bayern Munich the following year, where he would meet his true great rival Jurgen Klopp (I think at this point we can say this), but more on him a bit later.
Going into the 2014 World Cup, many still expected Spain to do well. Only Carlos Puyol and Joan Capdevilla had retired from the main squad but they had been replaced well with Sergio Ramos moving centrally and Jordi Alba coming to the fore.
Players like Andres Iniesta, Xavi and Iker Casillas were much older but they were still considered some of the best players in their positions. However, it didn’t take long till they were given a reality check about how the game had advanced.
The lack of goals was the major criticism levelled at Spain in 2010, but they would have begged for this to be the case in their opener in 2014.
Their opponents, the Netherlands, the very team they had dismantled to win the competition four years earlier. But unlike in 2010, they didn’t resolve to, for want of a better phrase, kick the sh*t out of their opponents, they tried different tactics.
Louis van Gaal, who was well versed in the ways that Cruyffian and by extension Guardiolan football operated, decided to play a deeper block and create traps out of possession to win the ball back from their opponent. When they did they would look to create a chance as quickly as possible on the counter (something very reminiscent of German football, but again we’ll get to that).
They crushed Spain 5-1, thanks to braces from Robin van Persie (including his famous diving header) and Arjen Robben and a goal from Stefan de Vrij. Spain’s only goal was a 27th-minute penalty from Xabi Alonso.
The Guardian article, this time written by Sid Lowe, read very differently:
Every seven or eight minutes another goal came ... and every goal was another hole in what I was writing; with each goal my piece was more irrelevant. One goal at a time it fell apart. As the end of the game approached, it was torn up completely and forgotten. Write something else. This was much bigger. Write about what had happened instead and what it meant.
But what had happened? And what did it mean? Even then, even straight after Spain lost 5-1 to Holland, I was not really sure. Not yet. I was not even yet sure that it was the end but it was; Spain’s World Cup had pretty much finished before most countries’ tournament had even started. That generation, the most successful in football history, had gone – one goal at a time.
They would lose their next game 2-0 to Chile and with the South American team now on six points as well as the Netherlands who beat Australia 3-2, they were out of the World Cup before the last game was even played.
The rise and fall had been completed, like Ozymandias the footballing empire they had built lay in tatters and in their stead another would take their place.
Germany in the 21st Century were always quite good at football. In 2002 they reached the final losing out to a Brazil team led by Il Fenonemo, Ronaldo Nazario and they came 3rd in both 2006 and 2010.
In each instance of coming third they lost to the eventual winners; Italy and Spain respectively. They were the ‘nearly men’, never quite able to get across the line to claim their first World Cup since West and East Germany reunited. They needed an edge.
Enter Pep Guardiola (again) but more importantly Jurgen Klopp.
When speaking about the development of football tactics, Eric Laurie stated on his Medium the following about how he believes tactics develop:
It is widely accepted that at this point in football history, any unprecedented change in tactics will be as a result of a rule change. Coaches can sit around and discuss football tactics day in and day out, and perhaps they will come up with something new, however, implementing these concepts with any degree of success is a different story.
Now, I don’t disagree with Eric’s summation, nor am I going to say I know any better given that I am neither a coach nor a tactical analyst, but I think that there is a second level below the massive change that Eric suggests that can be just as influential.
Widespread tactical change usually is levered by a new rule or an amendment, but I also feel that at times tactics can develop to undermine and then usurp the current reigning style of play.
When the restrictive lines of the 4-4-2 were the dominant tactic in English football, teams like Manchester United and Arsenal implemented a system which was more akin to a 4-4-1-1 using a number 10 who worked between the lines; Eric Cantona and Dennis Bergkamp respectively.
Of course, this is one example, but I think that in some ways the style of football Jurgen Klopp developed at Borussia Dortmund which came prevalent across the Bundesliga was mainly to combat the patient passing style that had become the gold standard across Europe.
The style of football that Klopp implemented was a variation/improvement of gegenpressing which had been brought to the fore by Ralf Rangnick which in turn had been inspired by Arrigo Sacchi.
Side note - Football is an echo chamber, and because of that there’s another part of Eric’s article I want to throw in here because I personally think it’s a great way of thinking about it:
I always think of season 6, episode 7 of South Park when a coach believes they have come up with something “new” -something that has never been done before — the episode called Simpsons already did it. For those of you who do not know, the basic idea behind this episode is that every good idea has already been done previously.
So Klopp implemented his counter-pressing, high-intensity style and won two Bundesliga titles in 2010/11 and 2011/12. He also reached the Champions League final in 2012/13, but unfortunately lost to Bayern Munich managed then by Jupp Heynckes (who had taken over from Louis van Gaal).
Here would be a really good point to add content from Pep Lijnders book on the tactics that Klopp would go on to use at Liverpool, but I haven’t read it yet so instead I’m going to use the description given by Coaches’ Voice on the subject (when the team is out of possession):
“The success of a team’s counter-pressing often relies on the players’ ability to react quicker than the opposition. Players will aggressively engage the ball-carrier as quickly as possible once a defensive transition has occurred. The aim is to regain possession immediately through tackles, interceptions and individual duels.
“Other teammates then swarm around the ball, condensing the space the opposition has to play out, and form a compact structure. These teammates will either man-mark tightly, staying ready to press and engage their direct opponent should they receive a pass, or mark zonally, covering passing lanes between opponents to intercept the ball. A third option is that players will do a combination of the two approaches.”
In possession, the team look to use most of the space available to them but always must keep in mind that if they lose the ball, they must quickly switch to the mentality that they adopt when out of possession.
When Pep entered the league he realised that this new tactic would trump the Juego de Posicion he had implemented at Barcelona. But this I feel is where Guardiola thrives, but I feel like this is where the Spanish manager thrives.
Good managers develop a tactic that can dominate their league/achieve their goals over a defined period; truly great managers can adapt quickly to shifts in the footballing landscape to stay on top.
Sir Alex Ferguson was incredibly adept at this, hence why he had such a long career at the top, but in the modern day, the coach that shows this quality the most is Pep.
He quickly implemented a hybrid strategy which included parts of his original tactics but with elements of counter-pressing to match his opponents’ energy.
So when the 2014 World Cup around, they had a stew cooking in Germany and though this style of football wouldn’t reach its genesis point until both managers moved to the Premier League, this style that Guardiola and Klopp were creating would become one of the dominant tactics in Europe.
And it was put on full display during the competition in Brazil.
It’s about time I tell you the real link between Spain and Germany and drop the subterfuge. As a United fan, it pains me to write this but both World Cup wins in a lot of ways were because of Pep Guardiola (though Klopp played a hand in the latter as I’ve already said).
His Barcelona side made up a good chunk of the Spain 2010 team and Germany’s 2014 side had a strong core of players from his Bayern Munich side. And former Bayern Munich goalkeeper Oliver Kahn felt the need to give Guardiola his flowers:
"The influence of Guardiola's idea of football has led to Bayern Munich becoming appreciated worldwide for their attractive football and also improved many German players. Through that, Guardiola indirectly has a stake in the German 2014 World Cup triumph."
The crowning moment of this German side was of course their 7-1 demolition of Brazil in the semi-finals. A game of which Mats Hummels said afterwards that they took their foot off the pedal in the spirit of sportsmanship.
Brazil were missing some key players like Neymar and Thiago Silva, but I doubt it would have mattered. It was one of the most complete team performances in World Cup history; everyone Germany player played their part and seeing how its the match that everyone remembers from that tournament this can contribute to the first point.
The final was a much cagier affair and if the parallels between Spain's and Germany’s wins weren’t enough, it took a goal from Mario Gotze in extra time to confirm the win for Joachim Low’s side.
So what went wrong in 2018?
Well in some ways I feel like the game continued to speed up and Germany were left a few gears behind. The counter-press had evolved into a high press and while Germany still tried to dominate teams, they lost the ball frequently and were beaten consistently on the counter.
The image of Joshua Kimmich trying to scramble back as South Korea attacked two immobile centre-backs lives long in the memory.
Germany beat Sweden but lost to Mexico and South Korea crashing out in the group stages as Spain had done four years prior. It was a national embarrassment, but again it was expected.
Football is a constantly moving entity, you can’t get comfortable for too long where you are or it will leave you behind. Empires fall, dynasties disband and only a small few can chase the sunset to stay in the light.
When I first started this series my aim was just to recount the histories of the favourites for the World Cup and try to paint a picture, but like with football, it evolved into something else as it has gone on.
The stories and narratives surrounding the World Cup are sometimes more interesting than the game itself and in most cases, you knew what happened so I felt it was my job to try and tell you why.
This is the penultimate entry into the World Cup series and the final article around, you guessed it, England will be out before a ball is kicked in Qatar on the 20th of November.
So I just wanted to say thank you for reading so far, I hope you’ve learned something along the way and I’ll see you ahead of World Cup for the final instalment.