Man Utd pair the best central midfield ever? Barca might want a word | OneFootball

A Manchester United fan shockingly thinks that a Manchester United midfield is the best ever, while we have more World Cup chat.

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The best midfield pair ever is…

The World Cup has been a cracking watch, hasn’t it? There were plenty of people queuing up to dismiss it before a ball was kicked, including myself, but the football has done the talking, and the atmosphere has grown with every round. Funny how that works. It feels like we’re heading for a proper blockbuster final.

Anyway, here’s one to get the Mailbox going.

Now, if we’re talking about complementary midfield pairings rather than simply the two best midfielders playing together, I don’t think anyone tops Paul Scholes and Michael Carrick at their peak.

Scholes gave you imagination, tempo and passes that broke games open. Carrick gave you control, positioning and the sort of spatial awareness that meant attacks often died before they started. According to Opta data (I’m sorry I’m going to have to be that p***k but hear me out) from Carrick’s outstanding 2011/12 season, he completed over 90% of his passes while also averaging 3.3 tackles and 2.6 interceptions per league start. That’s elite ball retention and elite defensive contribution rolled into one.

The beauty of the partnership was that neither got in the other’s way. Scholes could dictate because Carrick had already secured the pitch behind him. Carrick could recycle possession because Scholes was always available to turn defence into attack with one pass. They made football look slower than it actually was.

The biggest compliment I can pay them is this: Sir Alex Ferguson trusted that midfield to control the biggest matches in England and Europe. They won five Premier League titles and a Champions League together because they could dominate games without needing to dominate the ball for the sake of it.

There have been more glamorous pairings. There have been more fashionable pairings. I know names like Xavi and Iniesta, Busquets, Keane and Scholes, or Modrić and Kroos will dominate the conversation, but I’m not convinced there has been a more complete one. Gaptoothfreak, Man Utd, New York (Not sure how I’m supposed to top a proposal involving the Empire State Building.)

What the hell happened to Brazil?

I posted to my Spurs WhatsApp group after Brazil/Norway that you would have to have a heart of stone not to p*** yourself laughing at Neymar after the game. This led to a discussion about how it had come to this – people no longer liking Brazil but actually laughing at them.

I’m 67 and in my childhood/youth no team had an aura like Brazil. I supported England because it’s my country, but I f**king loved Brazil!

I was probably a bit too young to appreciate the brilliance of the 1970 team but that 1982 – wow! It seemed like that they played with a different ball to everybody else because it did things that never happened when players from other nationalities kicked it.

That team had Socrates, perhaps the coolest footballer ever to walk the planet. Famous for his cigarette consumption, his medical degree and his outspoken politics, languidly wandering about the midfield, gliding past attempted tackles flicking nonchalant passes to his brilliant team mates. Here’s a reminder of how good they were.

I have never been as upset about a team going out of any competition, apart from the teams I support (Spurs and England), as I was after that brilliant and dramatic game against Italy. As good as Italy were, it just didn’t seem fair.

So Brazil’s brilliance was, I thought, permanently established. But then 1986? Perhaps just a little break with brilliance. 1990? 1994, even though they won it? No. It was like the oil tanker turning, it was a long way round before you acknowledged that things had changed.

And it has continued ever since, with only really the original Ronaldo, and Ronaldinho less so, throwbacks to Brazil’s glory aura. The decline was summed up by Rivaldo holding his face in 2002. That 1982 team would never have taken part in the dark arts – they just knew they were brilliant and they went out there and showed us all. Sean, East Finchley

You can win World Cup without scoring a goal

Really enjoyed this World Cup – just wanted to flag something up.

A curious thing about FIFA’s new World Cup group stages is that they have created a future reality where you can win a World Cup without winning a single game, or even scoring a single goal.

If you can get through the groups with 3pts from three games and a decent goal difference, you have a solid chance to escape the groups with three 0-0 draws. You can then, of course, draw every knockout game 0-0 and win each on penalties (Huddersfield won the Championship play offs doing exactly this.)

Senegal went through with 3pts and Cape Verde went through with 3 draws (0 GD) finishing second. Iran also narrowly failed to go through with 3pts and 0 GD.

But it is now a possibility to win the whole World Cup with a squad purely packed with defenders and specialist penalty takers.

In trying to help more nations get through – thus getting Infantino more presidential votes – FIFA potentially lower the bar for quality.

Rather like VAR, handball, etc, almost every rule change FIFA makes to make the game more attacking, can also have precisely the opposite outcome.

Smaller nations will be asked a simple question, do you take risk and try and win one game well and go through? Or do you accept you are a weaker side and simply aim for 0-0s? Both can pay the same dividend. Andy Jones

The issue with the disallowed Egypt goal

Egypt’s striker, Mostafa Ziko, saw a goal disallowed for a foul committed by Marwan Attia on Lisandro Martinez. Was it a foul by Attia? Maybe. I’ve got to say it wasn’t the cleanest of tackles but it was probably one of those where sometimes they’re given and sometimes they’re not. If that was a tackle on Martinez in the Egypt penalty area, would that be given as a penalty? Maybe. I personally am doubtful, at the same time I wouldn’t be surprised if it was given. I’m not saying it wasn’t a foul, I’m just saying it wasn’t a nailed on foul. It was a committed challenge, and Martinez made sure he fell to the floor when he felt the contact.

But this entire disallowed goal doesn’t sit well with me. The decision-making is illogical, it doesn’t seem to follow the rules or guidelines of the game, and to me it seems dishonest. Let me explain why.

If Ziko had put that shot wide, the referee would have awarded a goal kick to Argentina. However, it was precisely because Ziko scored a goal that the decision was taken to award Argentina the free kick. This is problematic for me because firstly, the referee saw the challenge on Martinez and didn’t award a free kick; secondly the challenge wasn’t a potential red card. It wasn’t reckless, it wasn’t high; thirdly, it wasn’t in the penalty area.

So what we have here is an admittedly slightly robust challenge on Martinez, which he made the most out of, which the referee didn’t think was a free kick. Marwan Attia passed the ball to Haissem Hassan who Maradona’d his way down the touchline, gave the ball to Salah, who prodded in the direction of the onrushing Ziko who finished well. That’s three passes by Egypt, it was at least three attempted tackles by Argentina (but it might be as many as five if you include Emi Martinez trying to save the shot), there was no offside, no handball. The game played on because the referee didn’t award the free kick.

It wasn’t advantage to Argentina either, as Argentina didn’t have possession of the ball – Egypt did. And to repeat, if Ziko put that shot wide, then it would have been a goal kick to Argentina.

Can anyone with a more fuller understanding of the rules explain to me why VAR retrospectively awarded a free kick which didn’t lead to a red card for Marwan Attia? By not awarding a red card to Attia then by that logic the tackle wasn’t reckless, therefore the referee cannot be accused of making a clear and obvious error for a tackle which, to be clear, was on the touchline, was seen, and was definitely down to referee interpretation on the night (some refs would give it, some wouldn’t, this one didn’t).

To me at least, this is a very questionable, troubling, and potentially dishonest decision that went against Egypt Dale May, Swindon Wengerite

…Do FIFA, or any of the other governing bodies of football for that matter, have a definition of what “clear and obvious” means? Do they have an example, or better still examples, of situations that could be considered “clear and obvious” refereeing errors?

There are a number of different definitions of “clear”, but the one I think is probably most applicable in this instance is “free from doubt”. The synonym is “sure”. It makes sense that if the VAR is going to intervene to inform the on-pitch referee that he has made an error, he should be sure.

Likewise “obvious” refers to a fact that “is so plain that it requires no explanation or deep inference to grasp”. One of the possible synonyms is “patent” which refers to “a feature that is unmistakable once attention is directed to it”.

If you go with those definitions then in order for the VAR to contact the referee to indicate that a review is necessary he must be certain that an error has been made. That being the case, why does the referee need to go to the monitor to review the footage? The VAR has just told him that he has made a “clear an obvious” error. If it’s “clear and obvious” then it shouldn’t be open to interpretation. If it is open to interpretationd, and only the opinion of the VAR, then it isn’t “clear and obvious”. If the VAR contacts the referee to indicate that a “clear andobvious” error has been made the referee should just take his word for it, reverse the call, and get on with the game.

As an example, if the referee calls a penalty for a foul in the area, the VAR should review. If he determines that the defender touched the ball, made no contact on the attacker, and the attacker dived then that would be a clear and obvious error (I got tired of using quotes). The VAR would contact the referee to inform him, but there’s logically no reason for the ref to look at it on the screen and review it. If he needs to review then it suggests that he doesn’t trust the VAR, which calls the whole process into question.

If we use this as the standard, then the Harry Kane penalty no-call followed the correct process. However, the Mexico penalty did not follow this process and so was inconsistent.

There are some things that can be empirically determined using technology. Did the ball cross the lines, was the ball touched, was the attacker offside (maybe that’s not a good example…). Pretty much everything else is a matter of opinion.

It would be much better to have an opportunity for each team to request a play to be reviewed as they do in many other sports, rather than having the VAR weigh in with their opinion.

Otherwise maybe the referee should make no calls on the field, unless a team of VARs contact him to inform him that an infraction has occurred. Andrew (hoping this explanation was both clear and obvious) Canada

Sending love to Egypt

What a game the Egyptian team played!

Although I’m still sour about the result, and feel things could’ve/should’ve gone differently, I still feel the Egyptian team deserves a massive amount of praise for the game they played.

Cape Verde were considered darlings of the tournament after a similar great display, and I cannot help but feel that the same treatment is not given to a team that delivered above and beyond expectation.

I was very impressed with Haissem Hassan dribbling through midfield on counter attacks. What an overall display that delivered an unbelievable game. Nader (Chelsea for the PL title in 2035!)

Is there a difference between the World Cup and pro wrestling?

Sadly, I think not. This newbie American fan got quite disillusioned by the farcical refereeing on the Egypt/Argentina game. The disallowed Mostafa Zico goal was a joke: how many other toes were stepped on ALL OVER THE FIELD during the course of the game? You would have to a blind, mentally challenged fool not to see they were tilting the game in favor of Argentina, a much bigger market$.

But that was just the beginning: Egypt was denied a penalty after the obvious foul on Mohamed Salah, and finally… Head coach Hossam Hassan and his staff received cards for passionately pleading for the penalty.

An embarrassment to watch! Sad, and this arbitrary, biased refereeing is while FIFA will never tap the multi-billion dollar market of the USA. Your loss, FIFA. Scott Jefferson

Addressing some World Cup discussion points

Some interesting emails over the last few days.

On ‘how diverse the European Cup used to be’ from Paul K, London. Some excellent points. But what I recall was that the Eastern European (read communist SSR) teams were pretty close to the country’s national side. Not to mention all the tricks to disrupt opponents behind the ‘iron curtain.’ It was definitely an artificial situation created by a ‘Soviet’ society looking to use winning at sport as a metaphor for the power of communism.

The Italians were the first to import the best foreign players – to a max of 3 – and dominated for a while. While England found itself doing worse as it struggled to find pathways for English players in the most nationally diverse league in Europe. But after building St. George’s Park (and dropping Charles Reep concept of long balls score goals), England have turned the corner in player development.

As Italy and Germany now have more diverse leagues, we are seeing them struggle. Not sure what’s happening to Brazil though. Perhaps having all your best players bought by European clubs at a young age has disrupted their logo Bonita-ism.

On Football in the USA. If all the large population countries (India, China) the USA as a wealthy and sports-centric country has the potential to do well at football. Not withstanding the excellent points from Mike, WHU, we have seen success at the international level – but in Women’s football. The USA have won multiple World Cups and been a perennial force. Of course, as Europe now has a more robust league and European cup program, that power could reduce over time. We’ll see. But, as has been pointed out, in the pro-bro macho male sport scene, this won’t impact the USMNT program. Which has been, until recently, fraught with infighting that has disrupted progress. So perhaps with one major event under Poch’s belt, they will learn from this and do better.

Finally into Egypt. I had so wanted then to win. No live for Argentina ever since the ‘hand of the devil’ goal. But while you can try and find every foul, every decision and say it went against you, there was absolutely no game management after going 2-0 up. The idea of scoring breakaways as Argentina left gaps to catch up made sense. But once 2-0 with 15 minutes to play, the Egyptian bench should have been counselling calm and a plan to stymie Argentina and not leave huge spaces for them to run into. We saw Salah get caught with the ball time and time again, to launch another Argentina counter. Plus Marmoush will regret his miss. But it seemed that the Egypt bench was so committed to their emotional reaction to every decision, it translated into how the team played.

No coaching, no calmness, no game plan. Just histrionics. And I am sure an always edgy and sly-tricks Argentina was fuelled and took full advantage of that. Sure, some poor officiating, no question. But unbelievably naive by Egypt. Paul McDevitt

America = Ireland when it comes to football

Thanks to MAW for the respectful response to my mail querying his assertion that the US are on the path to becoming a football powerhouse. You took my points in the spirit intended, and didn’t overreact to anything I said to counter it. Much appreciated.

I read your second mail with the same level of interest. It was good to get more detailed context on what you feel is happening at grassroots level, and I understand why you’d then double down and say “I’m telling you, it’s coming”.

By way of a(nother) counter, I might ask you if you’re familiar with Gaelic games, which are far and away the most prominent sports on the island of Ireland (including the part that’s in the UK). If you’re not, I can paint a picture pretty quickly.

Sport’s place in Irish culture is dominated by Gaelic games (GAA for short). For a country with a population of 5 million, the number of pitches and clubs dotted around the country is absurd. If you live in a village with 1,500 people in it, there’ll be a GAA club at the fulcrum of that small community.

Top level GAA matches dominate our summer, and are currently on par with the World Cup as fodder for conversation across the country. The players are technically amateur, but can achieve demigod status in their county if they hit the very top levels of their game. These guys will have been playing the game since they were 5 or 6 years of age, and in a lot of cases will remain in the game on a voluntary basis well past their retirements.

If you’re already familiar with these games, you’ll know that modern GAA players display ridiculous conditioning, stamina and commitment. They’re tough, physical sportsmen with skillsets that can border on the extravagant in some cases.

Football, meanwhile, is a poor relative and distant second alongside rugby. There are abundant football fanatics, but top level infrastructure in this country just can’t develop because the funding isn’t there to compete with the all-consuming GAA. The best Irish players are routinely scouted by English teams and hoovered up for relatively paltry fees, while our domestic league is entertaining but limited in quality.

Our established level is somewhere between the top 30 and top 60 in the world, I’d say. But if you were to magically remove the GAA from existence I’m willing to bet that we’d recalibrate at a far higher pitch. Our football talent pool would receive a ridiculous boost, as the gifted kids would have less alternative outlets and would funnel into that system in vastly increased numbers. The hulks that routinely thunder around midfields in Gaelic football matches might instead become imposing centre-halves. The lightning fast forward players might instead be reborn as tricky wingers. We’ll never know.

In a similar fashion, the NFL and NBA are going nowhere. You can improve grassroots training programs, and make football as accessible as it is anywhere else. But you’ll never attract all of the top talent into that system, because the competing sports carry so much more allure. Offer 100 American kids the opportunity to be the next Tom Brady or the next Landon Donovan, and we both know what the majority will say.

All of the above is a roundabout way of saying that I will maintain that the US football team’s prospects are limited by the cultural space the sport occupies in the country at the very top level. The kids won’t treat the game the same as they do in Argentina, Brazil, France, Spain etc. because the competition from other sports can’t but grab their attention. You’re not a football country, just like Ireland isn’t a football country. And that’s OK. Keith Reilly

PSR has done a job on Newcastle

I’ve written about PSR as a Newcastle fan before and what it’s really about. Isak last year, Gordon, Tonali this year and now the ultimate agony… Bruno. Potentially Hall & if he hadn’t got the injury, Livramento. Perfect, PSR has done its job and destroyed another challenger squad.

A ridiculous set of rules based on how some clubs built their revenue up between the mid 2000s and 2020. For context Newcastle were 5th in revenue in 2007, before our parasitical owner took over. But for some reason the hundred years building up to 2007 revenue doesn’t matter. It only matters now. Not that it ever should.

PSR is enforced cheating at this point (waiting for someone to write that if it’s the rules it’s not cheating…..get a grip Infantino).

So you build your team to chase success – either fail (great – job done PSR) or succeed (players offered wages we aren’t allowed to, but are able to pay), players leave – the club likely fail or at best hang around the top half of mid-table. Perhaps buy well and do well again, so rinse and repeat above until they can’t. Can’t have Newcastle, Villa, Everton etc disrupting the Champions league cash bonanza of the big 6, especially on a regular basis can we?

Surely Norway should start with 9 players in our match. They’ve not been historically successful but if they win that, then maybe they can start with 10 in future? They need to be patient and build success. We can suspend the rules for a year when we face Argentina.