Fabio Capello does it, Sir Alex Ferguson swears by it, Jose Mourinho hates it, Arsene Wenger prefers to avoid it and Rafa Benitez sticks his fingers in his ears at the thought of it. Of course, I?m not describing our love or detest for a sweet dawn pornographic movie but this actually a list of some of the best coaches in the footballing world who love or hate the 4-4-2 formation.
In association football, formation simply describes how players of a particular team are arranged from the defensive to the attacking end of the field excluding the goalkeeper. Formation is devised based on a coach?s philosophy and the kind of players available to him.
The 4-4-2 formation as thought by the father, Sir Alf Ramsey to deal with England?s lack of out and out wingers and to also create a balanced formation that was able to place emphases on attack or defence without jeopardizing one or the other.
In Ghana, the 4-4-2 formation is the most favored as even amateurs with or without the instruction of their coach will simply line up in a traditional 4-4-2 system but will be confused if a coach tells them to stand in let say a 4-5-1 or a 4-3-3 formation. This at least shows how we?ve laid much emphasizes on the traditional 4-4-2 system.
In modern soccer the 4-4-2 is gradually fading out as it doesn?t favor sexy football. The South Africa 2010 FIFA World Cup at least learns credence to this fact as the most dominant system at the African World Cup was the 4-2-3-1 formation of which the Ghana Black stars coach was not exception to.
After the demise of Milovan Rajevic, coach Goran Stevanovic stepped in as the coach of the Ghana Black stars and interestingly enough his tactical approach was from the new school ( 4-1-4-1, or 4-3-3 ). This system is gradually produced a lot of magic for the Black Stars except that they were winning by a one-goal-project.
What is more, England who is considered as the inventors of the 4-4-2 is gradually shifting away from it once preferred formation. For instance, in their historic friendly match against Ghana at the Wembley stadium, the coach of the side Fabio Capello played the fluid 4-3-3 formation (or the 4-1-4-1 depending on whether they had the ball or not) and it worked for his side as it created space for his youngsters, Jack Wilshire, Ashley Young, Gareth Barry and Stewart Downing producing some explicit display of soccer.
Furthermore, the 4-5-1 formation is the new school of thought in modern formation such that a huge pedestal has been placed on which has completely altered the characteristics a manager wants in players they coach. Jose Mourinho can be described in British soccer as a hero and a villain. This is because he achieved a lot with the 4-5-1 formation but failed when he chose to play the diamond 4-4-2 (represented as 4-3-1-2 or 4-1-3-2).
The story of Ghana is not quite different as the three Serbian coaches who have handled the Black stars have all shown little or no interest in the 4-4-2 and have achieved some result with their new school formation (4-2-3-1).
For instance, Ratomir Dujkovic took Ghana to the first quarter of the 2006 FIFA World Cup. Also, Milovan Rajevac who received a lot of criticisms for his tactical approach took Ghana to the finals of the CAN 2010 as well as the 2010 World Cup where Ghana went as far as the quarter finals.
Its okay to note that the argument for or against is not closed at this point but moving on to the 4-5-1 doesn?t suggest that the 4-4-2 tactical layout is a thing of the past.
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