The Beautiful Game.
Nowadays, it is very commonplace to find people who "love" football and are die-hard fans (usually of a well-marketed team from England or one of the Spanish big two). These are the people who parrot the so-called Football pundits like Carlton Palmer and John 'Budgie' Burridge. Though that in itself is inherently stupid, they go a step further and claim that they understand football and how it is meant to be played. Though I may not be a pundit myself, I do not have to bend to the whims of the public and sponsors like the telecasters and can freely express my own opinion about what it means to play Football, with a philosophy that matches the team's skills and style of play.
I would like to start off by stating the obvious, which people seem to have forgotten: No two people are the same! They will have different skills, abilities and temperaments. Now multiply this difference by 22 and you will understand why it is so wrong to insist that all teams should play one brand of football, attacking. The worst culprits are fans of teams who play attacking football, to wit Barcelona, Real Madrid and Bayern Munich. These people are incredibly blessed to have such talent in the teams they follow, and it is understandable that they judge all others by that scale, but is it fair? Not really. All teams CANNOT be like these three! Would an elephant climb a tree like a monkey? Would a whale chase down and hunt gazelles like a leopard?
Now to my second point, the stigma against teams who focus on defending, especially Italian teams (I refuse to call what most English teams do defending, they simply put as many bodies as they can between the ball and the goal). There is a ridiculous sentiment that exists among amateur football followers; attacking = exciting, defending = boring. My point is highlighted by the fact that Bayern absolutely whipped Barcelona for their atrocious defending, while they themselves did not concede, because they have actual defenders, not half-baked defenders (read: Pique) or midfielders posing as defenders (Mascherano/Busquets). I myself prefer to play attacking football, but I can appreciate teams who focus on defending. This is partly due to the fact that there is an acute shortage of defensive talent in the sport right now, and most people, who have recently started watching the sport, have not seen the greats in action. I have had the privilege of following the serie A, the last bastion of great defending for over ten years now, and I have seen players like Zanetti, Maldini, Nesta, Samuel, Lucio, Cannavaro, Zambrotta and Thuram ply their trade with incredible skill and ability.
The perfectly executed off-side trap, a silky sliding challenge or just some perfunctory rough-housing and jostling; there are as many aspects to proper defending as there are to attacking. To say defenders lack technique is stupid: they might lack ball-playing skills, but their off-the-ball movement, man-marking and reading of the game are technical strengths as well! However, I agree that with the modern game focusing more on the athletic skills of the defenders than on their technique, defenders are a dying breed. To say Pique is a great defender and calling him Piquenbauer is a slap in the face for Der Kaiser. Only a few great defenders remain today, like Zanetti, Thiago Silva, Ferdinand (earlier years) and Chiellini. By great, I do not mean they put their bodies on the line or are top-notch athletes who can boss the attackers. A great defender nullifies attacks with minimal effort, such is his reading of the game. I have watched the master at work during the 2006 World Cup, in Il Capitano, Fabio Cannavaro, and I was awestruck. For more beautiful defending moments, please watch this, this and this.
But, I digress.. back to the main point in question, is 'parking the bus' bad? First off, that term in itself has a negative connotation, which is unfair. Would it be fair to call the tiki-taka "mindless and boring passing"? Though many people think so, the tiki-taka is a process like weaving an intricate net, the result is only clear after the process ends. Similarly, by parking the bus, the team achieves the desired result, so why is that bad? Should a group of players who are technically outmatched try to go toe to toe with the other team? Where is the sense in that? Even Muhammad Ali, in the Rumble in the Jungle, played to his strengths and tired George Foreman out. Had Ali gone toe to toe with Foreman, the latter would obviously have floored him with his superior strength. So why not blame Ali for his avoid-and-evade tactics? Let's take an example: if you are a math genius, but find it difficult to understand linguistics, would you rather take a job that requires math or become a linguist? It's a pretty straightforward answer.
I would like to rename 'parking the bus' as 'playing to one's strengths' or 'smart play'. The seeds of this philosophy were planted by the the legendary Helenio Herrera, during his time with Internazionale FC, with his Catenaccio ("door-bolt") philosophy. This was essentially a man-to-man system which relied heavily on self-discipline and defensive awareness. As times progressed, it has developed more into a zonal-marking system, where defenders are assigned zones instead of players. This system has been dumbed down (presumably for English players) into a "11 men in front of goal" system, which is ugly but effective. Think about it, would you rather have a team like Chelsea, who play ugly but are relatively more successful in recent years, or Arsenal, the eternal underachievers despite playing 'attacking' football? After all, isn't trophies what anyone would want for their team?
So summing it up, while I do not like the parking the bus system, it is sufficiently justifiable to employ it for teams who simply cannot, do not have the means, or choose not to play attacking and tactical football. What I would like to see is Messi and Ronaldo playing against Zanetti and Maldini in their prime. That would have been quite a sight!
