Cod Almighty | Diary

The 4-4-2 Advert

2 July 2024

Mr Target Demographic writes: What is the best formation in football? A question that really has no definitive answer as it often all depends on the players you have at your disposal, combined with what kind of tactics the opposition team are fielding. However, for a long time now the formation of 4-4-2 seems to have become less and less popular as football has evolved. It was no doubt a dying formation with only two examples of managers that play this way coming to mind, our very own Paul Hurst obviously and Shaun Dyche.

That is why after watching Slovenia last night perhaps we will see a revival. After all, keeping a clean sheet against both England and Portugal should not be looked at lightly. Yes, I'm aware we've been poor this tournament, but we've still scored in all our games aside from the group stage tie against Slovenia. This shows its defensive capabilities to be among the best in the game in terms of keeping a clean sheet.

I, for one, am a fan of 4-4-2 but I do also recognise its drawbacks. It's not pretty to watch, after all it created a game that lasted two hours where the score ended 0-0. We, as Town fans, are all already aware of how gritty this formation can be after being subject to it for a while. This, however, in no way suggests it does not yield results; despite defending for the majority of the game Slovenia were extremely unlucky not to win, with goalkeeper heroics in both the last minute of the game and during the penalty shootout being the only reason Portugal barely scraped through.

Take Georgia as an alternative example, they played high press free-flowing football and, although it was extremely entertaining to watch, did come ultimately unstuck against a vastly superior Spanish team. Now I am not suggesting Georgia should have played 4-4-2 - refer to my first paragraph where I state there is no definitively good formation and it all depends on the kind of players you have at your disposal. Georgia played what suited them, even taking the lead for 20 minutes and if they had tried to play 4-4-2 it probably would not have been as successful for them as it had been for Slovenia.

Due to the way Slovenia played in this tournament though, 4-4-2 might see a resurgence in club football, particularly if one team is superior on paper, though it is quite boring to watch sometimes, especially from a neutral point of view. Similarly to how a great dribbler of the ball or a high scoring match creates a great advert for the game, a well-executed 4-4-2 creates this similar advert but instead of praising amazing skills or outrageous finishes, it promotes how a well organised team that keeps their shape can be extremely successful.

UTM