Expert Blogs

Watching last week's epic struggle between Barcelona and Inter Milan made me worried about the coming World Cup.

 

I'm not concerned about the group phase. In this first stage of the competition a draw is often a disappointing result. Teams are chasing three points to ensure their presence in the knockout rounds.

 

But it is here that I start to worry. However good the group phase may be, a World Cup is always remembered for what happens in the knockout matches, the business end of the tournament.

 

And here's the problem: while in the group matches the onus is on teams to win, once qualified for the knockout rounds, for the weaker sides at least, the important thing is not to lose. They hang on in there, wind down the clock and at the end of the 120 minutes enter the lottery of the penalty shootout.

 

Football is a low-scoring game which is not always won by the best side - both the sport's big blessing, and its major curse. The former, because it is constantly surprising. The latter because, at least in a cup format, a no risk policy can be rewarded - as Jose Mourinho's Inter Milan showed last Wednesday.

 

Despite the preponderance of South Americans in their line up, this is not the place for an in-depth analysis of Inter Milan - those who cover European football can do that far better than I can. And accusations that Mourinho is ultra-defensive have to explain how his team scored three goals, and could have scored several more, in the first leg against Barcelona.

 

But a general tactical point is appropriate. A few years ago it was common to hear coaches say that the decisive moment in football was the set piece - the free kick or corner. This was where the game was won or lost. Mourinho disagrees - and to my mind his prolonged success is in no small part due to this disagreement.

 

Transition key for Special One

 

For Mourinho the key moment is the transition - the moment when the ball changes hands from one team to the other. Win possession and organise a quick counter-attack, and your side has a great chance of shooting at goal, or winning a set-piece in a dangerous area of the field.

 

Lose the ball without the necessary protection and your side is open to the opposing counter-attack, and may only prevent a shooting chance by conceding a set-piece in a dangerous area. The great secret of Mourinho's success - drilled relentlessly - is that his teams are almost never caught on the counter-attack.

 

The two ties between Barcelona and Inter were so gripping because the Catalan giants were prepared to run this risk.

 

Barcelona seek to push forward and dominate possession. When the move breaks down they try to win the ball back as soon as possible, in the opponent's half of the field, but their philosophy of play accepts that at times they might be vulnerable to the quick break - as indeed they were in that first leg 3-1 defeat in Milan.

 

But what if neither team is prepared to take the risk, if both are primarily concerned with protecting themselves at the moments of transition? In this situation stalemate is a likely outcome.

 

This, I fear, is the spectre that could haunt the knock out stages in South Africa - especially as this World Cup will take place in a winter climate. The cold weather will surely benefit the chasers and the harriers, those who will seek to get men behind the ball and hang on for penalties.

 

On the evidence of last year's Confederations Cup, it appears that FIFA are alive to this problem. Very strict refereeing standards seemed to be their response. The United States certainly suffered. In three different games, with three different officials, the U.S. lost a player to a straight red card, for tackles which normally may only have yielded a yellow card, if that.

 

The idea, then, would seem to be to use a hard line refereeing approach to tip the balance in favour of attack.

 

Two problems: first, as Mourinho's Inter showed last week, holding out with ten men is by no means impossible, even against a team like Barcelona.

 

Second, this refereeing criteria offers an extra incentive for the attacking player to dive. In addition to winning a free kick, simulating a foul could also result in the other side going a man down. So why not try it on, especially as it is so difficult for the referee to define whether or not contact has taken place, or whether the contact was in fact provoked by the diving attacker?

 

Given the tight nature of many big games and the tendency for stalemate in the knock out stages, we could be in for some controversial moments of diving in this year's World Cup.