After years of bitching about Trapattoni’s love for Seria-A style defensive substitutions, I had to endure Sven pulling one out of the hat during England’s game.
Subbing off Owen in the 2nd Half just left the rest of England’s attack stranded - one striker running around up front has never worked, Italy proved that effortlessly last World Cup after Trapattoni subbed off everyone who wasn’t either a defender or Vieri in the second halves of all their games.
All you do is cripple your remaining attackers and put more pressure on the defenders - who are already embattled in late game facing the prospect of fresh attacking substitutions from an opposition who are throwing everything behind the ball to snatch a goal back.
Sven asserts that he did it to link up play between with the forwards. That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard! There’s nothing left to link to once you undertake that sort of substitution!
You get 1 striker, standing on his own in the opponent’s half. Every time.
Looking forward to Italy’s game though and at least I made some money from the match (yes, the classic £20 Football Float has been re-established after having served me so well in the past - another £100 in the bank certainly wouldn’t go amiss).
Later
John
Posted by John Swaine at June 10, 2006 06:08 PM