Some games are won by individuals, some games are won by teams. Some games are won in the dugout, and then some are won on the training pitch. What does it take to win a world cup final against a age-old rival and neighbour? Passion? Tradition? A moment of brilliance versus a moment of stupidity? Or will it actually boil down to the old fashioned, hard-knocks chess game of tactics and strategy?
THE LONE STRIKER
In his story entitled The key to the finals on Soccernet, Norman Hubbard talked about how this world cup has largely been a success for the back four. Tactically, the back three plus wingbacks, which was so successful in 2002, was no longer in style - in were the two centerhalves and two fullbacks. It makes for interesting reading, and it also reminds us of another piece of tactical fashion. The lone striker.
The lone striker is in fashion this world cup. It has worked for some, and then for others, it has been underwhelming. But anyone watching the two semi-finals would be able to tell you that attacking football is keenly the way to go, and playing one striker supported by a link man is the choice of winners.
Italy and France will play like this - in fact, Italy and France will play with almost identical formations. It is intriguing to note that while Klose and Podolski yielded the most goals and praise, you find the top two teams playing with only one man up front. Of course, this lone-striker system does not immediately suggest negativity. In many ways, it is a system that very easily shifts gear into a 4-3-3, with the link man - Totti and Zidane - dropping deeper into midfield to play orchestrator rather than attacker, and the wide men bombing forward to add numbers in attack.
Nonetheless, the system isn't infallible - Van Basten, Errikson and Scolari all found out too soon that an off form lone striker paired with wingers who hog the ball can mean much fun but few goals. Yet, between Luca Toni and Thiery Henry, fortunes differ in spite of their common success - Toni, like Van Nistelrooy and Pauleta before him, is a lone striker finding life lonely and somewhat barren. Henry, more similarly to Rooney, in spite of an unremarkable goal return, gets involved in games a lot more by dropping deep, picking up the ball and drifting onto the left wing where he is most dangerous. Is it then fair to say that the lone striker is the most successful attacking formation of this tournament? Perhaps it is a fairer to say that it is a system that best suits the style of teams playing here in Germany, where cagey games are fought out to tight draws and the promise of extra time, it is in the packed midfield where duels are won and lost. Perhaps it also accounts for the very few goals in the latter stages of the tournament.
COMPARING TACTICS
Italy is set up tighter. For most games, Gattusso will sit in front of defence together with Pirlo and Perrotta, or now even the returning De Rossi and act as a very tight tackling/passing unit. Italy pass-and-run beautifully, in triangles, and their movement up field, when fluent, is a delight to watch. At the heart of this fluency is Andrea Pirlo, whose ability to split defences and set up goals belies his position as a deep-lying midfielder. Pirlo is testament to the argument that deep-lying holding midfielders need not always tackle hard - they can also be identified by their ability to make clean passes and shift the gears not with posession but penetration.
France's midfield is a lot more traditional, with a robust central pairing of Makelele and Vieira providing all the bite and thought while the out and out wingers, Malouda and Riberry supply youthful enthusiasm, pace and workrate. This allows Zidane to drop into a more free role, to somtimes win the ball deep, sometimes to hover in the hole and sometimes make runs into the six yard box. By being supported by a midfield that follows its tasks to the letter, Zidane is allowed time and space to dictate the tone of the game, and almost everything that goes through France goes through Zidane.
Totti played a very deep role against Germany, constantly not getting into attacking positions that the more defensive Perrotta did. Sucked so deep in midfield, one must only wonder what Lippi has in mind for this mercurial playmaker, who is surely best in the Zidane-like role described above. Still, depending on the opposition, Totti can either orchestrate the elegant passing in midfield, with Pirlo, from a deeper midfield position, or he can bomb forward and support the striker as he did so well against Australia. And so, while France's tactics on the day will be textbook, Italy's will remain cloaked in suspicion - what role will Totti play in the final?
Italy's outstanding player of the moment is of course Fabio Grosso, and together with Gianluca Zambrotta, they go to great lengths to add width to a narrow midfield. When Grosso and Zambrotta bomb forward, they are by far more dangerous than when Abidal and Sagnol do, for the two Italian fullbacks posess not just great pace, ability to jink and dribble, but they also love getting into the box or shooting from around it. Shebby Singh said the other day that he wasn't sure if Grosso was a very attacking minded fullback or a deep-lying striker. In this sense, it is Lippi who, in his vast experience of top level football, has the less predictable - more 'total' - setup. Players move across different positions in different matches: Totti drops deep, Perrotta makes runs, Pirlo attacks from defence and their fullbacks play like traditional wingers. Gattusso, sometimes, plays like a true-blue Italian centerback.
WHAT CAN YOU EXPECT?
France will play a naturally fluent football, capitalising on their width, pace and the sublime skills of Zizou. They will pass the ball without flair but should get into attacking positions quickly. The Italians will play as they always do - pressure soaking in midfield, lots of ball-winning and short passes, the occassional long ball, and they will keep trying all day to break the offside trap. The cliche that it will be French attack versus Italian defence is misleading. It will very much be a battle for midfield superiority, and neither Toni nor Henry will often be called upon if their midfield is the one losing that battle. Both defences have done extremely well this world cup, yet one suspects that the Italians will be harder to break down. No one else has yet to score against Italy (the only goal they've conceded was an own-goal), and in Gigi Buffon, Italy have the best pair of hands in this world cup. Still, you can trust the elegant Henry to cause more trouble than Toni's lumbering frame, so the match will very much be poised - as i've said - in midfield.
This is where the stakes for some are high, and the stakes for others are higher. Totti, who had a miserable world cup four years ago, and an equally annonymous euro 04 has a lot left to do before he can become the undisputed darling of the tifosi. For him, the stakes are high - he needs nothing short of a brilliant game and perhaps a heroic goal to elevate him into the cult status enjoyed by Rivera, Rossi, Schillachi and Baggio. But for one man, the stakes are even higher. Zinedine Zidane, the already great Zinedine Zidane plays his last match of his life in the Olimpiastadion - for him, achieving greatness is not the agenda, achieving legend is. And when Zizou leads le bleus onto the pitch on sunday, he stands 90, maybe 120 minutes away from the legendary status of Pele and Maradonna, perhaps even surpassing the latter. Victory would surely make him the greatest European player to have ever lived, for not even the kaiser Beckenbauer or the master Johann Cruyff himself would have achieved what the French captain would. The heart says the script is written for France, the mind thinks maybe Italy are too smart. The tactical battle says two men will be working very hard.
Marcello Lippi and Raymond Domenech will spend the next few days poring over blackboards, talking on the training pitch and glued to videos of their opponents. So many times, we've seen managers make wrong tactical decisions - or in fact approach whole matches with poor tactical ethos - and fail. Neither Italy nor France have failed. Between now and Sunday, Lippi and Domenech will be plotting to change that.
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