King of Negative Football

In modern football, each player has a unique set of responsibilities that would be suitable only to the particular position he's playing. The distribution of responsibilities among all 11 players is done through the adaptation of formations.

Productivity is achieved via job specialization. Players must be specialized to utilize their athletic qualities efficiently. Therefore, from a macro perspective, some players are defenders, and rest are attackers.

6:4 is the most common ratio used in modern day football. Formations derived from 4-2-4 (and WW) are generally 6:4, which include most of the 4-4-2 variants. The 6 general defenders made these formations defensive in nature. However, by pushing up wingbacks and center midfielders, 6:4 formation can donate 8 players to offensives, and therefore are Neutral Formations.

Formations such as 4-3-3(60s), 4-3-1-2(70s) and 3-5-2(80s) were developed to achieve the 5:5 mathematical balance, and therefore more offensive capabilities. These Offensive Formations require the entire team to function as an unity in both offensive and defensive phases. When offensive football is properly executed, there's tremendous amount of movements on the pitch. It's exciting football, and therefore positive football.

Then there're the Defensive Formations. AKA. more than 6 people on defense. Defensive football was very unpopular before the 60s, due to, well, the inability to score... So defensive formations were only used to grind out 0-0 draws, until...
This is an Argentine actually... This man, is the fucking Godfather of Negative Football. Helenio Herrera's Inter didn't just play defensive football, they played defensively with a counter attack setup, focusing on getting the ball upfield to striker at lighting speed through their wingbacks.
It is Negative because safest solution against such deadly combination is to sit back and do nothing, usually resulted in EXTREMELY BORING GAMES.

If Helenio Herrera is the godfather of Negative Football, then Paraguay is the King of Negative Football in international competitions. Paraguayans not only adapted the idea, they build a team around the negative doctrine. Someone might argued that they played 4-4-2 in worldcup. Well, that's because their people were hurt and the team wasn't ready. Look at them now!
The catenaccio (1-4-4-1) Herrera used had a sweeper, which is an obsolete position today. So Paraguay simply made the backline flat, watching their past 2 games was like seeing the ghost of Herrera.


In quarter finals, first place group C will play Peru. 2nd place group C plays the winner of Group B, which will be either Brazil or Mexico. Peru almost cracked under the pressure from Bolivian yesterday, so it's possibly the weaker of our potential opponents.
Due to Paraguay's high goal differential, in order to meet Peru in quarter final, Argentina must win against Paraguay in our third group match tomorrow.
Mathematically, a lost and a draw would mean the same. But a lost could potentially damage our moral and therefore should be avoided.

4-3-1-2 requires the backline to push up in order to maintain contact with midfield. This coupled with its 5:5 ratio meant that 4-3-1-2 isn't the best formation against Paraguay. It's too vulnerable to counter attacks.

4-2-3-1 is very defensive and could be a negative solution to the counter attack threat. But this will result in a boring football and we might not be able to grind out a win. It is a safe option, and we could modify our formation into it if we've already acquired a lead at some point, but to start the game with 4-2-3-1 shouldn't be preferred.

The most remarkable success against Herrera's Inter Milan was Celtic F.C's comeback from 7th minute penalty to win in 1967 European Cup (Champion's League) from Inter 2-1. They used 4-2-4 and put over 40 shots on goal. That team was referred as the Lisbon Lions.
As shown in the above wikipedia article. The 4-2-4 (4-1-1-2-2) they used is not only a formation adaptable by the current Albicelestes, it could also serve the purpose of resting starters. This copycat formation is IMO quite suitable to use in this upcoming game against Paraguay, the king of negative football.

Here's an explaination of why this was a 4-2-4.

If we use WM as the predecessor. WM (3-2-2-3/3-4-3) with 1 of the midfielder dropping back to form a 4 player defense leaves 3 midfielders to consider. pushing 1 to the offense leave 2 at midfield and result in 4-2-4.
we could also consider tracing back to the old 4-3-3 (1-3-2-1-3 of 1950s, not the dutch totalfootball 4-3-3). The responsibility of the last defender as a integral part of 4 defender setup was unchanged compared to WM. therefore it's a descendant of WM. Now 1 of the midfielders in old 4-3-3 is the CAM, therefore it's 4-2-4.

4-2-4 is actually 5:5 balance. it just looked more 6:4. this need to be compared to its WM root. we know in WM the 4 midfielders are arranged:
offense 3
A--B
C--D
defense 3

when WM goes to 4-2-4, C dropped to defense. B pushed to offense. so leaving A and D in the midfield and it looked like:
Offense 3 + B
A
---D
defense 3 + C
at this point A is offensively oriented and D is defensively oriented, therefore it's really a 5:5. and it's a 4-2-4 by position definitions.

so in the copycat formation

offense 3 (Tevez + Milito + Lucho) + B (Aimar) = 4
Gago +
---Mascherano = 2
defense 3 + C (zanetti burdisso diaz heinze) = 4