Talk:Catenaccio

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Some attention should be brought into the Greek national football team's strategy and formation being termed catenaccio. As the article's authors themselves correctly point out "One frequent mistake is to define catenaccio as any defensive tactical system used by a football team. This is actually untrue, because catenaccio is just one of the possible defensive tactics to be used." A lot of people will disagree here that Greece merits the title of catenaccio for their tactics. For starters Greece made use of a libero, a sweeper, but not in all their games, and their use of a libero is not by itself indicative of catenaccio, as coach Otto Rehagel used a combination of tactics to combat attacks, such as man to man guarding assignements, tight coverage of free space by having players overlap and defend in all areas of the field (which is more akeen to total football than anything else)and interchangeability of roles as in here:

"In football (soccer), Total Football is a system where a player who moves out of his position is replaced by another from his team, thus retaining their intended organisational structure. In this fluid system no footballer is fixed in their intended outfield role; anyone can be successively an attacker, a midfielder and a defender. Total Football depends largely on the adaptability of each footballer within the team to succeed." from Wikipedia.

As the article mentions, a mere defensive tactic with a modern formation such as the one Greece used in Euro 2004 is not enough qualification for cattenacio. Greece played mostly 3-5-2, or 5-3-2, but also 4-4-2.

For the afforementioned reasons i consider it prudent to remove the references to the greek team, and i will do so.

I would also like to see included some reference to the derogatory sense that catennacio has acquired.

But, as the article also mentioned, nowadays it is used to mean "catenaccio" just as a strongly defensive style of playing. I have looked for lots of recognizable references in the web about the Greek triumph in Euro 2004, and many of them defined the Greek style of playing as "catenaccio". There is nothing to be ashamed of, I think. --Angelo 04:24, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

I just reverted an edit describing Chelsea's play against Barcelona in 2004/05 as catenaccio - the tie finished 5-4 on aggregate, hardly an ultra-defensive approach. Oldelpaso 09:34, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

I don't remember the games in question, but score alone can't tell you the approach of the team. It could be that the system failed. A team could have an incredibly offensive minded approach and still get shut out. From what I know of Chelsea I agree that it's doubtful, but I just thought the point should be made. Oreo man 20:50, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] flaw in system?

The article states: "Celtic won the game 2-1 with over 40 attempts on goal in the process. The game exposed the serious weaknesses of the catenaccio system." What is this flaw? It should be explained. - Zepheus 00:12, 14 June 2006 (UTC)