The year 2014 has not been a good year for the sports enthusiast in me. Football and tennis are the two sports I follow with (hyper) active levels of interest, and the teams and players I support have had rather average performances – definitely below the insanely high standards they have established over the course of their careers. I am sure some of you will relate to this – being someone who turns to sports for change and relief from the mundane routine of day-to-day life, this does not bode well for my mental state.
1. Manchester United. We finished 7th in the EPL at the end of last season, which means no Champions League football this season. However, a lack of CL football is the least of our worries. Under David Moyes, we played like absolute dross: the all-attacking style which was synonymous with United had all but disappeared. Some extraordinarily shocking performances saw United lose at Old Trafford to teams which had never won there, or had not won in a long, long time. While many looked at the consequences of last season’s disaster in terms of reduced finances and the purported inability to attract top quality players, the real impact has gone under the radar. I’ll come back to that later in this note.
2. Spain. The only country to have done the Euro-World Cup-Euro triplete. Masters of the art of tiki-taka, they ran circles around all the teams they faced in these three competitions. They went to Brazil in the the 2014 World Cup with the same intentions, but also with the same plan as the previous three tournaments. The fact remains that trends in football change, and that change is implemented quicker at club level than with the national sides, plainly because they play competitive football together more often and challenge for titles every year. National sides compete at the international level only once every two years.
We talk about what Bayern Munich did to Barcelona, and what Real Madrid did to Bayern Munich in two successive seasons of the UCL – but the interesting thing here is that on both occasions, the sides which got thrashed shared a common ideology as to how the game should be played. Guardiola is the paragon of tiki-taka, and while he does push the boundaries of tactical setups with the teams he coaches, it is a known fact that his teams are often accused of not having a Plan B, or a direct approach to playing the game. Vilanova at Barcelona (2013) and Guardiola at Bayern (2014). Same weaknesses. Possession football was being caught out by a direct and high-tempo style of play. Spain did not evolve their own style to counter this direct style of play, and they were simply run over in Brazil in the games that mattered.
3. Roger Federer. While I have absolutely no qualifications to write a single world about the greatest tennis player of all time, I can’t hold back on account of my interest in how sports evolve over time and how teams and players respond. There was a time when Federer won half his games plainly by showing up on court for the game, such was the aura he exuded. He ran through the initial rounds of Grand Slams without getting out of second gear or breaking a sweat. Along came Nadal and Djokovic, who proved that Federer is human. He just could not keep up with Nadal’s talent, physique and topspin. Djokovic simply thrived on his endless mental capacity. Every one will remember ‘The Shot’ he played against Federer to save match point in the semifinal of the 2011 US Open. That shot left Federer feeling dazed and disoriented. He went on to lose the game.