₦airaland Forum

This was a nice article I read in The Times yesterday about Hoffenheim. The writer argues that Ibisevic is not that talented, he is just profiting from Hoffenheim's tactical style:


[center]Hoffenheim are proving success is not always down to money[/center]
[center]Gabriele Marcotti[/center]
By now, you’re probably familiar with Hoffenheim, the German upstarts from the tiny village of 3,732 souls, who, in their first season in the Bundesliga, sit atop the table. If you took a quick look at the results over the weekend, you would see that they were defeated, 2-1, by mighty Bayern Munich, who have now drawn level at the top of the German league.

Normal service has resumed, then?

Not quite. Because, even now that everyone has written the Hoffenheim feel-good story (replete with the customary caveats: this is not a pub team, Dietmar Hopp, the billionaire founder of SAP, the software giant, has invested heavily, etc.) there was nothing normal about Hoffenheim’s display on Friday night.

For a start, they deserved at least a draw, having outplayed Bayern for most of the game. “They were easily the toughest opponents we’ve played all year at the Allianz Arena,” Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, the Bayern chairman, said. “Nobody else has come into our house and pushed us around like that.”

The “pushing around” bit is an apt analogy, because it speaks to the way Hoffenheim play. Their 4-3-3 is not a cloaked 4-5-1; their wingers – Demba Ba and Chinedu Ogbuke (who made the journey with John Obi Mikel from Nigeria to Norway, was his flatmate for two years and nearly joined him at Chelsea) – stay up the pitch and furiously press and harass the opposition. Their midfield trio move like clockwork and the back four push right up, applying the off-side trap with maniacal precision.

“My football ideal is Arrigo Sacchi’s Milan,” Ralf Rangnick, their manager, said. “Be aggressive in the press, never pass the ball backwards, be quick and direct in possession, move in unison.” Indeed, Sacchi gave football its last real tactical innovation some 20 years ago.

Back then, Rangnick was working in German amateur football. He would tape every Milan game, edit and catalogue every sequence and build a database of how the side moved on the pitch. And this was years before ProZone. To do this, you have to be something of a football-obsessed workaholic, which Rangnick undoubtedly is. He never made it beyond the amateur game (in fact his playing career includes a stint at Southwick, in the Sussex County League) giving him plenty of time to study the game instead.

Of course, many have tried to emulate what Sacchi achieved in his first four years at the San Siro, without succeeding. And that’s why Rangnick has provided his own tweaks, starting with the formation (a 4-3-3, rather than Sacchi’s 4-4-2). But, like all great tactical systems, the result is that the whole is far greater than the sum of the parts.

Nobody embodies this more than Hoffenheim’s centre forward, Vedad Ibisevic. He has notched an outrageous 18 goals in 16 Bundesliga match-es and his story is as improbable as they come. A Bosnian refugee, his family escaped to Switzerland when he was fifteen. Ten months later, they gained a visa to the United States. After unsuccessful stints at Paris Saint-Germain, Dijon and Alemannia Aachen, he surfaced at Hoffenheim last season, where he was used mostly as a third striker.

Now he is flourishing. Tall (6ft 3in), strong and mobile, he is the offensive terminus for everything the side do and, beyond his scoring record, his runs and movement have become an integral part of Rangnick’s master scheme. With a contract expiring in 2010, he is sure to be on many clubs’ shopping lists next year, though the question of whether he can succeed away from Rangnick (or, indeed, if this season was just a freak occurrence) will remain for the time being.

From Hoffenheim’s perspective, the question also lingers, but, in some ways, it doesn’t really matter. They have already far exceeded their objectives. They’ve sold out every match between now and the end of the season (including the ones at the new 30,000-capacity ground they will move into in the new year) and they play a remarkable brand of football that is turning heads all around Europe. And, while Hopp’s millions played a part, his impact in the transfer market was negligible: just two of the club’s summer signings, Gustavo and Andreas Beck, are regulars.

Crucially, they have provided an alternative blueprint for success. One based on infrastructure, coaching and tactics. That alone makes them special, whatever may happen.


http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/columnists/gabriele_marcotti/article5304151.ece

Why is this place dead? We are hammering Bolton 2-0. I hope you guys didn't buy the doom and gloom story ahead of the Bolton match. Outside of the top three, we will hammer every team.

Hehehehe. . . . . this is the funniest thread on Nairaland.


Chicago Godfathers jostle for cabinet positions for their surrogates - Punch

Obama calls off investigation of 1 million acres of land sold to Bush and Cheney in Washington - Tell

"We no go gree!" : Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Alaska calls for Secession - Newswatch

Dele-Giwa's wife alleges that Obama involved in plot to assasinate her husband - The Guardian

Dayo,

Drop this Hamsik argument already. You are starting to make yourself look silly. Your argument is of Guffanti-proportions. Hamsik started as a DM, now he's a box-to-box player. First you say he is a forward, now you are trying to say he is a Trequarista. He is no Trequarista. He is a midfielder just like you would call Lamps and Gerrard midfielders.

Finally, the players are talking about what we have been discussing here for the last month:


http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/sport/football/article2010367.ece



[center][size=14pt]Phil the Cracks[/size][/center]

THE first cracks have appeared in Phil Scolari’s Chelsea regime.

With the pressure on in the Premier League and in Europe, SunSport can reveal:

* John Terry and Frank Lampard have had talks with the Brazilian about his coaching techniques.


* Lampard has called publicly for Chelsea to be less predictable.


*And skipper JT has questioned the desire of his team-mates.


Terry, whose side go to Bolton today, admitted: “Two wins in seven isn’t good enough for a team like us. We need to put a string of results together now and over the Christmas period.

“We’ve been doing a lot better away this year which is strange because we had a great home record for so long.”

Terry and midfielder Lampard went to see Scolari on Thursday to ask him to increase the intensity in training.

Both stars feel the coaching has become too laid back and repetitive and that it is transmitting itself on to the field.

SunSport can also reveal there have been a series of team meetings this week in which players have vented their frustrations.

Terry has been banging the drum and questioned the squad’s desire.

Chelsea have lost the Premier League lead and face a Champions League clash with Romanian side Cluj on Tuesday which they have to win to be sure of qualifying for the knockout phase.

Lampard is worried the Blues could become too predictable but boss Scolari insists his men must carry on passing.

Lamps said: “We might have to try to adapt to playing against defensive sides because people will see that other teams have got results doing that. It is important to mix things up if you are trying to play through a team and it is not quite working.

“Sometimes you can play a bit more of a direct style, sometimes you can try and get the ball wide so the team can put more balls in the box.”

But Scolari said: “I don’t have the players for a long ball or a high ball.

“The character of my players is to take touches on the ball, short passes.

“It’s not a long ball from the central defender to the striker because our character is not for this.

“When we tried this, we are wrong. We lost some games but we need to lose games with our characteristics. Not change them.

“The players understand that, sometimes, it’s impossible to change because we have some players out with injuries.”

Chelsea travel to the Reebok today and Terry said: “Hopefully we can get a win at Bolton . . . we certainly need it.”

Scolari added: “I want to say sorry for losing points at home.

“But I will try my best every day at Chelsea.”

[quote author=Aloy.Emeka link=topic=203563.msg3183285#msg3183285 date=1228438098]Ijaw masqurade
https://www.pictures-of-nigeria.com/images/B24.jpg
They look like KKK members[/quote]Biko, of all the masquerades in Ijaw land, why you go bring this nonsense na? You could have brought the Pirirangala masquerade, which is 40 feet tall and dances on stilts, the Odum masquerade which is the sea snake and is 40 feet long and emerges from the river, or the flamboyant Pioru masquerade or the Egwein masquerade which floats on air and dances on water.

If I had pictures I would post them. . . . . I doubt any masquerade can phock with the Odum.


ODUM

Celebrated by the Ijaws of Okrika in the Okrika Local Government area of Rivers state. It is celebrated once in 10years or at major occassions. The festival which displays a Boa constrictor masquerade on water, is very colorful, flamboyant and quite expensive to celebrate.The high point of the festival is the offer of gifts such as live goats or other animals which the odum swallows without blinking.

Hehehehe. . . . . I just came back from comedy night at the pub, but this is the funniest shit I have seen all day. . . .

Asari has perennial chest infection. Its because of all the pollution from gas flaring wey dey give am whooping cough. Abi you no know?

I didn't know Nigerians were sipping on that sizzurp.

@ poster

How you go ask Ijaw man whether him sabi swim. You never hear say I be fish?

Hesperus:
See this guy o! U mean say ur fellow omo boy woz u for gbangba, n u de there de look? Wey u suppose augment am wit bottle!
U come de hala say d babe laff u. Shey na only laff? Small time she go begin use ya blokos roll dice, as u no fit step up!

Bros, de English wey you knack for here no be small. You be correct guy. I know say if na for your side wey de yawa gas, de omo for chop knuckles. No mind Phemour, Phemour na ju man. Him go everly hear wiii if him continue to dey display dis kind inshi character for Bongo.

O boy make you soji yaself.  How man pikin go sound you, you no even make pim. If na me, I for don slap de guy, carry him babe sef add on top. Nothing nothing sha, I know say na play play slap wey him slap you.

Slaves simply did not have time for leisure activities like swimming. Most encounters with water ended up in drowning. . . . once bitten, twice shy. . . . I am sure if you heard that someone from your town drowned, you wouldn't wanna go near the water.

O boy, you brave o! E no easy to put yourself on front street like this. I say take it easy with your wife. . . . we all are sinners. Let the past be the past because no one is beyond reproach. Take courage.

All Peter Obi knows to do is speak big grammar and fight with his Godfathers.

The Sun are twisting statistics in that article. . . . . they are comparing Scolari's record in all competitions with Avram Grant and Ranieri's statistics in just the league alone. . . . . in the league alone, Scolari has a win ratio of 66.66% - thats 10 wins in 15 games, as compared to Mourinho and Avram Grant's 11 wins in 15 games. . . .

Its just a temporary something, just like Gerrard would partner Torres upfront.

Abiodun Baruwa was married to my friends sister, one halfky girl like this. . . . . I remember they were having problems when his career stalled. . . . when he came to Barry Town, he tried to resurrect their marriage, but the guy was in a really bad situation and that was affecting his marriage. . . last time I checked, they are not together. . .

Nah. . . . Hamsik is a midfielder man. . . .

4 Play:
He must have been an academic prodigy.

The guy is multi-talented.


What of Olofinjana who has a degree in Chemical Engineering from LASU?

Although to be fair to him, he only started his football career at 21, thats why he is still going strong.


I remember Igenewari George who was in Comprehensive Secondary School which was near my house in Borokiri, PH. We used to go and play there everyday. When he was in SS3, I must have been 7 years old, yet he was supposed to be 16 in Ecuador 1995 . . . . I turned 13 in 1996 . . .

Yak was a painter back in 1995. The chap that discovered him said "I found him as a poor man, he was a painter back then. He had good skills but he was raw so I trained him for a couple of years and then he went on to play in the local league". I remember reading this on Nigeriaworld.com a few years ago. He was at Okomu Oil from 1995 to 1998 before going to Julius Berger.

tosinadeda:
as in seriously what u guys are doing aint right at all

if u want to talk about his age, open a thread for it, not even when he has a life threatening injury
gosh

life threatening ogini? Injury na injury, we only highlight his age because injury to a 33 year old is not the same as injury to a 26 year old. Just ask Ronaldo Lima. God bless him and I hope he can recover his career, but as far as I am concerned, this is a blessing in disguise for Super Eagles. If he can take his brothers Utaka and Kanu with him, then we might actually have a chance with younger legs.

I still feel we got robbed yesterday. . . . on balance of play, we should have been home and dry by half time, just like Sauron said. . . .

Debosky, what are you talking about red cards? . . . . . where did you manufacture two yellow card offences against Ivanovic from?. . . . .by the time Ivanovic blocked off Clichy, Arsenal were already leading 2-1. . . . no doubt he wouldn't have been left so exposed if we had the lead. . . . . the fact is that if you call Van Persie's goal an offside, Chelsea would have won the game. . . . fullstop. . . . and if you factor in two wrong offside calls against Kalou, we would have won that game by a landslide . . . . the only reason we are not talking about the gross refereeing decisions is because our anger is internalised . . . . if we were not so fed up with Scolari, we would be focusing all our attention on the referee. . . . . . just like in days gone by when we blame Anders Frisk and "the goal that never crossed the line" instead of looking inward to find blame. . . . the referee cheated us yesterday, plain and simple. . . but that is small fry compared to what the BIG question we have been asking over the last month, namely does Scolari have a plan B when things are going wrong?. . . . .yesterday, we got our answer. . . .  . and Terry's offence was a red card only in dreamland. . . . 8 times out of ten, his offence was a yellow. . . .

adconline:
THISDAY also gathered that security operatives yesterday intercepted about 500 men armed with weapons on their way to Jos. THISDAY could not however independently verify the figure.
The arrest was a sign that the warring groups are regrouping.

Hehehehe. . . . . what rubbish!. . . . how do you arrest 500 men with weapons so easily? . . . . . It took Indian Police 3 days to kill 10 men with weapons in Mumbai. . . . talkless of 500 men with weapons. . .

They should go and find NigComSat1 first

PDP are reaping what they sowed. It's just a shame that innocent civilians are caught up in all this.

Ibime:
Can a 33 year old man with a rotund body size return from a season long injury like the one Yakubu suffered today?

I guess we should ask Ronaldo Lima

bawomolo:
yakubu is 26 years of age fool

In dog years maybe.

nateevs:
(1.) Thirdly, Scolari did the dumbest thing . .took Mikel off and the whole midfield broke down. . . we could not pull together a string of passes. . Since the game play is based on passing forward . . with Mikel's sub that could not happen. . from then on we would lose the game. .

(2.) Ibime was dead-right  on the Mikel thing . . but I disagreed with the option of throwing in wingers to cross. . cross to who . . that won't work either. . The whole team . . only Ballack and Terry can head. . .

(1.) Scandalous decision by Scolari to bring off Mikel. . . . that killed off all hopes of a comeback. . . . 10 minutes later, he took Deco off, who should have come off instead of Mikel in the first place. . . . this single decision lost all the goodwill that I had toward Scolari. . . . it was compounded even more when he brought on Stoch. . . . the crowd booed him for that. . . . did you notice that the players refused to pass to Stoch?. . . . you do not bring on Privates when Generals are called for. . . . Scolari just caused confusion with his substitutions. . . . the midfield broke down and he did not keep the players on his side with his substitutions. . . . the players gave up the game after that. . . . his substitutions have been found out at the highest level. . . . in the Liverpool game, he should have brought off Malouda for Belleti, put Belleti on the right and move Kalou to the left. . . . first, he took off Malouda and brought on Di Santo, removing any width that we had. . . Di Santo got no crosses to feed off. . . . . he then compounded the problem by bringing off Kalou for Belleti. . . . meaning we had a midfield of Mikel, Lamps, Deco and Belleti with Anelka and Di Santo stranded upfront with no wingers to feed them. . . . needless to say, the game fizzled out. . . . bad bad bad substitutions.

(2.) Firstly, it is a game of percentages. The point is not for Anelka and Kalou to head into the net directly but to cause havoc so that the midfielders  can pick up the scraps. It is called the game of percentages, played to perfection by Allardyce, Mourinho and Phil Brown. . . . . Arsenal are the team most vulnerable to these attacks. . . . secondly, Arsenal are so poor in the air, I would bet money on Anelka and Kalou outjumping and outmuscling their defence. . . . how did we equalise against Utd? . . . wasn't it from an aerial attack by Kalou? . . . lastly, tell me why Terry was not allowed to go upfront with ten minutes left to win aerial balls?. . . .even Avram Grant knows to do that!


It is not a case of dissing Scolari's brand of football. . . . I love Scolari's brand of football. . . . but only for the first 60 minutes. . . .if it doesn't work, we must vary our play and resort to a more direct style. . . . it is simple common sense, but Scolari is so stubborn and lacks pragmatism. . . . even Pep Guardiola of Barcelona knows that the last 20 minutes of a game is the time for players like Seydou Keita. . . . get the ball into the box and let the physical direct players get on the end of it.  


I am not blaming Scolari for Arsenal's 2 goals. That was highway robbery. Both goals were completely undeserved. I am however extremely unhappy with his reaction when coming from behind. He is too idealistic and not pragmatic enough in do or die situations. You cannot overpass the ball for 90 minutes without getting a shot on target and keep doing the same thing. He is starting to look like Tony Mowbray of West Brom in my eyes. Naive!

Can a 33 year old man with a rotund body size return from a season long injury like the one Yakubu suffered today?

somze:
Nateevs,

Well I am saying Deco should only be brought in when we play small teams.

What we need now is to terminate Malouda's contract by mutual consent, Sell off Kalou, Chase off Anelka, pray for Bhoularouz and simply sack Scolari.

Think of replacements later . . . we tried it against JM.

Boulahrouz left long time ago. . . . by the way, lay off Anelka. . . did he miss a single chance today?. . . . . your hatred for Anelka is becoming psychotic.