Talk:Catenaccio

Greece

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)

Chelsea

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)

Surely the last chelsea vs. barcelona game in the CL semi-final isn't catenaccio - they didn't use a sweeper or the unsymmetrical formation style of historical examples, they just played a 4-4-2 formation sitting deep in their own half and playing a counter-attacking style of football? 192.76.7.211 (talk) 11:43, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

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)

What is Catanaccio?

Despite reading this article I am still puzzled as to what "Catenaccio" actually is. Is it

1. any tactical system that seeks to prevent goals being conceded,
2. the use of a sweeper,
3. not a system at all but an attitude or
4. something else?

Or, maybe, it is the case that its meaning has changed over the years.--MuttleyCroo 01:24, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

I know this comment is old and the article has probably improved a lot over the years, but I'm still a bit puzzled too, to be honest. "Real" catenaccio basically seems to be any defense-oriented system with at least three man-to-man defenders (but also possibly 4, since it says Herrera did so) plus a sweeper, which heavily relies on counterattack to score.

But I can't be sure that this is the right interpretation of what the article says because (probably due to the fact that "catenaccio" has taken a very negative connotation over the years) it seems much more focused on disproving certain teams' style of play as "catenaccio" and on showing how other coaches developed "anti-catenaccio" and later "anti-anti-catenaccio" tactics. 68.36.207.132 (talk) 18:00, 15 February 2013 (UTC)

Clutter

The following two paragraphs don't seem to fit in this article at all; they're about the 2006 World Cup, not Catenaccio:

"Italy won their next match against Ukraine (3-0), and proved they have excellent soccer to offer. In their following match, the Azzurri secured a historic semi-final win over Germany in Dortmund by defying common expectations of negative, safety-first play, with their two late goals scored by Fabio Grosso and Alessandro Del Piero in the 119th and 120th minute that sank the host country. In this match, the Azzurri surprised many, including their opponents, by their "un-catenaccio" display which saw both teams having an equal 18 shots, of which the Germans had only six shots on target, while the Italians had an impressive 11, forced 10 saves from German keeper Jens Lehmann, and scored two goals.

However, after the 2006 FIFA World Cup, the media picked up the fact that modern football, which should heavily rely on attacking, is not to be and feared that defensive style of playing will come back. The amount of goals scored in that World Cup was only 147 (an average of 2.297 per match), and the Golden Boot Winner Miroslav Klose only scored 5 goals as opposed to the amount the previous winner Ronaldo scored, 8. Not only that, this World Cup was the first to feature its top three Best Players to be all non-forwards."

I'm very inclined to delete them. Anyone have any objections? Steevm 22:44, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Proposal

This article is getting untidier and untidier. I think we should start a massive cleanup in order to add sources and references to every single sentence written into it. In addition, I would remove all the "catenaccio examples", leaving only the very historical ones, such as Nereo Rocco, Helenio Herrera and a very few others who actually created and popularized the tactic in the football world. --Angelo 16:27, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree... people just keep adding incidences of defensive football due to ignorance. -Toon⁰⁵ 16:52, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Benfica

Contrary to what the article says, Benfica did not use the catenaccio during the championship spell under. It is true that benfica did play a conservative style and won many games by only scoring one goal. The truth is that benfica actually played in a 4-2-3-1 formation which is very common on portuguese footbal. Those with a misconception of what catecaccio, wrongly interpreted this rather conservative style for a top portuguese team as being catenaccio. (Manku15 (talk) 19:25, 5 February 2011 (UTC))

3 points

What's about 3 points for win instead 2? I think it had big influence in changing italian strategy to much more pro-offensive. Because Lose-Draw-Draw-Draw/Win-Win (averaqe catenaccio) gives less points than Win/Draw-Lose-Win-Lose-Win (average offensive team today) in new point system. The foe (talk) 12:25, 12 October 2014 (UTC)