Greece defending formation and tactics

[XXL16 0]

Should we learn something from there? The 9-0-1 formation and counterattack very quickly should be useful for us to survive in the Premiership

[Herb 0]

lol, 1-0-9! :D

I''d prefer a 0-0-10 myself.

[silver fox 0]

If we defend and play the way Greece did against the Czechs then we should have a good season. Can you notice any similarities between Greece being given no chance in Euro 2004, but beating France, Czechs and Portugal (possibly twice); and Norwich given no chance in the Premiership, and playing Arsenal, Newcastle and Man Utd in the first month.

[BlyBlyBabes 0]

If City try and play like Greece (or England!!!!!!!!!!!) and defend too deep against most premiership teams, the season will be a disaster.
Without goalpower and the mindset to take the game to the opposition sufficiently, the season will be one long struggle - and boring for neutrals just like all Greece''s games in Euro 2004.
Greece resemble a serial passing moderate South American team imbued with German discipline. It was one of those days that make football so fascinating - when the poorer team on the day wins against the odds. 9 times out of 10 the Czechs would beat them.
Lets hope that all have learnt the lesson of the latter part of last season.
Superior fitness and organisation , disciplined aggression; and above all the will to take the game to the opposition allied to goalpower - this will be the formula for success next season.
City have done it before under Saunders and Bond and Brown and Stringer and Walker (and yes, Macauley), and if they will believe in themselves they can do it again - but not by 1-9-1 or defending on the edge of the penalty area for 85 minutes.
OTBC

[GenerationA47 746]

Silver fox, don''t want to be negative & pedantic, but the similarity will only hold if we actually beat those three teams rather than just playing them! Also whereas we''re in a league, the Greeks earned most of those hard games by winning in the first place.
However, it''s still a good reminder that even for the league, football''s about more than what''s on paper - and sometimes what''s down on paper about a given team is changed after a few surprises like Greece''s. Let''s hope this will be so after August, and then see if we can keep going well even when we lose the elephant of surprise. Even though we have that trump card it''ll be a mammoth task.

[beelsie 0]

Some good points made on these posts. Favouring attack or defence we noticed that all the competing teams were successful by having enough discipline to know that the shape, must be kept for an agreed system to work, and enough space for the individual to operate without being involved in a free for all. They all knew what their jobs were. The successful teams, those, that are in the final and semi-finals, have been so because of superb fitness and a competative spirit. This seemed to be lacking in the British and French teams except for spasmodic attempts to up the tempo. One poster mentions that the German past disciplined approach was successful and indeed it was for many of their games, during a successful dominant period. The approach and excitement that is produced by a bunch of Brazilian individualists, who have superb personal and technical skill levels is something once seen, to be marvelled at, this approach is difficult to defend against, as the players seem to demonstrate to one another what they can do and by some miracle appear to come together as a never ending attacking game. I believe that Norwich F C cannot emulate this approach but they will be successful if they concentrate on high fitness levels a good defensive system and where the ball is won in higher mid field. Off the ball running has got to be of a higher standard so that more forward and faster options are allowed for the distributor of the ball ending in more attempts on goal. Above all they must all be ready, and want the ball as much as Huckerby does.

[XXL16 0]

I think we are quite similar to Greece...

We have MacKay and Flem and they have Dallas, they have their number 9 and we have Huckerby...