International Football: Taking a Look at the New English Central Midfield Trio

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at Internationaled.org

Published: March 5, 2012

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The English Central midfield has been a problem position for the national team for many years. Even as early as 1966, Alf Ramsey had to introduce a diamond of four central midfielders, to bring enough balance of creativity, work-rate, defensive positioning skill, and technique. English midfielders have since been influenced heavily by that template, sort of ending the era of creator-destroyer combinations that England had previously. Currie, Bowles, Haynes, Eastham being superb ball-players, with technique worthy of the Brazillian greats, and players like Nobby Stiles, who looked to break up the play rather than trying to create.

 

Since '66, England has created more and more "energetic" midfielders, such as Alan Ball and Martin Peters (although he was slightly creative). In the 70's, players like Steve Coppell, a hard-working winger, Emlyn Hughes, a holding midfielder who was known for making runs forward, and Graham Rix, a player similar to Coppell, were the kind of midfielders who starred in the national side, as well as the original template for the box-to-box midfielder, Bryan Robson (whose last World Cup was in 1990).

 

This template has been facilitated by the emergence and domination of a rigid 4-4-2 system. The central midfielders in a 4-4-2 had to be very combative when the top teams in England faced three-man midfields who were more technical than them. The success of Liverpool and Nottingham Forest in Europe with players like Souness and Martin O'Neill also helped make box-to-box midfielders a hallmark of the English game.

 



This is not to say that there was no creativity in the national side, in fact, there was an overflow of it with Ron Greenwood's England. Glenn Hoddle, Ray Wilkins, and Trevor Brooking were all in the squad for Euro '80, and they made up a decent England side. Since then, England has had one really outstanding playmaker who showed up on t...
Article Source: Bleacher Report - International Football

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